At 6 months old, your baby is ready to start eating soft, simple solid foods alongside breast milk or formula. Good first options include pureed or mashed fruits, vegetables, iron-fortified infant cereal, and finely mashed meats or beans. Breast milk or formula stays the primary source of nutrition through the first year, but solids gradually fill a bigger role in your baby’s diet starting now.
Signs Your Baby Is Ready
Not every 6-month-old hits the same milestones at the same time, so watch for a few physical cues before you start. Your baby should be able to sit up with support, hold their head steady, and open their mouth when food is offered. They should also be able to swallow food rather than pushing it back out with their tongue. If you try a spoonful of cereal and it all ends up on their chin, they may need another week or two.
Other signs of readiness: reaching for your food at the table, bringing objects to their mouth, and trying to grasp small things with their hands.
Best First Foods to Start With
There’s no single required order for introducing foods. What matters most is variety, nutrition, and the right texture. Here are strong categories to draw from:
- Iron-rich foods: Pureed meat (chicken, turkey, beef), mashed beans or lentils, and iron-fortified infant cereal. Iron is one of the most important nutrients at this age because your baby’s natural iron stores from birth start running low around 6 months.
- Vegetables: Sweet potato, butternut squash, peas, carrots, and zucchini all work well when cooked soft and mashed or pureed smooth.
- Fruits: Mashed banana, pureed avocado, cooked and pureed apples, pears, and peaches. These are naturally sweet, which most babies accept easily.
- Grains: Iron-fortified rice or oat cereal mixed with breast milk or formula to a thin, smooth consistency.
Introduce one new food at a time and wait a couple of days before adding another. This makes it easier to spot a reaction if one happens.
Don’t Delay Allergenic Foods
Current guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics is clear: there is no benefit to delaying common allergens like peanut, egg, dairy, or sesame. In fact, introducing them early, around 6 months, may help prevent allergies from developing.
For peanuts, mix a small amount of smooth peanut butter into infant cereal, pureed fruit, or yogurt. You can also thin it with breast milk or formula and feed it by spoon. Never give whole peanuts or chunks of nut butter, which are choking hazards. A safe starting amount is about 2 teaspoons of thinned peanut butter. For eggs, try about a third of a well-cooked scrambled or hard-boiled egg, mashed fine.
Whole milk yogurt or Greek yogurt is also fine at this age, even though plain cow’s milk as a drink is not recommended until 12 months. You can mix yogurt with a fruit your baby has already tried.
If your baby has severe eczema or has already shown an allergic reaction to any food, talk to their pediatrician about the safest way to introduce high-risk allergens like peanut.
Textures and Choking Prevention
At 6 months, aim for smooth purees or very soft, well-mashed foods. As your baby gets more comfortable over the coming weeks, you can gradually make textures thicker and lumpier. Always cook foods until they’re soft enough to mash easily with a fork.
These foods are choking hazards and should be avoided:
- Round, firm foods: Whole grapes, cherries, blueberries, cherry tomatoes, and hot dogs (all need to be cut into tiny pieces or mashed)
- Hard or crunchy foods: Raw carrots, raw apple slices, whole nuts, seeds, popcorn, chips, and pretzels
- Sticky or tough foods: Large chunks of meat, spoonfuls of nut butter, marshmallows, chewy candy, and dried fruit like raisins
Cutting food into small pieces and mashing it are the simplest ways to reduce risk. Always have your baby seated upright in a high chair or feeding seat during meals, never reclined or moving around.
Foods to Avoid Until Age One
A few foods are off-limits for the entire first year:
- Honey: Can cause infant botulism, a serious form of food poisoning. This includes honey baked into foods, added to water, or used on a pacifier.
- Cow’s milk as a drink: Too many proteins and minerals for your baby’s kidneys, and it can cause intestinal bleeding. (Yogurt and cheese in small amounts are fine.)
- Added sugars: Your baby’s diet is small enough that every bite needs to count nutritionally. Sugary foods and drinks displace the nutrient-dense foods they actually need.
- High-salt foods: Your baby’s kidneys can’t process much sodium. Avoid processed or heavily seasoned foods.
How Much and How Often
Start small. A few teaspoons of a single food once or twice a day is plenty in the beginning. Your baby is learning to move food around their mouth and swallow, not trying to fill up on solids. Many babies eat only a tablespoon or two per sitting at first, and that’s normal.
Over the next few weeks and months, you can work up to two or three small meals a day. Follow your baby’s cues: they’ll open their mouth and lean forward when hungry, and turn away, close their lips, or lose interest when they’re done. Forcing more food doesn’t help.
Breast milk or formula remains the foundation of their diet throughout this period. Solids are a complement, not a replacement. Think of the first couple of months of solids as practice, with milk still doing the heavy nutritional lifting.
Water and Other Drinks
Once your baby starts solids, you can offer small sips of plain water with meals. Between 6 and 12 months, 4 to 8 ounces of water per day is the recommended range. That’s just a few sips at each meal, not a full bottle. Breast milk or formula should still be their primary source of hydration. Skip juice, sweetened drinks, and cow’s milk as beverages during this stage.
Key Nutrients to Prioritize
Two nutrients deserve extra attention at 6 months. Iron is critical for brain development, and your baby’s built-in stores from birth are depleting. Iron-fortified cereal, pureed meats, and mashed beans are the best food sources. Zinc also becomes important once solids begin. Babies 7 to 12 months need about 3 milligrams of zinc daily, which you can get from meat, beans, and fortified cereals.
You don’t need to calculate exact milligrams at every meal. Offering a variety of iron-rich and protein-rich foods regularly will cover most of what your baby needs, with breast milk or formula filling in the gaps.