At six months, your baby is ready to start eating solid foods alongside breast milk or formula. You can offer a wide range of fruits, vegetables, meats, grains, and legumes, as long as they’re prepared in a texture your baby can handle safely. Start with just 1 to 2 tablespoons per sitting and keep breast milk or formula as the primary source of nutrition.
Signs Your Baby Is Ready
Before diving into food options, make sure your baby shows a few key developmental milestones. They should be able to hold their head and neck steady on their own, sit upright with minimal support, and swallow food rather than pushing it back out with their tongue. That tongue-thrust reflex, where babies automatically push things out of their mouths, fades when they’re ready for solids. If your baby is staring at your food, reaching for it, and opening their mouth when a spoon comes close, those are strong signals too.
Vegetables to Start With
Vegetables are an ideal first food, and starting with ones that aren’t sweet can help your baby accept a broader range of flavors early on. Broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, and kale introduce bitter and savory tastes that babies are more likely to accept now than if they try sweeter foods first. Cook them until soft, then mash with a fork or blend to a smooth consistency.
The full list of vegetables you can offer at six months is longer than most parents expect: avocado, butternut squash, cabbage, carrots, green beans, parsnips, peas, peppers, sweet potato, and courgette (zucchini) all work well. Cut cooked vegetables into soft pieces or puree them depending on which feeding approach you choose.
Fruits Your Baby Can Eat
Soft, ripe fruits like bananas, mangoes, peaches, pears, and papayas can be mashed with a fork and served immediately. Harder fruits like apples need to be cooked first until they’re soft enough to squish between your fingers. Remove all pips, stones, and tough skins before serving.
You can also offer blueberries (smashed or halved), strawberries, raspberries, kiwi, melon, nectarines, oranges, pineapple, and plums. There’s no need to stick to bland or “safe” fruits. Variety at this stage builds familiarity with different tastes and textures.
Iron-Rich Foods Matter Most
Iron is the nutrient to pay the most attention to when starting solids. Babies are born with iron stores that begin to deplete around six months, so the foods you introduce now need to help fill that gap. The most absorbable form of iron comes from animal sources: beef, lamb, pork, chicken, turkey, eggs, and fatty fish.
Plant-based iron sources also count. Iron-fortified infant cereal, tofu, beans, lentils, and dark leafy greens like spinach and kale all contribute. Pairing these with vitamin C-rich foods (like mashed peppers or a bit of orange) helps your baby’s body absorb the iron more effectively.
Introducing Common Allergens Early
There’s no benefit to delaying allergenic foods. In fact, introducing peanuts, eggs, dairy, and sesame around six months may help prevent allergies from developing. A landmark 2015 study found that early, regular peanut introduction significantly reduced peanut allergy in high-risk infants.
Start with small tastes. For peanuts, mix about 2 teaspoons of smooth peanut butter into a puree or thin it with breast milk so it’s not a thick glob (which is a choking risk). For eggs, offer about a third of a well-cooked scrambled or hard-boiled egg. If your baby tolerates it without signs of an allergic reaction like hives, swelling, or vomiting, keep that food in regular rotation. Occasional exposure isn’t enough; consistency is what the research supports.
If your baby has severe eczema or has already reacted to a food, talk with their pediatrician before introducing peanut or other high-risk allergens.
Purees vs. Baby-Led Weaning
You have two main approaches, and you don’t have to pick just one. Traditional spoon-feeding starts with smooth purees and mashed foods, with the parent controlling the pace. Baby-led weaning skips purees entirely and offers soft, finger-sized pieces of food that your baby picks up and feeds themselves.
Baby-led weaning encourages independence and may help babies regulate their appetite better, since they decide when to stop eating. It also tends to produce less picky eaters over time. The downsides: meals are messier, and it’s harder to track exactly how much food your baby is taking in. Gagging is common as babies learn to manage new textures, which can be alarming but is a normal part of the process and not the same as choking.
Many families combine both methods, offering purees by spoon at some meals and soft finger foods at others. Either way works well.
How Textures Should Progress
Most babies only need fully pureed food for a short window. Start with smooth purees at around 1 to 3 teaspoons per serving, then begin adding lumpier textures before nine months. Waiting too long on pureed food can make babies resistant to new textures later.
By eight months, most babies can pick up food with their fingers. Good finger foods at that stage include small cooked pasta, dry toast strips, soft cooked vegetable pieces, grated or cubed hard cheese, tender cooked meat, hard-boiled egg pieces, mashed potatoes, and soft ripe fruit cut small. Avoid relying on squeezable food pouches as a primary feeding method. They encourage sucking rather than chewing and don’t help your baby learn to handle real food textures.
Foods to Avoid Before 12 Months
A few foods are off-limits entirely. Honey is the big one: it can cause infant botulism, a serious form of food poisoning, and should not be given in any form before age one. That includes honey mixed into foods, water, or spread on a pacifier.
Cow’s milk should not replace breast milk or formula as a drink before 12 months. It contains too much protein and too many minerals for your baby’s kidneys to process easily, and it can cause intestinal bleeding. Small amounts of dairy in food (cheese, yogurt without added sugar) are fine, but milk as a beverage is not.
Skip added sugars and added salt. Processed meats like hot dogs and lunch meat, some canned foods, and frozen dinners tend to be high in sodium. Flavored yogurts, cookies, and muffins contain added sugars that take up space in your baby’s tiny diet without providing the nutrients they need.
Choking Hazards to Watch For
The shape and texture of food matters as much as the type. Avoid small, hard, sticky, or round foods that are difficult to chew and swallow. Whole grapes, cherry tomatoes, whole corn kernels, raw carrots, nuts, popcorn, and chunks of hard cheese are all common choking hazards. Cut round foods lengthwise, cook hard vegetables until soft, and smash or quarter small round fruits.
Always supervise your baby during meals. They should be seated upright in a highchair, not reclined or lying down.
How Much and How Often to Feed
In the early weeks of solids, 1 to 2 tablespoons per meal is plenty. Your baby’s stomach is small, and the goal at six months is exposure to tastes and textures, not replacing milk feeds. Breast milk or formula still provides the majority of their calories and nutrition.
Aim for something to eat or drink about every 2 to 3 hours, which works out to roughly 3 meals and 2 to 3 snacks per day as your baby gets more comfortable with food. You can also start offering small sips of water, about 4 to 8 ounces spread across the day, from an open cup or straw cup to help them practice drinking.