Starting solids: readiness, first foods and what to skip

Starting solids feels like a bigger threshold than it is. For the first several months of eating, your baby is learning a physical skill — moving food from the front of the mouth to the back, managing texture, coordinating a swallow. Nutrition is still coming from milk, and the feeding schedule for this age changes far less at first than most parents expect.

Readiness beats the calendar

Six months is the usual guidance, but babies do not read guidance. What matters is whether all four of these are true at once:

• Sitting upright with support and holding the position steadily
• Steady head and neck control without wobbling
• The tongue-thrust reflex has gone — food is no longer automatically pushed back out
• Genuine interest — reaching for food, opening their mouth, following your fork

Watching you eat, waking more at night or chewing their fists are often read as readiness cues. They are not — all three are normal at ages well before a baby can safely handle solids.

How texture progresses

The direction of travel is smooth to lumpy to soft finger food. Moving through it matters: babies who stay on purée too long often resist texture later.

Iron matters early

The iron a baby is born with starts running low around six months, and breast milk is not a strong source. Iron-rich first foods — meat, lentils, beans, fortified cereal, well-cooked egg — are worth getting in early rather than saving for later.

Allergens

Guidance reversed over the last decade. Delaying common allergens is no longer advised in most countries; introducing them early and keeping them in the diet regularly is.

• Introduce one new allergen at a time, at home, earlier in the day
• Start with a small amount and increase if there is no reaction
• Keep it in the diet — regular exposure is the part that matters
• If your baby has severe eczema or an existing food allergy, ask your paediatrician before starting rather than working from general advice

Gagging is not choking

Gagging is loud, involves coughing and a red face, and is a protective reflex working exactly as designed. Choking is quiet — no sound, no effective cough. Knowing the difference before you start, and doing a paediatric first aid course if you can, is worth more than any food list.

Always seat your baby upright and never leave them alone with food.

What to track, and what not to

Logging every gram is a fast route to stress. What is genuinely useful over the first months of solids is narrower:

• Which allergens have been introduced, and when
• Anything that produced a reaction, however mild
• Roughly how milk feeds are changing as solids increase
• Textures your baby has managed, so you know when to move on

Pixy logs feeds and solids alongside sleep and routines, which makes the milk-to-solids transition visible rather than something you reconstruct from memory. Its AI Chef also generates age-appropriate recipes from ingredients you already have, with allergies taken into account — though the responsibility for what is safe for your child stays with you and your paediatrician.

When to ask

Speak to your paediatrician or health visitor before starting if your baby was premature, has severe eczema, has a known allergy, or has any feeding or swallowing difficulty. Seek advice promptly for any reaction after a new food, persistent refusal to eat, or weight that stops tracking its curve.