At 6 months, the best first solid foods are iron-rich options like pureed meats, iron-fortified infant cereals, and mashed vegetables and fruits. Breast milk or formula remains your baby’s primary nutrition source, but by 6 months, stored iron from birth starts running low and certain nutrients in breast milk (like zinc) decline. That’s why the foods you choose matter from the very first bite.
Signs Your Baby Is Ready
Six months is the general target, but your baby’s development matters more than the calendar. Look for these physical milestones before offering that first spoonful: your baby can sit up alone or with support, has steady head and neck control, opens their mouth when food is offered, and swallows food rather than pushing it back out with their tongue. That last one, the fading of the tongue-thrust reflex, is key. If food keeps getting pushed right back out, give it another week or two and try again.
Iron-Rich Foods Come First
Iron is the single most important nutrient to prioritize. Babies are born with iron stores that carry them through roughly the first 6 months, and after that they need to get iron from food. The European Society for Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition recommends that from 6 months onward, all infants receive iron-rich complementary foods, including meat products and iron-fortified foods.
Your strongest options include:
- Pureed meats: Beef, pork, and lamb contain heme iron, the form your baby absorbs most easily. Chicken and turkey are fine proteins but deliver less iron than red meat.
- Iron-fortified infant cereals: Oat, barley, and multigrain varieties all work. These can be mixed with breast milk or formula to a smooth, thin consistency.
- Eggs: A good source of iron, protein, and choline. Scramble them soft and mash well.
- Beans and lentils: Cooked until very soft and mashed or pureed. Avoid offering whole beans, which are a choking hazard.
Zinc is another nutrient to pay attention to, especially for breastfed babies. Zinc levels in breast milk are high at birth but drop over the first 6 months. Babies 7 to 24 months need 3 milligrams of zinc daily. Meat, eggs, and fortified cereals cover both iron and zinc in one meal.
Fruits and Vegetables to Start With
Once you’ve established iron-rich foods, fruits and vegetables round out your baby’s diet with vitamins, fiber, and new flavors. Good early vegetables include sweet potato, butternut squash, peas, zucchini, and carrots, all cooked until very soft and pureed or mashed. For fruits, try banana, avocado, pear, peach, and cooked apple.
There’s no evidence that introducing vegetables before fruits prevents a sweet tooth. The order doesn’t matter much, but variety does. Babies may need to be offered a new food 10 or more times before they accept it, so don’t interpret a turned-up nose on day one as a permanent rejection.
Textures and Preparation
Start with smooth, thin purees and gradually thicken them over the first few weeks. As your baby gets comfortable swallowing, move to thicker mashes with small soft lumps. The goal is to progress textures steadily so your baby develops chewing skills.
You have two main approaches. Traditional spoon-feeding uses purees that you control. Baby-led weaning skips purees entirely and offers soft finger foods your baby picks up and self-feeds from the start. Research suggests baby-led weaning may help babies learn to recognize fullness cues more effectively, since they control how much goes in. It’s also associated with lower parental anxiety around mealtimes for some families. The trade-off is that health professionals flag potential concerns about iron and calorie intake, plus choking risk, with a purely self-led approach. Many parents blend both methods, offering purees alongside soft finger foods.
If you offer finger foods, make sure they’re soft enough to squish between your thumb and forefinger. Think steamed broccoli florets, ripe banana spears, or strips of well-cooked sweet potato. Cut foods into long, thin pieces your baby can grip with a whole fist rather than small cubes.
How Much and How Often
Start small: 1 to 2 tablespoons of food per sitting, once or twice a day. Watch your baby’s cues. Turning away, closing the mouth, or losing interest means they’re done. Over the coming weeks, you can gradually increase to three small meals a day plus a couple of snacks, aiming for something to eat or drink roughly every 2 to 3 hours (about 5 to 6 eating occasions total).
Breast milk or formula still provides the majority of calories and nutrition at this stage. Solid food is a complement, not a replacement. Most babies don’t shift to solids as a primary calorie source until closer to 9 to 12 months.
Introducing Common Allergens
Current guidelines encourage introducing allergenic foods early, around 6 months, rather than delaying them. This is a significant shift from older advice. Peanut, egg, cow’s milk (in cooked foods, not as a drink), wheat, soy, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish can all be introduced once your baby is eating some solid foods.
For peanuts specifically, the approach depends on your baby’s risk level. Babies with severe eczema or an existing egg allergy are considered high risk for peanut allergy and should see an allergist for testing before trying peanut at home. Babies with mild to moderate eczema can have peanut-containing foods introduced at home around 6 months without allergy testing first. Babies with no eczema or egg allergy can try peanut foods whenever the family is ready, also around 6 months.
A few practical points: don’t make a peanut product the very first solid food your baby tries. Introduce it after they’ve tolerated a few other foods. Mix a thin layer of smooth peanut butter into a puree or infant cereal rather than offering a spoonful of peanut butter on its own, which is a choking hazard. Offer new allergens one at a time with a couple of days in between so you can spot any reaction.
Foods to Avoid
Honey is off-limits until age 1 because it can contain spores that cause infant botulism, a serious illness. This includes honey pacifiers and any foods made with honey. Several cases of infant botulism in Texas were linked directly to honey pacifiers.
Skip added salt and sugar. Your baby’s kidneys can’t handle much sodium, and early exposure to sweetened foods can shape taste preferences in ways that are hard to undo. Cow’s milk as a drink should wait until 12 months, though small amounts cooked into food are fine.
Choking Hazards
The way food is prepared matters as much as which food you choose. These are the main foods to avoid or modify:
- Fruits: Whole grapes, cherries, berries, and melon balls. Cut grapes and cherry tomatoes lengthwise into quarters. Avoid uncooked dried fruit like raisins.
- Vegetables: Raw carrots, raw apple pieces, whole corn kernels, and hard raw vegetables of any kind. Cook vegetables until soft.
- Proteins: Whole or chopped nuts, chunks of peanut butter, hot dogs, sausages, tough meat chunks, large pieces of cheese, and whole beans.
- Grains and snacks: Popcorn, chips, pretzels, crackers with seeds or whole grain kernels, and cookies or granola bars.
- Sweets: Hard candy, gummy candies, marshmallows, chewy fruit snacks, and chewing gum.
Water and Other Drinks
Once solids become part of your baby’s daily routine, you can offer small sips of plain water with meals. There’s no set daily volume at this age; a few ounces throughout the day alongside breast milk or formula is plenty. Juice is not recommended at all before 12 months. Even after that, the limit is just 4 ounces of 100% fruit juice per day through age 5. Whole fruit is always a better choice than juice because it provides fiber and doesn’t expose teeth to a constant sugar bath.