Is My Baby Ready to Start Eating Solid Foods?
The next article in the Ideas category is part of our introducing solid foods series. Be sure to check out the other articles in our blog as well: “Introducing Solid Foods – When and How Should I Start?” and “Replacing Milk Feedings with Solid Food – When and How?”.
In this article, we review a video from the YouTube channel “Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro.” Its creator, Katie Ferraro, is a registered dietitian, college nutrition professor, and mother of seven, specializing in baby-led weaning. In her video “Is My Baby Ready to Start Solid Foods?”, she explains what signs to look for to determine whether your baby is ready to begin eating solid foods.
We extracted a transcript of the video and shortened it slightly to make it more accessible, but please keep in mind that the translation and transcript may contain some differences from the original text. When in doubt, always refer to the original source of information and, of course, consult your doctors.
Here’s what Katie shares in the video (you can find the video at the end of this article):
Do you feel pressure to start feeding your baby solid foods? It can be a little frustrating, can’t it? You feel like you’ve just gotten into a routine with breastfeeding or bottle-feeding, and you’re probably just starting to get the hang of your baby’s sleep schedule—and now you’re supposed to shake everything up by introducing solid foods? If you’re feeling anxious about making this transition to solid foods, in this video I’ll share two important things you need to know before you consider offering your baby anything other than breast milk or infant formula.
Hello, I’m Katie Ferraro – a registered dietitian, college nutrition professor, and mother of seven. I teach baby-led weaning, an approach to introducing solid foods that serves as an alternative to traditional parent-led spoon-feeding. Every day, I work with parents and caregivers who are interested in trying baby-led weaning but feel confused by some of the conflicting messages they hear or the advice they receive about introducing solid foods. I love making infant feeding education easier to understand, so today I’m going to share 2 super simple things to keep in mind before you begin baby-led weaning.
1. Wait until your baby is 6 months old.
The first point is all about timing. There’s no need to offer your baby anything other than milk until they are 6 months old. By “milk,” I mean breast milk and/or infant formula, and we know that it provides everything your baby needs during the first six months of life. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the World Health Organization, and many other leading health organizations all recommend breast milk as the sole source of nutrition until six months of age. From a nutritional standpoint, your baby doesn’t need anything other than breast milk and/or infant formula until they are 6 months old.
I know you’ve probably heard recommendations to introduce solid foods between 4 and 6 months of age, and unfortunately there are still many doctors – and even dietitians – who continue to repeat this outdated advice. “4 to 6 months” may sound simple enough, but let’s take a closer look at the major developmental changes your baby goes through during that period.
For you and me, a difference of 2 months isn’t a big deal – we’ve been on this planet for decades, so we don’t change much in that amount of time. But for your baby, it’s a completely different story. Two additional months for a 4-month-old baby represent the equivalent of 50% of their entire life. The developmental changes your baby undergoes between 4 and 6 months of age are essential for making a safe transition to solid foods.
I’ll talk more about the physiological changes we look for when assessing feeding readiness in the next section, but I first want to make an important note for parents of premature babies regarding the 6-month guideline. If your baby was born prematurely, you should wait until they reach 6 months of corrected age before introducing solid foods. I’ll use my own premature babies as an example – my quadruplets were born at 34 weeks’ gestation. Since a full-term pregnancy is 40 weeks, they were born 6 weeks early. That meant I didn’t even consider offering my quadruplets anything other than breast milk or infant formula until they were 7½ months old – that’s 6 months plus the additional 6 weeks they needed. Their chronological age was 7½ months, but their corrected age was 6 months. That’s when they started sitting up independently, and that’s when it was safe to begin introducing solid foods. You can imagine that when my quadruplets reached 6 months of chronological age, I heard it from everyone: “You’d better start feeding those babies solid foods.” But at 6 months of actual age, they were only 4½ months corrected age, so they still weren’t ready, and it wasn’t safe to introduce solid foods yet.
So my first recommendation for introducing solid foods is to wait until your baby reaches 6 months of age, or 6 months of corrected age if they were born prematurely.
What if your baby or babies were only slightly premature? I have a recommendation for you too: just wait. We also have a set of twins who were born at 38 weeks’ gestation. Even then, I waited until they reached 6 months corrected age -so 6 months plus another two weeks – before introducing solid foods. Partly because I’m lazy, partly because there’s really no rush, and mostly because it’s always safer and certainly much more enjoyable to feed a baby who is truly ready.
Which brings me to the second of the 2 things you need to know before starting baby-led weaning:
2. Wait until your baby can sit up independently.
The other most important thing to make sure of before introducing solid foods and starting baby-led weaning is to wait until your baby can sit up independently, with little or no assistance.
Here’s why. When your baby is 4 or 5 months old, they can’t sit up on their own yet. If you’re sitting down right now, try slumping over like a 4 or 5-month-old baby who can’t sit independently. Now imagine you’ve never swallowed anything other than breast milk or infant formula. Do you think you’d be able to manage soft strips of avocado, sweet potato, or meat if you still couldn’t coordinate sitting upright with sucking, breathing, and swallowing? It isn’t safe for babies to swallow anything other than breast milk or infant formula before they reach 6 months of age. And no – just because you can put a spoonful of puréed food into the mouth of a 4-month-old baby doesn’t mean you should.
With baby-led weaning, the key principle is that the baby is in charge of the feeding process – not you. A baby who can sit up independently demonstrates that they have developed the core strength needed to support their body and make swallowing safer.
This is baby Alma, and she was 6 months and 2 weeks old when we started baby-led weaning. She could sit on her own for a few seconds before eventually toppling over, but when seated in a high chair with her feet supported on a solid footrest, she was perfectly safe to begin feeding herself the soft finger foods her mom offered. And here’s another professional tip: not every baby can sit independently at exactly 6 months of age. Most babies will be 6 months and 1 week, 6 months and 2 weeks, or sometimes even 6 months and 3 weeks before they can sit well enough to begin eating solid foods. It’s uncommon for a full-term baby to reach 7 months without being able to sit independently, but it can happen. If that’s the case, be sure to consult your healthcare provider about introducing solid foods, but don’t give in to the pressure to offer anything other than breast milk or infant formula before your baby is at least 6 months old and able to sit up independently.
Listen to the full video:
* Most of these materials are sourced from original English-language sources. The translations were created with the help of Google Translate and ChatGPT. For the most complete and accurate information, please always refer to and verify the original source first.
Do you have 2 free minutes?
Fill out the questionnaire for a promotional price
Other Materials on the Same Topic
