Weaning simply means introducing food other than milk into your baby's diet. It is a gradual process and involves slowly giving your baby solid foods. Moving on to solid food will help develop the muscles necessary for chewing and eventually speech. Health experts recommend you wait until your baby is around six months old before you start weaning because it’s important to ensure...
At some point you will start to transition your baby onto a cup for drinking water. Plunket suggests offering water in a cup at meal times from six months old. This can be a wet, yet fun business as your baby learns about the relationship between water and gravity.
Some people are brave and opt for a simple plastic open cup. Others are more circumspect and try a plastic cup with a lid. Not sur...
Now that your baby has been introduced to solids and is getting the hang of eating, Plunket suggest that from 8-9 months your baby may enjoy finger foods. These are thin pieces of food that your baby can hold on to, like ripe fruit and cooked vegetables…ideally things that can squish between their fingers!
The simplest finger foods are those that simply need cutting up or unwrapping and...
In New Zealand, the recommended time to start introducing solids is when your baby is aged between four and six months. Current thinking is closer to six months is preferable, so talk to your Plunket nurse to keep up to date. Your Plunket ‘Thriving Under Five’ book has an excellent section on when to introduce solids and the signs to look for. By this stage, your baby needs the vitam...
Once your baby has mastered Stage 1 smooth purées and is eating a good variety of first foods, you can start thickening the texture and introducing soft lumps to their foods. This is Stage 2 in baby foods. Depending on when you started feeding your baby solids, you will probably be introducing these soft lumpy foods at around 6-7 months of age. At this second stage breastmilk is still the...
Chewing and eating lumpy foods is the third stage of introducing solids to your baby. By around eight to nine months of age they will have mastered smooth purées (Stage 1), the soft lumps of mashed foods (Stage 2) and are now ready to move onto chunkier textures. The muscles essential for eating and speech are developed and strengthened by chewing chunkier foods. Amazingly most babies can...
Your Plunket ‘Thriving Under Five’ book tells you everything you need to know about starting your baby on solids. You can make your own baby food or buy it in jars and cans. Commercially produced baby food is generally colour-coded and put into ‘stages’ to help you select the right product for your baby’s development. Each stage has both savoury and sweet options to...
When it comes to feeding your baby, there is no doubt that breastmilk is the very best source of nutrition. Your Plunket ‘Thriving Under Five’ book recommends breastfeeding exclusively until your baby is six months old, and continuing to breastfeed in conjunction with complementary foods until two years or older.
However when breastfeeding is not possible, the Ministry of Health rec...
