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For being such a seemingly simple thing, introducing solids to babies actually involves a lot of consideration. Parents need to know when their baby is ready for solids, whether to do purees or baby-led weaning, and even being aware of food allergies and how to recognize if your baby has a reaction.
But there’s one more thing to consider and that’s the order we introduce solids to a baby.
Now before we dig in, I’m going to say (like I do in most of my posts concerning raising kids): even if you don’t follow all the rules, even if you are feeding your baby junk food… they are still going to turn out fine.
So if you haven’t been feeding your baby this way or after reading this you decide it’s not for you, then no worries.
Did you know that there is an order to which foods we should introduce our babies to? I’m not talking about how easy the food is to chew either, I’m talking about when to introduce meat, when to add dairy into their diet, when to give babies grains.
Now we are going to get a bit scientific here. As I’m sure you are aware of, babies continue developing even after they are born. This is true of their digestion as well. That’s why I’m writing this baby food schedule based on a baby’s enzyme development.
Enzymes are needed to digest our food, without them digestive problems and allergies can occur. In the beginning, babies only have the enzyme: lactase, which handily enough is what is needed to digest breastmilk. Other enzymes, which help digest proteins, fats, starches, and carbohydrates, develop as baby grows.
Baby Food Schedule Based on a Baby’s Enzyme Development
Produce – 6-9 months.
Around 6-9 months babies produce the enzymes, which help digest fruits and vegetables. Notice I didn’t say rice cereal?
Egg yolk – 6-9 months.
Some families with egg allergies avoid eggs altogether. However, all babies should not have egg whites until 12 months due to the high allergy possibility.Egg yolks however are fine. You can boil an egg and feed the baby just the yolk or you can separate the egg before cooking and cook just the yolk for your baby.
Meats – 6-9 months.
This is pretty much any meat with of course the exception of fish (after 1 year) and shellfish (after 2 years) due to the allergy possibility.Babies may not enjoy the texture of real meat so many parents puree it a bit. I add meat to my daughter’s veggie purees.
Broth – 6-9 months.
Homemade broth from chicken or even beef is a wonderful thing to add to your baby’s meals. Cook vegetables in broth, puree meats or veggies with broth, or just offer it by itself!
Healthy Fats – 6-9 months.
Babies need fat to develop properly. Adding healthy fats such as butter or coconut oil to your baby’s food is a great thing. In fact, when fat is added to vegetables, the nutrients are better absorbed! One more reason to add fats to baby’s and your food!
Dairy – 9-12 months.
Around this time you can introduce dairy. Cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, etc are all great. However, leave cows milk out until after 12 months.
Grains – Sometime later, between 12-18 months
When a baby’s 1 year molar teeth are fully developed, babies are ready to start properly digesting grains. This is shocking news to most people.
All we ever hear is to start them on rice cereal and that cheerios make a great baby snack.However, this is quite far from the truth! The enzyme to digest grains is one of the last to develop!
When you are finally ready to introduce grains to your baby, non-gluten grains (rice, quinoa, millet) should be introduced first. Gluten grains (wheat, barley, oats) can be introduced last, I personally wait until my baby is 2 years old before adding in gluten.
Foods to avoid until after baby turns 1:
Honey
Cows milk
Citrus fruits
Nuts
Egg Whites
Choking Hazards such as raisins, grapes, popcorn
Grains
Fish
You can read more about what to feed a baby at the Weston A Price Foundation.
very informative! I'm lovin' this series so far! 🙂
this is an awesome post – i've shared it with everyone I know!!
Thank you Amanda. Glad you liked it. I really enjoy reading your blog by the way!
Brittany, just a question- In the grains it says depending on when the babies molar teeth are fully developed? Emmy is now 19 months and they have just started comming through, she is a very slow tooth grower. Should I have waited to introduce grains? Thank you, Laura (very good info)
Hey, this is very helpful information. I was wondering what your thoughts on coconut and almond flour are? Also, do you have a link to the information you shared about the enzymes? I would love to dig deeper on this topic. Thank you!
Coconut flour should be ok (so long as the baby is ok with coconut) as coconut flour is just ground up coconut basically. Almond flour, I’d probably hold off on simply because it is a nut. As for links, you can try this one. Fair warning it’s long and all heavily scientific. I wish there was more plain language information out there on enzyme development but I have not found much (if any): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3528963/
Fantastic! Thank you 😊
Hi Laura! Well technically according to enzyme development yes you probably should have waited. When their molars come in, it coincides with the enzyme that is needed for grain digestion. Much like how you shouldn't start babies on any solids till they get their first tooth as that first tooth signals enzyme development for the beginning solid foods. All very interesting. It's also interesting that the order of teeth coming in (generally, there's always a few kids who get their teeth in differently) go together with what food they can eat. So first it's those front teeth which are good for produce and biting meat and such and then the molars come in last which are good for grains. 🙂
Most people are ok with this solids introduction schedule but they get a bit shocked in the grains area. Everyone hears to start with rice cereal first and nobody thinks about delaying grains. It is strange but I'm all for letting babies develop the enzymes and waiting longer then the "norm" to preserve a healthy gut and reduce allergies. 🙂
I'm assuming Emmy started on grains ages ago. In which case, what's done is done. Unless you notice allergies or eczema or similar issues you can probably continue on as normal. If you did notice those symptoms then I'd probably recommend going back to the basics (baby solids is much like the GAPS diet which is great for getting rid of allergies) and removing grains for a while.
Hope that helps.
Brittany, I'm curious… The information you present says not to introduce any solids until baby has cut their first tooth but I have read other information that suggests baby needs to be introduced to solids at 6 months to allow/encourage the gag reflex and chewing/talking muscles to develop properly. It makes sense that teething would be an outward sign of inward readiness but you hear of some kids that don't cut their first tooth until close to a year or later and its hard to imagine not offering any solids until that time. Any thoughts?
Hi Elyse,
Kids will always have that gag reflex (trust me, my almost 2 year old still uses it when she shoves too much food in her mouth. 🙂 Feeding kids earlier then 6 months or even waiting till 1 year before introducing solids won't hinder a kid's learning how to chew/talk. I suppose it's possible that kids who begin solids earlier have a head start on chewing/talking as that would be logical since they've had more time to practice. However, I do not think getting a head start on chewing/talking is more important then preserving gut health and possibly reducing allergies.
I would say it probably is time to start some solids at 1 year if the baby hasn't gotten any teeth by then simply because most kids need the added nutrients. However, if I had a 1 + year old who had no teeth, I would make sure to only offer the first food groups that are ok for the (normally) 6-9 age…and hold off on the other ones so that to ensure that enzymes are developing. Does that make sense…I'd start at around 1 yr but I'm start incredibly slowly and progress to the other food groups very slowly or once all the teeth have caught up.
Plenty kids have no solids until 1 year old however. 🙂 Before 1 solids are "just for fun" but after that I do think you would have to weight the benefit of food vs potential lack of enzymes if there were no teeth yet.
Hope that makes sense.
I have heard and known about the studies that suggest early introduction reduces allergies however, there are studies that also say the opposite.
All my recommendations are based upon when babies develop the enzymes that are needed to digest those foods. It is important for a body to have those enzymes in place otherwise they will not be able to digest the foods properly and thus run the risk of health issues such as leaky gut.
As a parent of a child with nut allergies I find that it's best to wait a while. My son actually had peanut butter "early" at 10 months and that was when we found out he was allergic to nuts. I strongly believe it would not have mattered if I introduced nuts at 6 months or 2 years. He was destine to be allergic although I might have prevented it had I known that with him having eczema I should have delayed solids (didn't become crunchy till after him) and I should have introduced solids as his body was ready for them. By giving him the foods at their "standard" america times, I continued to ruin his gut flora and thus messed his immune and digestive systems.
There are plenty of babies that have "done fine" with the standard food introduction method, however there are many kids who have lots of issues that are perhaps due to standard food introduction.
Hi, I really loved this post, and find it very interesting and informative. I only have one question. I can see that everyone keep on saying we shouldn’t give cow’s milk to babies. But what about sheep or goat milk? Are they safe? Can you tell me anything about that? Thank you…
Goat milk (and I assume sheep milk is similar) can be given after 6 months but it shouldn’t be a regular thing (the exception to this being if the goat milk is being used in a homemade formula recipes which does include goat milk but also other ingredients to help balance out the nutrient ratios)
Lots of great information. However, under the “Fats” section, coconut oil and butter are listed as healthy fats…which is absolutely not the case. Both are extremely high in saturated fat, which causes fatty streaks in arteries and leads to heart disease eventually. Do not give this to your babies! Avocados, olive oil, avocado oil, nuts, seeds, and nut butters are great sources of healthy fats, depending on the age of your baby.