Introducing complementary foods: When is my baby ready?
Spoons in position: From the 5th month onwards, feeding milk alone is no longer sufficient. Then you can now introduce solid food. But when exactly is the baby ready? This is how you find the right time.
In the first months of life, breast milk or infant formula provide your baby with all the nutrients it needs for healthy development. The older it gets, the more some of the body’s own reserves, such as iron stores, are used up. Since the pure milk diet is no longer enough.
This means: Your baby needs the missing nutrients for healthy growth in a different way. So it’s time to introduce complementary foods and at the same time maybe start weaning or reduce the amount of infant milk.
Introduce complementary food around the 5th month of life
When is baby ready for the first porridge? The Research Institute for Child Nutrition in Dortmund (FKE) recommends introducing supplementary food between the 5th and 7th month of life. Around this time, the need for nutrients increases. This period is also good for slowly getting your baby’s body used to new foods.
Is the baby really ready?
Despite the official recommendations, the time to introduce complementary food is very individual. These signs will tell you your baby is ready:
- It follows the food you eat with its gaze.
- It mimics chewing movements.
- It reaches for your food.
- It puts food that is within its reach into its mouth.
- It opens its mouth expectantly when the spoon is removed from the plate.
- Desires to be fed more often and quickly after breastfeeding or bottle-feeding .
Small tips that will make it easier for your baby to start solid foods
- On a spoon discovery tour: Give your offspring a spoon to play with, for example, a few weeks before the planned start of complementary feeding.This gives him time to explore the new cutlery with his mouth and get used to the feeling.
- Liquid feeding: You can also occasionally give your baby a sip of water or tea from a spoon.Then it learns to absorb some of it.For example, you can easily have the quality of your tap water checked .
- Splashing allowed: At this age, playing with food is still perfectly legitimate and table rules make little sense anyway.Let your child discover the new food with their fingers.This often helps to make your child shy away from solid food. Mushing is an important sensory experience and is part of the dining experience.
How long does it take? Patience when introducing complementary food
Your baby learns many new things when introducing complementary food. You shouldn’t be surprised if more ends up next to than in your baby during the first attempts.
But don’t worry, your baby shouldn’t be full with the first attempts at porridge, but should first learn two things: to eat from a spoon and to swallow the new food with the changed consistency. It usually takes five to eight feeding attempts before the food comes off the spoon.
How quickly and how willingly your child becomes an eater of complementary food develops very individually. Some babies open their mouths greedily right from the start when the porridge spoon approaches. Others are more skeptical and hesitant. Both are perfectly fine.
Don’t stress:
Always listen to your child’s needs and never force them to eat if they don’t want to. Just try again tomorrow. Or a few days later. If your little one is still clearly refusing the new food, she probably isn’t ready. And now? Put the spoon aside, feed milk and introduce complementary food later!
Introduce complementary foods: physical development
The baby gets its first pap between the 5th and 7th month. Up to the 4th month, the intestines cannot digest solid food. Also, an earlier start would unnecessarily burden the baby’s immature immune system. Around the 5th month, the immune system is already strong enough to cope with new stimuli. On the other hand, it is still sufficiently flexible so that it does not react immediately with an intolerance to any allergenic substances.
By the age of four to five months, many babies are also physically developed enough to eat from a spoon. The congenital tongue stretch reflex has usually regressed somewhat. Unlike the sucking reflex, your child has to learn new motor skills so that it can swallow the porridge. Your baby also has to get used to the new consistency of the supplementary food and the feeling of the spoon in the mouth. This is the only way you have a chance that the porridge stays in your mouth.
At the same time, most babies at this point are holding their head up on their own and sitting up with support. As motor skills continue to develop, children now find it easier to learn new foods.