How Do I Know When to Start Solids?

It is recommended to start introducing solid foods between 4-6 months when your baby can sit up independently, having enough head and neck control. Solids at this point in time are really for introduction and not as a meal replacement of milk.

While 4-6 months is the usual timeframe for when a baby can situp independently, it is also the time period that tongue thrusts start to fade. Tongue thrusts are when a baby instinctively pushes food back out of their mouth with their tongue because they are not yet ready for solid foods so it protects them from choking.

Since solids during the time of 4-6 months are for introduction purposes, they should not be considered as a tool to help a baby gain weight as they are not yet acting as meal replacements in the beginning.

Should you buy baby food or make it? Honestly, if you're going the puree route to begin with, I think making it is beneficial for a number of reasons- you don't know or cannot control the number of things in ready made baby food such as salt, sugar, gmo's, etc. It's also way cheaper to buy frozen vegetables, cook according to directions and puree. It's super easy and doesn't take much time at all. You can even buy old ice trays and fill each one with puree so its pre-measured out.

However, I'm a fan of baby led feeding- letting babies feed themselves finger foods when starting solids around 6 months old. This gives babies the true sense of eating and also teaches them to bite (or gum down) off what they can chew so they learn not to choke. Its way better than cutting food up into small pieces that work out to be the exact size of their windpipe should it get stuck. Some examples of these foods that are choking hazards are popcorn, chips, pretzels, nuts, seeds, peanut butter, hard cookies, granola, raisins, raw vegetables (but totally try steamed) and obviously large pieces of food.

Other foods to stay away from are as mentioned before, anything high in salt and sugar, anything with harmful bacteria i.e. honey, raw eggs, canned food. And foods with heavy metals, tannins and milks during this time period.