When you first start the weaning adventure, begin by offering smooth purees. Purées help your baby get used to a non-liquid texture and help them learn to move food around in their mouth using their tongue. Remember that your baby has only ever been used to milk and solid foods may be quite a challenge at first.
All our 4-6 month+ recipes are extra-smotth purees. Why not try Heinz Baby Rice or Heinz 100% fruit pots as a first food. Then move onto more flavours like their first Sunday chicken dinner.
Broccoli and Sweet potato pureeClick here for recipe
At around 7 months, try introducing small, soft lumps. Getting your baby used to mashed food with soft lumps encourages tongue flexibility and will help them develop their ability to chew food. Babies who are given lumpy foods at this stage have fewer feeding difficulties and are more likely to be eating a larger range of foods later in childhood.
At this stage any lumps should be in a fairly thick sauce which your baby can mush in their mouth. Avoid giving your baby hard lumps in a thin sauce.
Perfectly mashed ingredients in our 7 months+ recipes mean that lumps are soft, small and manageable for your baby. With mashed textures and an assortment of flavours, the Heinz 7+ month range encourages your baby's tongue flexibility and helps to develop their palate. Our savoury meals and cereals also provide added iron which is especially important when babies' own iron stores start to become depleted after 6 months of age.
Mediterranean roast vegetables with cous cousClick here for recipe
Bigger lumps encourage true chewing at around 10 months+ and will help develop your baby's speech muscles. Heinz ingredients are carefully chopped to a larger size and cooked until tender at 10 months+ - just right for learning to chew.
Finger foods give your baby independence and can help develop hand-eye co-ordination. Our finger foods such as biscotti and rusks have a texture that easily dissolves in the mouth, just right for little mouths.
Most babies will now have some teeth which will help with starting to chew. This means there is even more opportunity for you to offer new and more challenging textures.
You can offer your toddler most adult food in much the same way as for the rest of the family. But make sure it is cut into manageable pieces and always be on hand to supervise snacks and meals. You may also need to modify some recipes for your toddler, such as avoiding adding salt and using low salt alternatives, such as Heinz very low salt stock cubes.
The Department of Health recommends exclusive breast feeding for the first six months of your baby's life. All babies are different and develop at different rates. Your baby may start to show signs they are ready for weaning earlier than six months. If this is the case and you think your baby may be ready to start solids, speak to your healthcare professional who will be able to advise you. Babies under 17 weeks should not be given solid foods.
