The NHS recommends waiting until your baby is six months old before you start introducing solid foods. This gives them time to develop properly and cope with the food.
By this age they’ll be better at moving food around in their mouth, chewing and swallowing. If your baby was born prematurely, ask your health visitor or GP for advice on when the best time is to start weaning.
Here are a couple of our favourite recipes to get you started, and they're tasty for adults too!
Blueberry porridge (7-9 months)
Plain porridge oats are cheap to buy from most supermarkets and are a great, nutritious way to start the day. You can usually buy 1kg of plain oats for around £1. Frozen berries are also used in this recipe which are just as good (and cheaper) than using fresh.
This takes around 5 minutes to prepare and 5 minutes to cook.
Ingredients
- 2tbsp (20g) porridge oats
- 120ml full fat milk
- 1/4 medium banana
- 10g frozen berries
- 1tsp plain full fat yoghurt.
Method
- Put the porridge oats and milk into a saucepan. Heat up, stirring constantly, until the porridge thickens. then reduce the heat and simmer gently for 2-3 minutes, stirring until the oats are cooked
- Slice the banana into finger size sticks.
- Stir the blueberries into the porridge and heat through until soft. Add a little more milk if your baby prefers it a little runnier.
- Pour the porridge into a bowl, add the yoghurt and serve with the banana sticks.
Tuna mayo jacket potato (7-9 months)
Introduce your baby to a lunchtime classic - jacket potato with a tuna and mayonnaise filling. It’s cooked in the microwave to save you time. This NHS recipe is served with carrot and cucumber sticks on the side but these could be optional. You could also add some tinned sweetcorn to the tuna mix to sneak in another vegetable.
Ingredients
- 1 small baking potato (1/3 to serve, 30g)
- 1 small tinned tuna in spring water, drained (130g)
- 1 heaped tsp mayonnaise (15g)
- 1 tsp plain whole milk yoghurt
- 15g carrot, peeled (1 portion)
- 15g cucumber (1 portion)
Method
- Prick the potato a few times with a fork, place on a plate and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Turn over and microwave for a further 5 minutes until soft. Carefully cut open once it's cooled a little
- Flake the tuna into a bowl, add the mayonnaise and yoghurt - mix well
- Cut the carrot and cucumber into finger sticks
- Once the potato is cooked, put 30g of the tuna mayo mix on top of the potato and serve with the vegetable sticks
- If preferred, mash the meal up before serving.