Your baby’s 6-month weaning schedule: First tastes and textures

Once your baby is around 6 months old, they may be ready to start eating solid foods. That’s right - it’s time to get the high chair, baby spoons (and the sweeping brush) at the ready for the messy but wonderful world of weaning!

Let’s explore the stages of weaning, some of the tasty and nutritious weaning foods for infants, and what your baby’s 6-month weaning schedule might look like.

There’s a very good chance your little one will give you all the signs you need that they’re ready for the first stages of weaning.

To help you spot the signs, look out for your baby¹:

• Holding their head steady in a sitting position.
• Mastering enough hand-eye coordination to pick up food and put it in their mouth.
• Swallowing food without spitting it back out.

There are few other ‘baby behaviours’ that are easily confused as signs that they’re ready to wean. For example, starting to wake more frequently in the night, wanting more milk feeds or chewing on their fists, but these aren’t always signs that your baby is ready to wean.

In the first stages of weaning, and for some time after, the solid foods your baby eats won’t replace their milk feeds.  Breast milk or formula milk will still be their main source of energy.

For these tiny tummies, the early stages of weaning are a chance for your little one to explore new flavours and textures for the first time, so don’t worry too much about how much food they’re eating.

During the first stages of weaning, there are different ways for your baby to enjoy their first tastes and textures. It’s entirely your choice whether you spoon-feed your baby, follow baby-led weaning, or do a little of both.

You don’t need to stick to just one method. There are plenty of benefits to using a mixture of spoon-fed and baby-led weaning to help work around your lives, schedules, and the type of little eater you have on your hands.

Take a closer look at each weaning method to decide which is the right one for you.

With spoon-fed weaning, foods for infants are blended until smooth, and you feed them to your little one with a spoon. You’ll then gradually move from smooth purees to mashed or lumpy foods.

With baby-led weaning, you’ll offer your little one a variety of age-appropriate weaning foods for infants that have been cooked until soft and let them feed themselves³.

To help you get started, take a look at our handy weaning schedule for 6-month-old babies. It’s full of tasty inspiration when it comes to weaning foods for infants and how to introduce a variety of flavours and textures into your baby’s weaning diet.

Our baby weaning chart is also an example of how to blend both spoon-fed and baby-led weaning, if that’s what you choose to do. 

As well as the delicious and nutritious ideas in the 6-month weaning schedule above, let’s take a look at some of the best weaning foods for infants for the early stages of weaning. 

Purees made from fruits or vegetables are a great way to get started with your weaning schedule. For 6 month old babies, simple purees can be used to introduce new flavours and get their tiny taste buds going. They’re also easy for first-time foodies to swallow, and for little tummies to digest.

There are lots of options for safe finger foods if you’re baby-led weaning.  Stick with vegetables in the first couple of weeks, then introduce fruits and other food groups as you go.

Safe foods to use as first finger foods can include:

• Steamed broccoli florets
• Steamed carrots
• Ripe bananas cut into fingers
• Roasted sweet potatoes
• Steamed parsnip
• Steamed butternut squash

When preparing finger foods for your weaning baby, always remember to⁶:

• Wash and peel, and cook the veggies until they’re soft. You can try boiling, roasting or steaming.
• Cut them into finger shapes or batons that are long enough to stick out of your baby’s fist while they’re holding it, and easy to pick up.
• Avoid adding salt and sugar during cooking.

If you’re following a 6 month weaning schedule for your baby, you don’t need to reduce the number of milk feeds your baby has. You should continue to breastfeed or formula feed your baby as normal⁵. As your baby starts to progress towards 3 meals a day, they’ll naturally begin to reduce the amount of milk they drink⁷.

By offering your baby solid foods before a milk feed, you’ll avoid their tunny becoming too full to try new foods⁵.

Babies under 12 months old don’t need snacks or solid foods between meals. If your baby has progressed to 3 meals a day and still seems hungry, offer extra milk feeds instead⁸.

Vegetables make great weaning foods for infants because they can be softened and pureed, making them easy for babies to chew and swallow in the first stages of weaning.

Introducing vegetables early and offering vegetables exclusively for the first two weeks of weaning, also makes it more likely that babies will eat and enjoy them as they get older.

In the early stages of weaning, try to follow your baby’s appetite and hunger cues. Start with small amounts – a few teaspoons at a time, and give them a bit more if they still seem hungry. As a general guide, by the time they’re around 9 months, your baby will be starting to eat close to 3 meals a day covering all of the major food groups⁷.

All babies are different, but babies at 6 months old usually drink around 600ml of milk. In the early stages of weaning, your baby doesn’t need to reduce their milk feeds - it’s still their main source of energy and nutrients. 

It’s normal for babies to refuse solid foods, certainly in the early stages of weaning³. It’s also normal for babies to eat different amounts day to day, refuse something they seemed to like previously, or suddenly take to some foods they had no interest in when you first offered them. Try to offer your baby food when you have plenty of time and bring them in on family mealtimes to watch how you do it!

There’s no need to avoid common allergens when you start to wean your baby. However, introduce them once at a time and in small amounts⁹. Major allergens include cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts, celery, mustard.

You can then continue to offer these foods if your baby hasn’t had a reaction to them. If your baby shows an allergic reaction to any foods that you give them, always seek advice from your doctor or healthcare professional. Learn more about food allergies.

It’s really common for babies to gag in the early stages of weaning, and it’s a normal reflex.¹⁰. It’s very important to know the difference between gagging and choking. 

If your baby is gagging, they might make a loud noise, look red, have watery eyes, push their food out of their mouth or even vomit. 

If your baby has gone quiet, appears to be turning pale or blue, or is struggling to breathe, they may be choking.

If you think your child is choking and cannot breathe properly, you must¹⁰:

• Shout for help
• Take them out of the high chair
• Support their chest and chin with one hand and give 5 sharp blows between the shoulder blades with the heel of the other hand
• Call 999