Solid foods
Starting your baby on solid foods, often called weaning or complementary feeding, starts when your baby is around 6 months old. At this stage, your baby can begin exploring a variety of foods while continuing to have breast milk or first infant formula as part of their diet.
First Steps Nutrition Trust offers free, reliable information on healthy eating from pregnancy through early childhood. They provide easy-to-follow guides on eating well, starting solid foods, and choosing infant milks.
The Best Start in Life website has NHS advice, helpful videos, tips from other parents, and lots of simple, healthy weaning recipe and meal ideas.
Safety advice: gagging and choking
Many parents worry about their baby choking when they start on solid food. But what’s the difference between choking and gagging?
Gagging is a normal reflex as babies learn to chew and swallow solids. It’s usually loud, with coughing or retching and may cause redness in the face, though this can be harder to spot on brown or black skin. Stay calm during gagging, it helps babies learn to manage food safely.
Choking is dangerous and typically silent. A baby may struggle to breathe and show signs of cyanosis (blue skin). On lighter skin, this may appear on the face or lips; on darker skin, check the gums, inside lips, or fingernails.
If choking occurs:
- shout for help
- remove the baby from the highchair
- lay the baby face down along your forearm and thigh
- support their head and neck
- give 5 sharp back blows between the shoulder blades
Watch this BabyCentre video on YouTube to find out what gagging sounds and looks like.
You can find step by step guides on what to do if you think your baby is choking on the:
Millie’s Trust offers local, in-person first aid courses.
