When, How Often and The Division of Responsibility
When should I feed my baby?
It’s important to remember that prior to starting their solids journey, your babies only source of nutrition has been breastmilk or formula. Whilst these are complete sources of nutrition in the first 6 months, they are easy to digest and contain no fibre.
It is so common for parents to think they need to start their baby on 3 meals a day, but this is simply not the case - we need to give them time for their digestive systems to adjust, and for their skills to improve, so they are equipped to deal with a larger quantity.
Breastmilk or formula MUST take priority over solids - always offer these BEFORE you offer solids (until closer to 9 months).
At around 9mo, you will likely have noticed a decrease in milk intake. This shouldn't be drastic, but it is not unusual to see a bottle drop or one or two breastfeeds reduce. This isn't the time to introduce snacks, rather shift your routine to ensure milk or a main meal is offered every 2-3 hours.
There is no “right” time of the day to introduce your baby to solids – it is important that solids fit seamlessly into your routine, making it as enjoyable as possible. However, if you have no preference, I really like mid-morning, between the first nap of the day and middle of the day nap. This ensures your little one is well rested, not too tired, and it is early enough in the day to limit digestive discomfort overnight, potentially interrupting overnight sleep. Additionally, it is a great time of the day to introduce allergens, as it provides ample time to monitor for any allergic reactions.
How often should I feed my baby?
4 – 5.5 months: Unlikely to be developmentally ready for solids
5.5 – 6.5 months: Start small - offer one or two teaspoons of puree or one to two pieces of finger food and be guided by your baby, as to whether to offer more. Work your way to one meal per day, and don't worry if you skip a meal some days
7 – 9 months: Your baby should have developed some really amazing skills by now, so you can start to offer a second meal. Continue to follow your baby’s cues
9 – 12 months: If you're yet to offer your baby finger foods, now is the time to do so. You can now increase to three meals per day
12 months +: Meals can now take priority over breastmilk/formula. You can begin to offer snacks, in addition to the three meals per day. Your child may not be interested in snacks initially, so continue to follow their lead
Division of Responsibility
This is something I am super passionate about and is particularly important when aiming to raise an intuitive eater – a human that is in tune with their body’s hunger and fullness cues.
It is an evidenced based, best practice concept that encourages you to take the lead at meal times, with WHAT, WHEN are WHERE your child is fed. However, the key is that we enable our children to determine HOW MUCH and WHETHER, they eat what has been provided. We do this when we demand feed our children from birth, so why should this change?
Our little ones aren’t always going to immediately “like” what is served, but that’s ok. A good work around is to always provide a preferred food at each meal, that you know your child likes, but to consistently and repeatedly expose your little one to other foods. What we want to discourage, and what is likely to encourage picking eating behaviours, is to constantly be returning to the kitchen and providing alternate meals.
Our children want to eat, it just takes time for them to learn how to eat. The best way to teach them is to sit at the dinner table together, model how to eat, be mindful of your language around food, and get them involved in the preparation and planning of meals. Some days your little one will eat three serves, other days they might only eat three bites. We need to trust them to regulate and respond to their own hunger and fullness cues