As one might expect from two food loving dietitians, we were so excited to introduce solids to our boys.

If we’re being totally honest though, even with our baseline knowledge of pediatric nutrition, we felt a bit overwhelmed prior to getting started. There truly is no right or best approach when it comes to feeding your little ones. But there are several methods and considerations to think through, and we both found ourselves wanting a clearer roadmap than we could find at the time.

So in true Merrill and Lauren fashion, we took the time to dive deep and come up with a framework that worked well for our families and subsequently our clients.

As we’ve started to work with more and more parents to help them feel confident in their own feeding journeys, we wanted to share some high level info, tips and products for anyone else looking for guidance or a place to get started. As always, if you want more information or support, please reach out!

Starting your baby on solids

There are a few things to think about before introducing solids:

Start solids when your baby is ready. For most babies this tends to fall around 5-6 months, but sometimes earlier and sometimes later. In general, you want to see the following milestones before starting solids:

Baby can sit up independently with minimal support
Baby has good head control
Baby has a diminished extrusion (pushing tongue out) reflex
Baby is showing interest in food

Choose a feeding approach. The next thing to think about is how you want to feed your baby. In general there are 3 main “approaches”:

Purees with a progression to chunkier textures
Baby led weaning
A mixture of purees and baby led weaning

There are a number of reasons why someone might choose one versus the other. With this and all things baby - there is no one right way! There are benefits to all approaches and it's important to come up with a method that feels most comfortable for you and your baby.

What we did

We personally chose to start with purees and over time, advanced textures as our babies were ready. This looked a bit like this:

~5.5/6M - thin purees
~7M - chunkier purees
~7.5-8M - chunkier purees along with large, soft strips of food to help baby get more comfortable with various textures
~9+m - small bite sized pieces of soft food

A few other important considerations when starting solids:

Offer a wide variety of food and textures - may reduce picky eating later on!
Meal timing - aim to time your meals ~30 minutes to 1 hour after a milk feeding (this tends to be the sweet spot between too full from milk and too hangry to focus on food).
Number of meals per day - we typically recommend starting with 1 meal, adding a second meal ~7-8M and working your way up to 3 meals per day by 9M. As they grow, it’s important to stay consistent with how and when you offer meals as best you can.
Have fun with it (yes, this really is important!) and embrace the mess - introducing solids plays an important role in developing babies’ fine motor skills and relationship with food/eating. Try to let your baby explore as much as possible and accept all the mess that comes with it
Things to avoid: honey (up until 1 year due to risk of botulism), cow’s milk unless its baked into a recipe, added salt and foods naturally high in sodium (to avoid overloading their tiny kidneys), and high choking risk foods (good list here).
Account for the proper introduction of allergens - early and often is the name of the game. The major allergens include: milk, eggs, peanuts, soy, wheat, tree nuts (i.e. almond, cashew, pistachio, pine nut, walnut, etc.), fish, shellfish, and sesame. Ideally you’ll start introducing them as soon as you start solids. Reach out if you want more info or guidance (too much for one post!)

A note on water:

Technically speaking water isn’t necessary during the first year of life for most babies (since they’re getting all of their fluid needs through either formula or breast milk). However, we recommend introducing water to most babies when you start solids. How much, when and how? We love the advice given here.

As always, talk to your ped about any/all of this before diving in! Every baby is unique and your pediatrician may have specific recommendations for your baby.

If you are looking for more guidance to help you get started and 1-on-1 support, we’d love to chat to see how we can help!

A few more things

Last but not least, some of our favorite baby feeding products and resources for those who want recs!

Merrill: my former pediatrics professor at NYU, Pegah Jalali, is one of the most knowledgable dietitians when it comes to pediatric nutrition. Her instagram handle @pediatric.dietitian, is an incredible resource and has informed our own approach in so many ways.
We love the Solid Starts app, website and instagram account for recipes and helpful guidelines and visuals for safe feeding.
Stokke tripp trapp high chair - we love everything about this high chair. It’s definitely pricey, but it grows with your baby and really is the best on the market (we tried a few) - easy to clean, developmentally supportive and not an eyesore/blends into your home easily. Warning: it is kind of annoying to set up.
Stokke classic cushion - this padded insert fits perfectly into the Stokke and provided a little more comfort early on in the feeding journey.
Upseat booster - we both loved using this with our boys as an alternative to a highchair. It was really great for traveling and those times when we just didn't feel like putting the baby in the high chair (whoops). Also super easy to clean. It was recommended to us by a friend who is a pediatric physical therapist over the Bumbo seat because it positions the baby for better posture.
Olababy spoons - loved these spoons and both of our boys took quickly to self feeding using them (we loaded the food, then offered the spoons to self feed). We tried a few brands and both of our boys preferred these over the rest.
EZPZ tiny cup - tiny open cup that is great for introducing water.
Honey bear - great for training a baby how to drink out of a straw and prepare for straw cups later on.
EZPZ bowl and plate - love these for serving solids.
Mushie Silicon bib - such cute bibs that catch the massive amounts of food (and water) that miss your baby’s mouth.
Bumpkins smocks - may be overkill for some (and totally not necessary) but we often smock up our boys (layer over clothes, below the silicon bib) to try and avoid changing their clothes for the 40th time that day. They’re machine washable and possibly one of our favorite baby purchases.
Splat mat - gathre (pricier/minimalist scandi vibes) or bumpkin - definitely not necessary but can be helpful for cleanup. We skipped this in the puree stage because it's just as easy to wipe the floor as a splat mat, but have been using it more often with finger foods because it's super easy to lift and dump food that they drop.
Beaba babycook solo - ok we stand corrected, this is our #1 baby feeding purchase. We love this thing so much. It’s pricey and certainly not a necessity, but it makes steaming and pureeing food for the baby a one stop shop. We even use it for ourselves as a mini-food processor.
Wee Sprouts silicon molds and glass jars - great system for freezing, storing and defrosting solids if you choose to go the home made route. For homemade purees (or leftover pouches), freeze in silicon molds, then pop out frozen pucks and store in Stasher bags in the freezer. The pucks fit perfectly in the jars to defrost in the fridge overnight.
Serenity and Cerebelly pouches - two high quality baby food companies with a wide range of nutritious pouches that our boys loved. Serenity, in particular, uses high quality animal protein (organic, grass-fed, pasture raised, wild) if you can’t stomach blending your own (we couldn’t).
Yumi and Little Spoon - two great baby food companies that deliver freshly made baby food to your front door.