It's exciting to reach the point of weaning your baby, but also a bit daunting. Read on for a step-by-step guide. Weaning starts at any time from four to six months, when your baby needs solids as well as breast or formula milk. Start with very smooth purées not much thicker than milk and give them in addition to breast milk, then gradually reduce the milk and increase the food. The aim of weaning is for a baby to be eating a well-balanced and varied diet that is more or less the same as the rest of the family by the age of one.

Handy Hint

Expect some refusals or even a few tears. The new tastes, served on a strange thing called a spoon, will take your baby a while to get used to.

Weaning Essentials

• Sterilise all feeding equipment and bowls until your baby is six months old. After six months, only teats, bottles and drinking spouts need to be sterilised.
  
• Never leave your baby alone with food or a drink because of the danger of choking.
  
• Do not add sugar or salt to baby food.
• Throw away uneaten food that's been heated and served up - if kept there is a risk of food poisoning.

4 - 6 Months
Your baby continues to get most of her nutrition from breast milk or bottled milk while learning to take puréed food from a flat spoon. First foods include quite tiny amounts of baby rice, soft purées of fruit, vegetables, pulses and mashed potato.

Handy Hint

Talk to your baby during meals and when he can sit in a high chair, let him eat with the family to make eating pleasurable.

6 - 9 Months
Your baby starts to eat a wider variety of food and different textures, including pulses, eggs and cereals. Wheat and full fat cows milk can be given, but milk should only be used in cooking and to mix solids, not as the main drink. For daily food servings this equals:

• Two portions of fruit and vegetables.
• Two of starchy foods, such as baby cereal, potatoes, bread and pasta
• Two varieties of vegetarian protein foods. Serve unsweetened orange juice with food or incorporate it in recipes to ensure good absorption of iron and zinc, which are more readily absorbed from animal foods than plant foods.

Introduce finger foods such as toast, bread sticks, vegetable and fruit slices and small sticks of hard cheese.

Handy Hint

Do not try to persuade your baby to eat more than he wants.

9 - 12 Months

• Two portions of fruit and vegetables.
• Three to four starchy foods such as baby cereal, potatoes, bread, pasta.
• Two varieties of vegetarian protein foods.

12 Months +

• Four portions of fruit and vegetables.
• Four of starchy foods, usually one per meal, but not too many chips, crisps or pastry.
• Two varieties of vegetarian protein foods.

By now your baby should be eating three meals a day of chopped and mashed food, plus snacks and drinks.

Vegetarian & Vegan Protein

Protein is made up of amino acids (protein building blocks). The nine essential amino acids that cannot be made in the body are found in the right proportion in meat, fish, dairy foods and eggs. In a vegetarian diet a combination of two of the three plant protein food groups needs to be eaten each day. These are:

• Pulses (beans including soya, plus peas and lentils).
• Nuts and seeds.
• Grains (rice, bread, pasta, rye, barley and oats.
• Dairy foods enhance available protein in vegetable foods so vegetarian babies who eat milk, yoghurt, cheese and eggs will easily get complete protein.