Expanding your child's diet

By age 6-9 months your baby will be getting used to solid foods such as purée fruit or vegetables or baby rice and should happily be eating from a spoon. At this stage you can begin to offer your child a greater range of food. Always introduce one new food at a time and leave a day or two between new foods.

The following list of foods are ideal for expanding your child's menu:

• Baby rice;
• Baby porridge;
• Rusks;
• Puree fruit e.g. apples, pears;
• Mashed potato;(*)
• Pureed vegetables e.g. broccoli, carrot, cauliflower, turnip, peas, beans and parsnip;
• Pureed meat, pureed chicken;
• Eggs(**)
• Melted cheese;
• Yoghurt, custard, fromage frais.

(*)It's best to avoid blending potatoes because they become gluey. Try mashing them with a little milk instead.

(**) Scrambled, poached and boiled eggs are suitable from six months but they must be well cooked - both the yolk and white must be solid. Soft eggs can be given after one year. If there is a history of allergy in the family, delay the introduction of eggs until after age one.

As well as these new foods, continue to give your child breast milk or four bottles (210-240ml/7-8oz each) of formula milk per day. Note that while cow's milk can be added to breakfast cereal and meals after the age of six months, it should not be given as a main drink until after the age of one.

Introducing finger foods

Once your baby is eating a wider range of foods from the above list, encourage her to eat lumpier foods. At around 7-8 months your baby will start to pick things up with her thumb and finger and transfer objects from one hand to another.

Once she has reached this stage of development, it is a good idea to encourage her to start feeding herself by offering her finger foods between meals as snacks. Slices of peeled apple, banana, fingers of toast or cubes of cheese are good examples to start off with.

It will be quite a messy experience at the beginning but you can minimise the mess by keeping a roll of kitchen paper handy and covering the floor with a plastic sheet.

Remember to stay near your baby and keep a watchful eye on her in case she begins to choke.

This is also a good time to start giving your baby drinks in a beaker. She will probably just play with the beaker for the first while, but have patience - the slow journey from bottle to beaker plays an important role in your child's jaw and speech development.

Mealtime ideas

Breakfast
Infants and young children need time to eat. When they are really hungry, meals can be eaten in just a few minutes. However, more often than not it can take quite a while (15 - 30 minutes). If you have to leave the house at a particular time - for work, for a school run, or an appointment - it is a good idea to get up about 30 minutes earlier so you leave enough time for breakfast.

On waking, give your baby a breast or formula feed (210-240 ml/7-8oz) followed by:

• Breakfast cereal or rusk with milk.(*)
• Fingers of toast. Shaped bread cutters make for great novelty at breakfast and will be enjoyed by infants and young children alike. There are all sorts of shapes to choose from such as teddy bears, stars and the moon. The shape can be cut out of bread and toasted.
• Orange juice.**

(*)Only use breakfast cereal that is labelled as being "suitable for infants" such as baby porridge. Ordinary breakfast cereals that adults eat are very high in salt and are not suitable for young children.

(**)One orange freshly squeezed and diluted with an equal volume of water to juice is a great drink at breakfast time as it improves your baby's uptake of iron from foods. Only one fruit juice drink per day is recommended at this age.

Orange juice from a carton can also be a good source of vitamin C. Read the label carefully. When there is more time to enjoy breakfast at the weekend the following ideas will add a little variety.

• French toast;
• Potato cakes;
• Smoothies.

Lunch

• Yoghurt or milk pudding;
• Stewed fruit;

Plus breast or formula milk 210-240 ml (7-8oz).

Evening meal
Soft cooked mince meat/chicken/fish or chopped hard boiled egg;
Mashed potato or chopped spaghetti;
Mashed vegetables;

Plus breast or formula milk 210-240 ml (7-8 oz).

Bedtime
Breast or formula milk 210-240 ml(7-8oz).


Snacks

• Yoghurt;
• Fromage Frais (petit filous or petit danone);
• Fruit pieces such as peeled apples, bananas, grapes or orange segments;
• Cheese sticks or cubes; 
• Crackers; 
• Buttered fruit scone.