Feeding under-fives
Weaning, allergens, the foods that are genuinely off the list, and why the advice your mum was given about peanuts is now the opposite of current guidance.
In short
- Start solids at around 6 months, when three specific signs appear together. Not before 4 months, ever.
- Introduce allergens early — peanut and egg from around 6 months, one at a time. Delaying does not protect them, and may do the opposite.
- Bitter veg first, not fruit. Broccoli, cauliflower, spinach.
- No honey before 1. No whole nuts before 5. No rice drinks before 5.
- No added salt or sugar, at any point in the first year and sparingly after.
- Vitamin D for everyone — breastfed from birth, and all children 1–4. Free on Healthy Start.
- Gagging is normal and noisy. Choking is silent. Learn the difference before you start.
This summarises NHS guidance — it is not advice about your child.
If your baby was premature, has reflux, a diagnosed allergy, a health condition, or any feeding difficulty, speak to your health visitor, GP or dietitian — the advice may be different for them. If your child has already reacted to a food, do not experiment at home. Get medical advice first.
When to start, and how to tell
Around 6 months. Not four, not "when they seem hungry", and not because someone at baby group said their baby started at 17 weeks.
Before then, milk gives them everything they need, and their gut and swallow are not ready. There are three signs of readiness, and the key thing is that they appear together, at around six months:
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They can sit up and hold their head steady
Supported is fine, but their head should not be wobbling.
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They can coordinate eyes, hands and mouth
They can look at food, pick it up and get it to their mouth themselves.
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They can swallow food
Rather than pushing most of it straight back out with their tongue.
These are NOT signs of readiness
- Chewing their fists. Babies do this from about three months regardless.
- Waking in the night. Extremely common at four months and almost never about hunger for solids.
- Wanting extra milk feeds. Growth spurts do this.
- Watching you eat. They are interested in you, not the lasagne.
Every one of these is routinely offered as evidence a baby is "ready". None of them is.
First foods
Single vegetables and fruits, soft-cooked or mashed — parsnip, broccoli, potato, carrot, apple, pear.
The one thing worth doing deliberately: start with vegetables that are not sweet. Broccoli, cauliflower, spinach. Babies are born liking sweet things; they do not need persuading about pear. Bitter greens are the acquired taste, and the window where they will accept them without much fuss is early. Lead with those and come to fruit after.
Practical things that make it easier
- Once a day is plenty at first. Milk is still the main event for months yet.
- Offer food after a milk feed, not instead of it, so they are not ravenous and furious.
- Let them get filthy. Touching, squashing and smearing is how they learn a food is safe. A splash mat and low expectations beat a bib and a battle.
- Expect refusals. It can take ten or more offers of the same food before a baby accepts it. Most parents stop after two or three and conclude their child "doesn't like" it.
- Eat with them where you can. Babies copy. It is the single most effective thing you can do.
- Spoon-feeding, finger foods, or both — there is no wrong answer, and most families end up doing a mix.
Allergens — the advice that reversed
If your parents were told to keep peanuts away from children until they were three, that was the guidance once. It is not any more, and the change matters.
Current advice is to introduce foods containing common allergens from around 6 months, once your baby is having other solids — one at a time, in small amounts, so that if there is a reaction you know which food caused it.
The common allergens: peanuts, other nuts, hens’ eggs, cows’ milk, gluten (wheat), fish, shellfish, soya, sesame and celery.
How to do it, practically
- One new allergen at a time, and leave a few days before the next.
- Small amount first — a smear of smooth peanut butter thinned with their usual milk, or a little well-cooked egg.
- Earlier in the day, not last thing at night, so you can watch them.
- When they are well. Not mid-cold, when you will not be able to tell what caused what.
- Keep going once introduced. Include it regularly rather than doing it once and stopping.
- Never whole nuts. Peanut butter or ground nuts — whole nuts are a choking hazard until 5.
If your child has eczema, or there is a family history
Speak to your GP or health visitor before you start introducing allergens. Babies with moderate or severe eczema, or an existing food allergy, are at higher risk, and may need to do this differently or with medical supervision.
A serious reaction is a 999 call. Swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, difficulty breathing, wheezing, a widespread rash with floppiness or drowsiness — call 999 and say you think it is an allergic reaction. Milder signs — a few hives round the mouth, mild tummy upset — stop the food and speak to your GP.
Choking, gagging, and how to prepare food safely
The single most useful thing to know before you start:
Do a paediatric first aid course
Genuinely, before you start weaning. Reading about back blows is not the same as having practised them, and it is the sort of thing you cannot look up in the moment. Many are free or low-cost through children’s centres. If your child is choking, someone should call 999 while you act.
How to prepare the risky foods:
- Grapes, cherry tomatoes, large blueberries — cut lengthways into quarters. Not halves, and not across.
- Sausages and similar — remove the skin and cut lengthways, then into small pieces.
- Raw carrot and hard apple — not raw in sticks. Cook until soft, or grate.
- Whole nuts — never under 5. Ground or as smooth nut butter instead.
- Popcorn, marshmallows, boiled sweets, chunks of hard cheese — leave them for now.
- Raw jelly cubes — a choking hazard. Make it up as instructed.
- Stones and pips — out of cherries, olives, plums.
Two rules that prevent most incidents
- Always sit them upright to eat, and stay with them. Never let a child eat lying down, walking about, in a car seat, or in a moving buggy.
- Never leave a child alone with food. Not for a minute, not to answer the door.
The list of what to avoid, by age
Mould-ripened soft cheeses (brie, camembert) and soft blue cheeses — listeria risk. Fine if thoroughly cooked.
Cows’ milk as a main drink — fine in cooking from 6 months, but not as their milk until 12 months.
Raw or lightly cooked eggs unless British Lion stamped.
Rice drinks — arsenic levels. Not as a milk substitute.
Raw shellfish — food poisoning risk.
Added sugar — including fruit juice and fruit drinks. Not needed, and tooth decay in under-fives is common and entirely preventable.
One that surprises people
Under-twos need full-fat dairy, not low-fat. They need the energy and fat for brain development, and low-fat versions are not suitable. From two you can move to semi-skimmed if they are eating well and growing normally.
Milk and drinks
- Breast milk or formula remains their main drink until 12 months.
- Cows’ milk in cooking from 6 months is fine. As a drink, from 12 months.
- Water and milk only. From 6 months, offer water in an open or free-flow cup with meals — not a valved sippy cup, which does not help them learn to sip.
- No juice or squash for babies. If you give juice later, dilute it heavily and keep it to mealtimes, where it does less damage to teeth.
- Follow-on milk and toddler milks are not necessary. They are marketing. After 12 months, ordinary whole cows’ milk does the job.
- Plant milks — unsweetened fortified varieties can be used from 12 months as part of a varied diet, but not rice drinks under 5. If you are avoiding dairy entirely, get dietitian advice.
Vitamins — the bit almost everyone misses
This is the most commonly skipped piece of NHS advice in the whole of early years, and it is free for many families.
birth to 1
to 5 years
Two practical points
- Healthy Start — if you qualify, the vitamin drops are free. Ask your health visitor, and check whether you are eligible even if you think you are not.
- Do not double up. Never give cod liver oil alongside vitamin drops — cod liver oil also contains A and D, and too much vitamin A is harmful.
Feeding a toddler
By one, they should be eating roughly what you eat — three meals and a couple of snacks, from all the food groups, without added salt or sugar.
- Portions are smaller than people think. A rough guide is about the size of their own fist per component. Serve less than you think and let them ask for more — a big plate is intimidating.
- Appetite falls off after one. Growth slows dramatically after the first year, and toddlers genuinely need proportionally less than babies. A child who ate everything at ten months and refuses at fifteen is usually doing something completely normal.
- Appetite varies wildly day to day. Judge it across a week, not a meal.
- Watch the milk. A toddler filling up on milk will not be hungry at meals. After one, around 300–400ml a day is plenty.
- Iron matters. Red meat, beans, lentils, fortified cereal, dark leafy greens. Offer vitamin C alongside — it helps absorption.
Fussy eating — what actually helps
Almost every toddler goes through it. It peaks around two to three, it is developmentally normal, and it is largely about control rather than food.
Do
- Decide what and when. Let them decide whether and how much. This one division of responsibility solves most mealtime battles.
- Keep offering rejected foods without comment. Ten, fifteen, twenty times. Exposure works, pressure does not.
- Put one thing they reliably eat on the plate alongside the new thing, so the meal is never a total loss.
- Eat together, and eat the same food, where you can.
- Let them serve themselves from a bowl. Control is the currency.
- Keep it short. Twenty to thirty minutes, then it is over without drama.
- Involve them — shopping, washing veg, stirring. Children eat what they helped make.
Don’t
- Force, bribe or bargain. "Three more peas and you can have pudding" makes vegetables the toll and pudding the prize.
- Use food as reward or punishment. It sets up a relationship with food that lasts decades.
- Make a separate meal when they refuse. It teaches refusal as a menu.
- Show your frustration. Attention is a reward, including negative attention.
- Graze all afternoon. A child who has snacked at four will not eat at five.
- Comment on how much they ate. Praise for eating is still pressure.
When fussy eating is worth raising
Speak to your health visitor or GP if your child eats a very narrow range and it is shrinking, gags or vomits at the sight of certain foods, has stopped gaining weight, avoids whole textures or food groups, or if mealtimes are causing real distress for them or you.
That can be sensory rather than behavioural, and it may sit alongside other things — see early signs of autism or ADHD in toddlers. It is worth asking about, and there is help.
The reassuring bit
Most fussy eaters are not undernourished — they are just eating a diet that horrifies their parents. If your child is growing, has energy, and is developing normally, they are almost certainly fine, even on a menu of beige. Keep offering, stay calm, and it very nearly always widens again.