Feeding your baby (aged nine months to a year)

Babies are usually happy to try new tastes and textures, so you can give them a wide range of family foods at this stage. Just remember not to put salt in anything your baby will be eating. The following simple guidelines will make sure your baby continues to eat healthily as they approach their first birthday.

Types of food

After nine months you can begin to offer your child:

• minced food, rather than mashed
• harder finger foods like raw vegetables

If you give them dairy products, make sure they are the full-fat varieties. Cutting back on fat is sensible for adults but not for babies, as they need more energy for growth. Also try not to encourage a sweet tooth by giving them biscuits and cakes (these will fill up your baby without providing any nutrients).

Meals

Your baby should be having a good mixed diet by now with probably three or four meals a day. Their diet should contain:

• starchy foods at every meal like potatoes, rice, bread, pasta and plantain
• fruit or vegetables at each meal
• one or two servings of meat, fish, eggs or pulses (beans or lentils) a day
  

This is a good time to introduce two courses to meals. Ideally these would be:

• a savoury first course of starchy food like meat, fish or pulses with vegetables
• a second course (pudding) of milk or fruit, or both

Drinks

You will find that as your baby eats more solid foods, the amount of milk your baby wants will start to reduce. Once your baby is eating plenty of solids several times a day they may go without one feed. But you should continue to breastfeed or give 500 – 600 ml (about a pint) of infant formula a day until at least 12 months of age. Breastfeeding will continue to benefit you and your baby.

As you introduce drinks (for instance water with meals), always use cups rather than bottles. You should avoid using anything with a teat - if your child spends too long with a teat in their mouth it may damage their teeth and delay speech development. At this stage, water doesn’t have to be boiled, unless you are using it to make up formula milk. Diluted fruit juice can also be used if it is well diluted (one part juice to 10 parts water).

Cow's milk

Remember that cow’s milk must not be given as a drink until your baby is one year old, but it can be used for mixing into foods like cereal or mashed potato.

Getting enough iron

Babies need iron in their diet to help their brains develop normally. Pork, beef and lamb are excellent sources of iron, and serving vegetables with these will help your baby to absorb it. If you have decided you do not want your baby to eat meat or fish, make sure that you give two servings a day of split pulses (red lentils, split peas, chick peas) or tofu. Fruit also helps the body absorb iron so include this at meal times as well.

Vitamins and Healthy Start

Children under five years old who are breastfeeding need vitamin drops A, C and D (children who are drinking 500ml of infant formula a day do not need these as they are already added).

If your family qualifies for Healthy Start, you can get free milk, fresh fruit and vegetables, infant formula and vitamins until your child’s fourth birthday.

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