A common question I get is what sized food is appropriate for each age group. I had honestly not answered it in a blog before, because I wanted my nutrition advice to be appropriate whether you chose baby-led weaning or parent-led puree feeding. But with the frequency of this question, I thought it’s time I write a blog on the general recommendations of preparing food for your baby.

This advice is very general and I do believe every baby is individual. But I hope you can use it as a guide and a vote of confidence for your current choices of how you feed your baby. We all (I believe) have a mother’s intuition so I encourage you to take this information but then do what is right for you and your own baby. This is one of the premises of Fearless Foodies, and it’s one I think is very important.

How to prepare food for your baby based on age

5-8 months baby food ideas

When your baby is beginning their solids journey, this phase is all about learning and exploration. There are two main ways to introduce food to babies around 6 months of age.

Purees for babies

Firstly, you can create a puree. This involves steaming or boiling fruits and vegetables, and blending them to a smooth consistency. You can do this with almost any vegetable (I recommend starting baby on veg rather than fruit), but my most favourite vegetables to start baby on include sweet potato, pumpkin, and zucchini.

When it comes to making puree, you don’t want it as thin as soup. You’re trying to teach your baby to eat solid foods, and the texture of soup is more like milk than food! It is absolutely fine for you to start with a smooth puree but you do want it thick and more vegetable-like. Kinda like mashed potato.

To add some flavour to puree (because let’s face it, some babies won’t like plain food), you can add some bone broth or olive oil. As your baby progresses through some different foods, you can also try different consistencies, and create chunky/lumpy puree so they get used to manoeuvring foods in their mouth. This might make them gag to begin with, and this is GOOD! Stimulating the gag response allows them to protect their airways and stimulate their vagus nerve (which supports healthy swallowing).

You can feed your baby their puree on a spoon, or you can allow them autonomy and scoop food onto the spoon but let them work it out for themselves. Some babies will also prefer to use their hands early on (mine certainly did!), and you can encourage this exploration if you don’t mind the mess.

Baby-led weaning portions

When starting your baby on larger, hand-held portions, at this age you need to be mindful of two main things. Firstly, that they can hold onto the food and have some of the food in their mouth. Secondly, that the food is prepared in a way that it won’t break off and choke them.

So just because it is a larger piece, you need to ensure the vegetables are well cooked, and soften in your baby’s mouth, and can be moved around the mouth and swallowed/spat out.

As a general guide, each piece of food for this age range should be about the size of an adult finger, in length and width.

8-12 months baby food ideas

By this age, most babies have gotten a handle on swallowing the basic soft foods. You can stat giving them more complex flavours by mixing the previously tasted foods together. Many babies will prefer foods with more flavour, so don’t be afraid to give them some. You need to be avoiding salt, sugar and honey at this age, but herbs and spices, bone broth, butter or olive oil are all safe to give to your baby.

As your baby grows in confidence, you can introduce smaller hand-held foods. However this is an age where it’s best they can still hold onto a part of the food while biting into the rest. Small pieces that go directly into the mouth are not yet safe for this age group.

Casseroles, slow cooked meals, platters with roast vegetables, and even boiled eggs or omelettes are a great meal option for babies between 8-12 months. They will also start to require snacks, such as banana, yoghurts, stewed fruits, and healthy muffins.

Many babies between 8-12 months have a huge increase in appetite, and you might wonder where they put it all! Don’t worry, babies have an innate ability to regulate their own appetites, and rarely overeat (unless you’re forcing them to by spoon feeding them and not reading their signs).

12-18 month food ideas

When preparing food for your child and they are above 1 year of age, they are much more capable of chewing using their teeth, and begin to understand how much they can put in their mouth. However, please bear in mind they are still very new to eating and cannot handle super hard, raw vegetables. You also need to be careful with foods like grapes, sultanas and dried fruit. Even fresh bread can be a choking hazard at this age, and must be cut into portions their mouths can tolerate.

When it comes to bread, I prefer to give my children toast rather than fresh bread. It is crisper, easier to bite pieces off, and easier to manoeuvre in the mouth. Grapes and dried fruits need to be cut into small pieces that can be chewed straight away.

Roasted vegetables and meats can be cut into smaller, bite-sized pieces at this age. About the size of a 5 cent (Australian) piece is what I would recommend. Just enough for them to place in their mouth, chew a bit, and swallow. Foods should generally be soft as this lowers the risk of choking.

Looking for easy and delicious baby food recipe ideas? My 101 Baby Food Recipe ebook is categorised by age, so you know exactly what foods to prepare for your baby! Use the simple recommendations in this blog to create exciting and yummy foods for your baby (and the whole family).