Starting solid food at six months, and the year that follows
At six months a baby starts eating in addition to breastfeeding, not instead of it, and the food needs to be thick enough to stay on a tipped spoon rather than run off it. Start with a few spoonfuls of soft mashed food a couple of times a day, and build steadily so that by the first birthday the child is eating a small bowl at each family meal plus something in between. The two mistakes that cause most of the trouble are porridge that is too thin and meals that are too few.
- Six months is when food starts. Breastfeeding carries on alongside it, well into the second year.
- If the porridge runs off a tipped spoon it is mostly water. Thicken it.
- Small stomach, so small meals often. Frequency goes up steadily through the first year.
- Add one new food at a time and give it a few days, so you know what caused a reaction.
- Every child gets their own bowl. Feeding from the shared pot hides how little the youngest actually ate.
General information, not medical advice. If you are worried about a mother or a child, go to your nearest health facility or speak to your village health team.
What changes at six months, and what does not
At around six months breast milk stops being enough on its own. The child needs more energy and more iron than milk alone now provides, and their body is ready to handle food: they can sit with support, hold their head steady, and move food to the back of the mouth instead of pushing it out.
What does not change is the breastfeeding. Milk stays the largest part of what the child gets for a good while yet, and it goes on being valuable into the second year. Food is being added, not swapped in.
Offer the breast first and food afterwards in the early weeks of this change, so the child is not filling up on a new thing and taking less milk. That order shifts naturally as the months go on.
What the first spoonfuls should actually look like
Start with something soft, smooth and familiar to the household: well-cooked mashed orange sweet potato, mashed matoke, thick millet or maize porridge, mashed pumpkin. It should be smooth enough to have no lumps a baby could choke on, and thick enough to sit on the spoon.
A few spoonfuls is a real portion at this stage. The child's stomach is roughly the size of their fist. Do not measure success by an empty bowl on day one; measure it by the child being willing to open their mouth again tomorrow.
Two feeding times a day is enough at the start, at times that fit the household rather than times invented for the guide. Most families settle on mid-morning and late afternoon, when somebody has hands free to sit with the child.
Why thin porridge is the mistake that costs the most
Field officers see the same bowl in every district: a maize or millet porridge thinned with water until it can be drunk. It is quick, it is cheap, it uses less flour, and a small child will take it without a fight.
The problem is arithmetic. A small stomach holds only so much, and if most of what goes in is water, the child fills up long before they have taken enough food. A child on thin porridge can be eating five times a day and still thinning out.
The test is simple. Load a spoon and tip it. If the porridge runs straight off, it is too thin. If it holds and falls slowly in a lump, it is right. Thickening it costs nothing but more flour and less water, and it is the single change that turns most yellow readings around.
How much and how often, month by month through the first year
The shape of the year is that texture gets rougher, portions get bigger and meals get more frequent, all at the same steady pace. Nothing here happens on a birthday. Move on when the child is managing what they have now.
- Around six to seven months: smooth mashed food, thick on the spoon, a few spoonfuls at a time, roughly twice a day, breastfeeding on demand throughout.
- Around eight to nine months: mashed rather than pureed, with soft lumps. Bigger portions and about three feeding times a day. This is when a child starts grabbing at food and should be allowed to, with clean hands and something soft to hold.
- Around ten to eleven months: finely chopped and mashed family food rather than a separate dish. Three meals plus something small in between, such as a piece of ripe banana, avocado or a boiled egg.
- Around twelve months: a small bowl of the family food at each of the family's meals, chopped small and not heavily spiced, plus one or two snacks. Still breastfeeding, and still their own bowl.
Who feeds the child when you are in the garden
What goes into the pot is a subject of its own, and our guide on building a balanced plate from food that grows nearby lists the cheapest things to stir into one. The harder question in this year is who is holding the spoon. Most households cook twice, morning and evening, and a child of this age has to eat more often than the household does, which means somebody has to feed the child at a time when nothing is being cooked.
Agree one named person rather than leaving it to whoever is around. Show them once what the right thickness looks like, with the spoon tipped over the bowl, because a carer who has raised children a different way will thin it down to be kind. Leave the child's portion out before you go, in the child's own bowl, covered, so nobody has to judge how much to give from the family pot.
Where the person minding the child is an older sister of nine or ten, leave food that needs no fire and no reheating, covered, and meant to be eaten within a few hours rather than standing all day. She should know to come and find an adult if the child will not eat, rather than deciding to leave it. That is a fair thing to ask of a girl her age. Deciding on her own is not.
Then ask what happened when you get back, and ask it in a way that can be answered honestly. How much did the child take, did the child refuse it, did any of it come back up. Somebody who expects to be blamed will say the child ate well every time, and then the first sign that anything is wrong will be the band.
What to do when a child refuses food
Refusal at this age is normal and it is usually about the situation, not the food. A child who is tired, ill, teething, or being fed hurriedly by somebody who has three other things to do will turn their head away.
Sit with the child, face them, talk to them, and go slowly. Offer, wait, offer again. A new food often needs to be tried on several separate days before it is accepted, and a food refused on Monday is regularly eaten on Thursday. Do not force a child's mouth open and do not turn a meal into a fight, because a child who learns that mealtimes are unpleasant refuses harder.
Give the child their own bowl so you can see what they actually ate. In a compound where everybody eats from one dish, the youngest and slowest eats least, and nobody notices until the arm changes colour.
How to keep the food safe when the child is this small
Diarrhoea at this age undoes weeks of feeding in a few days, and most of it comes from the kitchen rather than from the child. Wash hands with soap before cooking and before feeding, and wash the child's hands too once they start feeding themselves.
Cook fresh for the child where you can, and if food is kept, keep it covered and reheat it properly until it is steaming rather than warm. Leftover porridge standing in a warm kitchen through the afternoon is a common cause of an upset stomach.
Use clean water for anything mixed rather than cooked, wash the child's bowl and spoon separately, and keep the feeding cup covered. If the child does get diarrhoea, they need to keep eating and drinking rather than being starved of food, and oral rehydration salts are what to reach for while you decide whether to go to the health centre.
How to tell it is going well
Watch three things. The child is growing, which the health facility can show you on the growth chart in the child health card. The arm stays green when it is measured. And the child is active, curious and interested in food.
A child who was gaining and stops gaining, even without losing, is worth taking seriously straight away. Flattening on the chart comes before thinning on the arm, and it is much easier to correct at that point.
Bring the child health card to every visit and ask the health worker to show you the line rather than just filing the card away. It is the household's record, not the facility's, and it is the earliest warning available.
This guide describes what generally happens, not what will happen at your facility or your school. Costs, timetables and rules differ between districts and they change. Check anything that matters with your health worker, the head teacher, or your district office. If something here is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Questions people ask
- My baby is five months and always hungry. Can we start early?
- Wait for six months if you can, and feed at the breast more often in the meantime. Starting early means less milk taken, more exposure to whatever is in the water and the bowl, and a gut that is not quite ready. If you are worried the baby is not gaining, have them weighed rather than starting food.
- Is cow's milk alright after six months?
- It can be part of a meal once the child is eating food, but it should not replace breastfeeding or become the main thing the child lives on. Boil it first. Ask a health worker before making it a large part of a child's diet in the first year.
- Can I feed the child from the family pot instead of cooking separately?
- Yes, once they are managing chopped food, and it is usually better because it means the child eats what the household eats. Take the child's portion out before adding chilli or a lot of salt, chop or mash it small, and put it in the child's own bowl so you can see how much went in.
- The child eats plenty but is still thin. What am I missing?
- Nine times out of ten it is either that the food is too thin or that it is all staple, so the child gets bulk without much of what a body builds with. Thicken the porridge first, and make sure something that builds the body goes into the same pot rather than being served beside it. If nothing changes in a few weeks, have the child screened, because a child who eats and stays thin may have something else going on.
- Which foods should I be careful with at this age?
- Anything hard, round and small is a choking risk, so whole groundnuts, whole beans with skins, and lumps of raw vegetable should be pounded or mashed instead. Very salty, very sugary and heavily spiced food is not useful to a baby. And nothing should be given raw that would normally be cooked.