New Start4Life digital tools help make healthy weaning easy

Introducing solid foods to your baby is a big step for parents and for baby too. With so much information out there, it can be difficult to know where to start and what to do.

Start4Life has launched its first ever campaign providing parents with advice and support on introducing solid foods (weaning), during what can be a confusing time of baby’s development.

As part of the campaign, a brand-new weaning hub has launched on the Start4Life website to help parents during their weaning journey. Packed with NHS-approved advice and tips for each weaning stage, plus tons of simple, healthy weaning recipes and meal ideas, it puts everything parents need to know in one place.

Visit the weaning hub for NHS-approved advice, tips and recipes

The weaning hub also includes helpful new videos showing the signs that point to baby being ready to wean, how much food to give, as well as weaning tips from other parents based on their own experience of weaning their baby.

Ruth, who is one of the parents to appear in the videos on the hub, shares some of her weaning tips and how she was able to recognise when her baby, Mo, now ten-months-old, was first ready to try solid foods.

“We started weaning Mo onto solid food at six months. We followed the medical advice and we knew that he was ready because he was sitting up securely in his high chair and his aim was good, putting things into his mouth with his hand.”

 

Hear more weaning stories from Ruth and other parents at the weaning hub

NHS advice is to start giving your baby solid foods from around six months old, alongside their usual breast milk or infant formula, when their stomach should be developed enough to cope with foods other than milk.

Waiting until around six months gives your baby time to develop, so that they can cope fully with solid foods. That means that they can progress to a range of tastes and textures more quickly, and be better at chewing and swallowing food – important for weaning safely.

Remember, weaning your baby is an opportunity to have fun exploring new tastes and textures together. The key is to be patient and go at your baby’s pace. They will eventually get the hang of it, and so will you!

For expert advice and support on making healthy weaning easy, visit: 
www.nhs.uk/start4life/weaning.

Local support

The Greenwich Health Visiting Service run free Starting Solids sessions in Children’s Centres around the borough. You can find out how and where to book on to these and other sessions at Oxleas Parent Online.

Find even more information, tips and support on our Early Years pages.