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- When to start baby food
- What baby food should I try first
- Homemade made easy with Thermomix®
- Baby food recipes to get started with
- Book a Thermomix® Cooking Demo
Wondering how or when to get started with solids for your baby? You are not alone! What baby food to start offering and when to start is a question that crosses every parents’ mind.
“It’s one of the most commonly asked questions amongst new mums,” says Thermomix® exec director and dietitian, Bianca Mazur.
That’s why Thermomix® and our resident experts of dietitians, nutritionists and health coaches are here to help with tips and recipes for how to get your baby started on solid foods.
With Thermomix® and Cookidoo®, you’ll be whipping up balanced, healthy and homemade meals for your bub while saving time and money in the kitchen. Yep, you really can do it all.
When to start baby food
At around 6 months*, your baby’s needs for energy and key nutrients such as zinc and iron start to exceed what can be provided via breastmilk or formula, so it’s time to start introducing complementary baby foods.
As a general rule of thumb, give bub their milk first, followed by solids and start off with one ‘solid’ feed per day. Choosing easy recipes you can quickly whip up in Thermomix® while making your family dinner, will save you time and money in the kitchen, and also ensure your baby is eating whole, real foods.
Some signs that Baby is ready to start solids are:
- Baby showing interest and maybe trying to grab food when you eat
- They can sit up and support their head reasonably well
- They are starting to lose their tongue extrusion reflex
*Please note, the information in this blog is general and not comprehensive in any way. Our recommendations are based on the Australian Eat for Health Infant Feeding Guidelines. For more personal advice, please speak to a medical professional such as your Child Health Nurse.
Expert tip: A great thing to remember (and we find can help to take the pressure off too) is that any food bub ingests at this “first food” stage is complementary to their major nourishment, which they are still getting from their milk. So, if your little one is a slow starter in the solids-stakes, it’s not necessarily cause for concern. If you're still in the earlier stages, be sure to check out our tips and recipes during pregnancy and breastfeeding - because nourishing mum is just as important!
What baby food should I try first?
So, you know it’s time to start offering bub solids, the next big question is “what?”
The good news is, latest advice is that we don’t need to stress too much about which foods to give bub and in what order we introduce them. That said, there are some foods that should not be introduced until after 12 months, which we’ve listed below.
Foods not to be introduced until after 12 months:
- Honey
- Sugar
- Salt
- Uncooked eggs
- Processed meats
What’s great about making your food from scratch in Thermomix®, is that with wholefoods that don’t include the above list of ingredients, you can’t really go wrong. So, you can relax and know you’re giving Baby the best of the best.
Expert tip:
- Eat the rainbow: Give bub the opportunity to try different flavours and resist the temptation to make everything sweet by adding too much apple or pear to your purees. A little goes a long way.
- Iron is key: Babies have incredibly high needs for iron, so be sure to include iron-rich foods in your recipe choices such as red meat and poultry, pulses and legumes (soaked, if preferred) and green, leafy veg.
- With allergens*, go early and often: The most common allergy list is cow’s milk, egg, fish, shellfish, peanuts, sesame, soy, tree nuts and wheat. Current recommendations state to start to introduce these in little amounts, early and often. Once you’ve introduced an allergen a few times without a reaction, it’s recommended to continuing to expose your baby to that food regularly.
*If you identify an allergy in your baby or your baby has a reaction to a food, speak to your doctor before introducing that allergen again.
Try out these recipes
Here’s a selection of first foods through to toddler-friendly recipes and family meals to inspire you.
Homemade made easy with Thermomix®
We all know having a new baby keeps you busy. Let alone if you have a baby and a toddler or two thrown into the mix. This is when multi-tasking and time-saving become top of the list, and Thermomix® well and truly comes into its own as your best friend in the kitchen.
You’re in complete control of what bub eats, but without losing out on time and money in the kitchen:
- Controlled ingredients – you know exactly what’s going into baby’s mouth
- Controlled budget – making your own baby food is the most cost-effective solution
- Controlled temps – retaining more of the vitamin and nutrient content
- Controlled speeds – allowing you to create different textures as baby grows
For those very first foods, with Thermomix®, steam your ingredients then transform them into perfectly lump-free baby puree in seconds. As bub grows in age and in confidence, you can regulate the texture of foods super easily with Thermomix® too.
Baby food recipes to get started with
We’ve created a huge variety of nutritious and balanced baby and toddler food recipes as well as all the recipes from our cookbooks with Louise Keats, Wholefood Child and Sweet Nourish, which are all available to you on Cookidoo®, our online recipe platform. You may also like Something for Everyone, which is available in paperback at TheMix Shop.
With Thermomix® TM6 and Cookidoo®, cook with total confidence, following the step-by-step recipes on-screen.
Not yet a Thermomix® owner?
We’d love to show you how Thermomix® will save you time and money in the kitchen, cooking food the whole family will love.
For more information, you can book a Thermomix® Cooking Demo experience, talk to a friendly Consultant, or simply buy your own Thermomix® online now!
Watch our video from our in-house experts Bianca Mazur (dietitian) where she answers the questions: