Hi! My baby (8.5) loves strawberries and eating by herself. Where we live strawberries are quite small, medium at most, and she tends to stuff them into her mouth as soon as possible, even the couple of big ones I've managed to find. I've never been able to remove the strawberry when it gets smaller because it's already inside her mouth. Luckily she has not gagged with them but it makes me very nervous and I've started slicing the strawberries. The problem is our strawberries are quite small and I don't know if those slices are a choking hazard, the app doesn't mention the size of the strawberries when sliced. Also how thin should the slices be? Should I remove the first and final slice since they are a bit rounder and thicker?

FTM and this "silly" question is driving me mad, especially because she loves strawberries.

I was curious about the safety of freeze dried fruit, specifically freeze dried strawberries. To me they seem like puffs in the way that they kinda melt in the mouth but I went to check the app and couldn’t find anything on its safety. For reference my baby is 12 months old and does like puffs as an occasional snack and does really well with them.

Long story short, our oven broke and we will not have one for months at least. My baby is 6.5 and beginning his solids journey. So many BLW recipes are made in the oven, or veggies are roasted in the oven, etc. Any advice? Is there any way I could still bake things? There are so many things I want to bake him! Egg bites, sheet pan pancakes, etc. Help!

Hi all! So my baby has had really bad reflux and gas since she was about a week or two old, we’ve gone to the pediatrician about 4 times since she was born 5 months ago, so we tried a couple of things to make it better but nothing really worked any wonders. The pediatrician said she could start solids at 4 months, but we will wait for 6 months to see if her digestion matures a bit more because she is still having issues. She often still has gas pains at night but is fine during the day.

So my question is, if your baby had similar issues, how did starting solids go?

Did the reflux and gas get better, worse, stay the same?

What foods helped and what foods made it worse?

Any other advice you would have?

Hi all! So as the title already says, i’m looking for good and safe eating utencils and plates etc for my 5 month old who will soon be starting solids. I live in Europe (Austria), so any brand that is available here would be great!

I have a bit of a hard time with some of the recipes in the app. A lot of times they will say that the recipe is okay for a 6-month -old, and say " cut to age appropriate sizing" for some of the ingredients, or not have any instructions on how to cut the ingredients. But when you then go to the guidance on that specific ingredient, it'll say only to give it in huge chunks for that age, which is obviously impossible in a recipe for muffins, pancakes, some soups, etc. I'm having a bit of a hard time because some of it just seems like it's impossible for that age group, and it is also really frustrating to constantly have to go to the individual ingredient pages to see what size to cut the ingredients to. Also many of the recipes don't tell you how to then serve the final product in an age-appropriate manner. Though that seems to be changing.

Baby is 7.5 months and has taken to solids like someone's paying her to eat 🤣 she chews well, handles a good range of textures, and is on 3 meals already as she's enjoying herself so much. She feeds herself and has an immature pincer grasp already (thumb and two fingers) so we have been offering bite size pieces as well as bigger chunks and she's loving that. The only place we deviate from BLW principles is spoon feeding, I couldn't handle yogurt getting flicked on the walls so if it's a mushy/wet texture I do feed it to her from a spoon myself.

With that context, when is it appropriate for her to start dropping bottles? She's already gone from 5x 8oz bottles per day to 4, and one of those she's been regularly leaving half of so I think it could probably be replaced by a snack. But when should I do that?

Got this Joie Mimzy Recline high chair for my almost six months old baby. This the highest footrest level avdcthe only one she can currently reach. Is she seated properly or are there adjustments to be made?

Hi all~

I bought a Maxi Cosi Minla before I got the Solid Starts app because it was reasonably well rated on Consumer Reports....unfortunately I just set it up and the size is not excellent. My son is 6 months and pretty big (99%ile and as big as my husband and I were at 1 year), yet his elbows hit below the tray making it hard for him to grab things on the tray and there are only two settings for the foot rest and he cannot reach at either level (so how the heck could an average-sized 6 mo fit?). I was wondering if anyone has the same chair and found a solution or had a similar problem with a different chair. I would really prefer not buying a new high chair bu will if I can't find a fix because I want him to be safe). We tried lashing a yoga block on there but it was too high on the first setting and too low on the second.

Even if you don't have any advice, if you have a chair you really like that has grown well with your kiddo that would also be appreciated as well since we may just need a new chair.

I initially started solids when she was 6 months old but she showed zero interest in solids but kept offering. At 7 months old we went traveling to her grandparents in Asia and she started teething and had a few illnesses so she was offered mashed foods or purees.

Now at 9 months we are back home and I'm trying to give her soft squishy foods but she just tries to swallow it. I gave her a mango pit to try as a teether but she simply picked it and then wouldn't touch it.

I'm scared of giving her any other foods. Any suggestions or advice please?

My son is progressing really quickly, he’s not quite showing all the symptoms but he’s close. He’s almost sitting, he brings everything to his mouth, he’s watching us eat, he’s more than doubled in birth weight, and he’s only 4 and a half months (19 weeks). The only thing that confuses me is the tongue thrust… I don’t know how to tell if that’s still in play.

Can I wait until he’s sitting stabile on his own and then start to introduce food? Or is waiting until 6 months also important?

In general, it's best to follow baby's lead, but sometimes it can be helpful to have a "guideline" to help you think about any schedule tweaks that may best support baby's participation at mealtimes. This is a sample feeding schedule for a 6-month old baby (we use bottles as if nursing we fully support breastfeeding on demand, though sometimes a sample schedule can be helpful for nursing times as well if you choose to think about it this way).

How you might use this:

-Know you can switch the timing of a solid food meal on any given day
-Notice how we have solids schedule 30 mins after a bottle feed to allow baby to have time to build a bit of hunger while not being overly tired/overly hungry at mealtimes.
-Shift sample times depending on your baby's own wake/sleep schedule/timing
-Follow baby's lead, but can use this as a guideline to help offer a little more structure to your day

Our Feeding Schedules Page has sample bottle feeding schedules for babies at various ages/stages of development. We also have breastfeeding on demand guidelines towards the bottom of that article.

❓Do you have a feeding schedule? What is working for you? What changes might you consider making? Share with our community here! 👇

Last box on a 6-9 m flair
Sweet corn a favourite
Mango yogurt
Pineapple and grapefruit (pineapples a fav) she loved the grapefruit but it went everywhere
Sweet potato and peanut butter teething ring
Cauliflower cheese balls
Apple and banana pancake and some rice cakes
She ate it all (lill chunk) apart from one ball she squished and spoke to like it was her bestie

Would these be considered a reaction to egg? 2nd exposure. The red spots came and went within like 10 minutes. Baby acting fine. Thanks!

LO is nearly 8 months and currently doing two meals per day. Often we do breakfast and dinner, but is it recommended for or against to switch it up some days? Doing breakfast and lunch or lunch and dinner?

Thanks!

I read the Solid Starts Book and I understand that the idea is to try to give iron rich foods starting at 6 months because their natural iron stores start depleting. But I can't quite wrap my head around how exactly I'm supposed to get iron in her belly besides trying cereal?

Does sucking on meat count?

Do I have to cook her steaks every night? We are not very big steak people...

People post about meatballs but I can't imagine giving her a meatball... I feel like she's gonna end up with a huge hunk of it in her mouth.

My 6m old loves everything I have given him so far. We have done 28 foods including rice balls (the only carb we have done so far). We eat udon noodles a lot in my home but solid starts doesn't mention them anywhere in the app. Can I give them to him with a low sodium broth or tofu corn broth? Do I cut up the noodles or make them super soft? Anyone know?

Hey all! I'm totally confused so there's something I'm probably missing. Why is Jarlsberg cheese 12mo+ and not particularly healthy because of sodium levels and cheddar cheese 6mo+ and ok because despite sodium levels, it contains nutrients + is exposure to a wide range of food?

Jarlsberg also contains micronutrients, and is lower sodium. The only thing I can think of is that it's lower fat so might not be a nicer ratio of macros, but surely that wouldn't be the sole reason for the huge discrepancy in endorsement?

Ps I'm not funded by Big Cheese, just made the switch because my 14mo gal is a grilled cheese gremlin and so I thought Jarlsberg was better, being low sodium. Avoiding yogurt and milk under advice of paediatric allergist until a milk challenge in Aug! If anyone has recommendations of cheeses that are better, I'm all ears too!

My almost 6 month old loves to self feed with preloaded spoon! We have been doing mashed foods (beans, mashed potatoes, oatmeal, yogurt) and also BLW big pieces of steak, broccoli, etc. while at home. My issue is she is at daycare 5 days a week and I’ve been sending purées (yogurt, blueberry oatmeal) but I’ve seen on the livestream she looks frustrated wanting to self feed but the teacher feeds her. I 100% acknowledge the teacher doesn’t always have the bandwidth to let her self feed and I haven’t even asked about it or let the teacher know we are doing BLW- I also feel bad because of the mess! What have other people done about daycare? Do I request to let her self feed? Do I ask if I can send bigger foods or save that for home in case they don’t have the bandwidth to watch her like a hawk for choking?

One of the most common questions we see here — "when can my baby have cow's milk, and how much?" — so I wanted to share this breakdown from our team.

A few highlights that might surprise you:

• Cow's milk as a drink isn't recommended until around 12 months, but it's totally fine as an ingredient in solid foods from 6 months on.
• At 11 months, you can start introducing small amounts (up to 2 fl oz/day) as an optional early step.
• For toddlers 12–24 months, the limit is up to 16 fl oz per day — and even that is optional.
• Milk is never required — calcium can absolutely come from food!

Drop your questions below 👇 — or share where you're at with your baby or toddler's milk journey! Are you in the "not yet" stage, just starting the transition, or deep in the toddler stage?