Starting solids: an Irish parent's guide to weaning
When to start, what to offer first and the short list of foods to keep off the spoon.
Starting solids, or weaning as the HSE calls it, is one of those milestones that arrives with a suspicious amount of advice attached. Your mum did it one way, the forums insist on another and the baby has opinions of her own. The good news is that the official guidance is short and sensible, and most of the drama is optional.
When to start
The HSE advice is to start around 6 months. Never before 17 weeks, and don't leave it later than 26 weeks. That's the whole window.
Within it, age alone isn't the trigger. What you're waiting for is the signs together:
- Baby can sit up with support and hold their head steady
- They show real interest in your food, staring at your fork like it owes them money
- They can pick things up and bring them to their mouth
- The tongue-thrust reflex, the one that pushes food straight back out, is fading
One of these on its own doesn't mean much. All of them at once, around the 6-month mark, means you're probably there.
Milk is still the main event
Breast milk or formula stays the main source of nutrition until 12 months. Those first spoonfuls of solids are practice, not replacement. If most of the first week ends up on the bib, the floor and the dog, that's fine. Nobody is relying on the parsnip.
First foods: think iron
By around 6 months a baby's iron stores are running down, so iron-rich foods matter more than anything trendy. Good first foods include:
- Well-cooked pureed or mashed meat
- Iron-fortified baby cereals
- Well-cooked eggs
- Beans and lentils
- Pureed or soft vegetables and fruit alongside
Introduce one new food at a time. It keeps mealtimes calm and, if something disagrees with the baby, you'll actually know which food it was.
What about allergens?
The common allergens, egg, peanut in a safe form like smooth peanut butter thinned down, wheat and fish, should be introduced one at a time, at home, not before 6 months but not needlessly delayed either. Delaying them doesn't protect against allergy. If your baby has eczema or there's a family history of allergy, talk to your PHN or GP before you start.
Foods to avoid
The list is shorter than the internet suggests, but the entries on it matter:
| Foods to avoid | And why |
|---|---|
| Honey before 12 months | Risk of infant botulism |
| Added salt | Kidneys can't handle it |
| Added sugar | No benefit, harms new teeth |
| Whole nuts before age 5 | Choking risk |
| Cow's milk as a main drink before 12 months | Too low in iron |
| Raw or runny eggs (unless safely produced) | Food poisoning risk |
Cow's milk in cooking is fine from 6 months, it just shouldn't be the main drink until 12 months. And skip high-mercury fish like shark or swordfish entirely.
Textures: smooth, mashed, lumpy, finger foods
The progression goes smooth, then mashed, then lumpy, then finger foods. Lumps are a skill, not a hazard to postpone forever. Babies learn to manage texture by meeting it, and hanging around on purees for months makes the eventual jump harder, not safer.
The one non-negotiable: always stay with the baby while they're eating. Every meal, every snack, every hopeful gumming of a bit of toast.
How we handle it in the app
Lullagram has a weaning and solid foods log that follows the HSE guidance, so you can track what was tried and how it went. First taste of egg on Tuesday, went down grand. Broccoli on Thursday, thrown at the wall. Both parents see the same log, so whoever is doing dinner knows exactly where you are and what's next.
That matters most with allergens, where "one at a time, at home" only works if everyone knows what's already been tried.
The full official guidance is on the HSE weaning pages and it's worth a read before the first spoon.