Weaning and First Foods From 6 Months: A Desi Plan by Month

One teaspoon. That is how much a baby’s first meal needs to be, and most desi families offer a bowl. This is a weaning plan for first foods from 6 months, built around what is already in a Pakistani or Indian kitchen: what to start with, textures month by month, the iron foods that matter, how to introduce egg and peanut, and the short list of things (salt, sugar, honey, ghee, cow’s milk as a drink) that stay out until 1.

How to tell the baby is ready

Three signs together, not the age on the card: the baby sits with a little support and holds the head steady, can look at food, grab it and get it to the mouth, and has stopped pushing food straight back out with the tongue. Most get there at about 6 months. Chewing fists, waking more at night and watching you eat are not signs of readiness; every 4-month-old does all three.

Before 6 months the gut, kidneys and swallow are not ready, and early solids replace milk the baby needs, so under 6 months it is breast milk or formula and nothing else: no water, no rice water, no ghutti, no “just a taste.” Premature babies count from the due date, and their doctor sets the timing.

What to start with, and how much

A single-ingredient soft food, once a day, half an hour after a milk feed when the baby is alert and not starving: one to two teaspoons on a small spoon, the baby leading, stopping when they turn away. Build to two meals a day over two weeks and three by 8 or 9 months. Milk feeds drop naturally as food goes up.

Good desi first foods, in no particular order:

• Mashed ripe banana, or mashed papaya.
• Well-cooked moong daal, mashed and thinned with the cooking water or breast milk. No tarka, no salt.
• Rice khichdi, cooked soft and mashed through a sieve to start.
• Dalia (broken wheat) porridge cooked in water, then in breast milk or formula.
• Ragi porridge, made from properly prepared flour; the baby-safe method is in our ragi porridge guide.
• Mashed boiled potato, sweet potato (shakarkandi), kaddu or carrot.
• Hard-boiled egg yolk mashed with a little breast milk, then whole egg.
• Well-cooked, finely mashed chicken or mutton mixed into daal or khichdi from about 6 to 7 months.
• Plain dahi (full fat, unsweetened) from 6 months, as a food, not as a drink.

Sooji kheer and rice cereal are fine, but low in iron, and it is easy for a baby to live on white cereal for months. Rotate them with daal, egg and meat.

Iron: why first foods from 6 months matter

A baby is born with an iron store that lasts about 6 months, after which breast milk alone does not cover it, and iron is the nutrient most often short in South Asian toddlers. Every day from 6 months, one food from this list: egg yolk, mashed meat or chicken, daal (moong, masoor), chana, ragi, well-cooked palak mashed into khichdi, or fortified baby cereal. A squeeze of lemon or a spoon of mashed fruit alongside helps the body absorb plant iron. Tea, even weak, blocks it, and tea is not for babies anyway. Cow’s milk as a drink before 1 is the other iron thief. It goes in cooking from 6 months and becomes a drink only after 1 year.

Textures, month by month

Lumps by 8 to 9 months matter, because babies kept on smooth purees past 9 or 10 months often refuse texture later. Gagging (a cough, a red face, food pushed forward) is normal and protective. Choking (silent, unable to cry, going blue) is the emergency.

Egg, peanut and the other allergens

The advice has reversed since your mother’s day. Waiting until 1 or 2 years to give egg or peanut does not prevent allergy; introducing them early, around 6 months and once a few first foods have gone in, appears to reduce the risk. Introduce one at a time, a small amount, at a morning or midday meal so you can watch the baby for two hours, and once tolerated keep giving it two or three times a week.

1. Egg: hard-boil for 10 minutes. Mash a quarter teaspoon of yolk into a food the baby already takes. If fine, next time half a teaspoon of yolk, then whole egg mashed. Never raw or runny egg for a baby.
2. Peanut: mix half a teaspoon of smooth peanut butter (no salt, no sugar; check the label) or finely ground roasted peanut powder with 2 teaspoons of warm water or breast milk until thin and smooth. Give a small taste, wait 10 minutes, then the rest. Never whole peanuts, chopped nuts or a spoon of thick peanut butter; all three choke. Our peanut guide covers buying and storing the safe kind.
3. Wheat: a little dalia or a strip of soft roti.
4. Dairy: plain dahi, or milk in cooking.
5. Fish: well-cooked, boneless, mashed, from about 7 months.
6. Sesame (til), from paste or well-ground, and other nuts as thin pastes, one at a time.
7. Watch for a reaction within 2 hours: hives, swelling of the lips or face, vomiting, or a sudden rash. Stop that food and see a doctor. Any wheeze, breathing difficulty, floppy or pale baby, or swelling of the tongue is an emergency: go now.

A baby with bad eczema or a diagnosed egg allergy is at higher risk of peanut allergy; for those babies the peanut introduction is planned with a doctor. Ask first.

Choking rules

Always seated upright, always with an adult watching, never in a moving car or a walker. Cut grapes, cherry tomatoes and anything round lengthways into quarters; no whole nuts, popcorn, hard sweets, raw carrot rounds, whole seeds or chunks of hard fruit under 5 years; bones out of fish and meat by hand, twice. Learn back blows and chest thrusts for a baby before the first meal, not after a scare.

The under-1 do-not list

• No added salt. No salty foods: papad, chips, pickles, namkeen, processed cheese, stock cubes. A baby’s whole day needs less than 1 g of salt, and milk already provides it. When the baby moves to family food, keep the family’s pot less salty; the iodised salt guide explains why the salt you do use should be iodised.
• No added sugar, gur, shakkar, honey, jaggery, jam, biscuits, rusk, sweetened cereal, sweetened dahi. Honey is never given under 1, in cooking or raw.
• No cow’s milk, buffalo milk or goat milk as a drink. In cooking from 6 months is fine.
• No juice, chai, coffee, cola, sharbat, or “baby” drinks. Water in a cup with meals from 6 months; milk otherwise.
• No whole nuts, whole seeds, popcorn, hard sweets or uncut grapes.
• No raw or runny egg, no undercooked meat, no unpasteurised milk or lassi from an open dairy.
• No low-fat anything. Babies need the fat.

A realistic first month

Week one: a single food, one to two teaspoons, once a day, after the late-morning feed. Week two: two foods already tried, two meals. Week three: egg, then peanut paste, on separate days. Week four: lumpier khichdi with mashed chicken or daal, dahi as a second course, and a strip of steamed carrot to hold. Most of it lands on the floor. That is the meal. Teething will interrupt appetite now and then; our article on teething and what it does and does not cause tells you what to expect. More on the first year is under Bachon Ki Sehat. Loose stools after a new food are common for a day; true diarrhoea is covered in loose motions in children by age.