From 7 months

This is often known as the ‘honeymoon’ period of weaning, when babies are more willing to try lots of new tastes and textures, so make the most of it!

There are still some tips worth keeping in mind:

• Offer as much variety of foods as possible. This helps to establish good eating habits and gives your baby lots of different vitamins and minerals
• Sometimes you need to offer a food more than 10 times before your baby will accept it, so don't give up! If your baby strongly refuses a food, try it again on another day in smaller tastes so they have plenty of opportunities to develop a preference for it

Weaning foods from 7 months

• Introduce foods with more texture to encourage chewing. You can continue to give pureed foods, but try your baby on some foods containing soft lumps and mashed foods too.
• Check out the delicious HiPP Organic Stage 2 recipes e.g. Cheesy Pasta Bake - these recipes have special small soft lumps for babies learning to chew
• You can continue using your baby's favourite HiPP Organic 'Stage 1 from 6 months' recipes
• HiPP Organic Breakfasts e.g. Breakfast Duet Tropical Muesli with Yogurt
• HiPP Organic desserts such as Rice Pudding with Apple and Pear or Fruit & Pieces (with pieces of fruit)
• Mashed avocado
• Vegetables with lentils, mashed
• Pureed pulses such as lentils (e.g. dahl or hummus)
• Meals that include meat
• Baked sweet potato mixed with finely grated cheese
• Well-cooked scrambled egg with finely chopped tomato

Watch Helen's video below for advice on how to introduce lumps to your baby's diet.

Ideal finger foods for your baby

Babies need to learn to chew and to begin feeding themselves. Although your baby may not have any teeth yet, their gums are quite hard and so finger foods should be managed quite easily now.

Watch Helen's video below on introducing fingers foods to your baby.

These foods are good for your baby to hold and eat:

• Toast soldiers
• Breadsticks
• Pitta bread or chapattis
• Soft fruit pieces such as banana, ripe pear, peach, melon or kiwi
• Soft, cooked vegetable pieces such as green beans, cauliflower or broccoli florets
• Rice cakes

Take care

Be careful with hard foods that could cause choking, and make sure there is always someone with your baby while they’re eating. Babies don't always like the lumps at first and may spit them out or appear to gag on them. It can take your baby a while to learn to control the lumps in their mouth, so they may spit bits out or cough them back for more chewing. This is perfectly fine and doesn’t mean they are choking.

If your baby does choke then calmly lift them up and turn them upside down. Try to do it gently and without panicking so that you don't frighten them.

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