At about 12 months, your baby is ready to explore more flavours and textures. They are more adventurous and are better able to cope with more textured foods. They become more independent and will like to help feed themselves. This is essential for their development, so brace yourself, there will be a mess!
What do I do?
- Food is now a larger part of your baby's diet with about three meals a day, plus two snacks, supplemented by about 600ml of milk. If your baby is on formula, you can now offer cow's milk in a sipper cup, or other dairy foods.
- Encourage your toddler to eat similar foods as the family (remembering to avoid salt).
- It is not recommended to feed your baby direct from the storage container. The saliva from your baby's mouth can break down the food, making it runny - and you risk contamination. It's best to put the required quantity into a serving dish.
- You can offer most foods to your baby (unless you have a history of allergies - check with your clinic nurse for guidance), but do so gradually.
- Keep in mind your child's diet is averaged over the week - some days they'll eat more than others. Don't resort to bribery or only offering their favourite foods or you can create a fussy eater.
What texture should the food be?
- Your child will enjoy more finger foods now and with many of their teeth through, they need foods that encourage chewing.
- Food should be diced coarsely to offer increased texture.
Click here to view the Feeding Timeline.
What to avoid
- While you should still avoid salt, the addition of some spices or herbs in small quantities is suitable. Remember, your baby's taste buds are very sensitive and what you consider bland is tasty to them.
- Take care with raw vegetables and fruits (particularly raw carrot and apple) as they may cause your baby to choke. You are best to par-cook these to ensure they are soft enough for your child to chew.
Hints and tips
- Offer different coloured foods (such as cooked carrot, beans and corn) to make it fun, encourage variety and learning.
- Good finger foods at this age are toast fingers, cooked vegetable strips, meat strips, rusks, and unsweetened and low salt crackers or biscuits.
- Never leave your baby alone with food. They need to be supervised as larger size hard particles can cause choking.
The Golden Circle Range for this Age
Golden Circle ‘Junior Meal Mates’ are a variety of convenient meal options designed to help introduce a variety of different textures and flavours to toddlers to help develop their chewing skills and ease the transition to regular family foods.
And because Golden Circle understands mums are under more and more pressure these days to make sure their children are eating right, the range has been developed with paediatric dietitians and is based on nutritious vegetable and meat combinations.
So now busy mums have convenient, easy meal alternatives to chicken nuggets or tinned spaghetti - inspiration when they need it most!
The range of five products can be heated and eaten as a meal or served in a variety of quick and interesting ways making mealtime fun for both toddlers and mums.
Vegetable Medley
A tasty tomato based vegetable and pasta dish in the style of a thick minestrone.
- Add some left over roast meat, put in a ramekin and top with mashed potato for an easy Shepherd’s Pie.
- Spread between lasagna sheets, layer, top with cheese and bake for an instant vege lasagne.
- Add to some cooked gnocchi or tortellini for a more filling meal.
Beans, Vegetables & Beef
A mild Mexican style tomato based meal with kidney beans, beef shreds and vegetables.
- Heat & serve over baked pita wedges topped with grated cheese for a quick nachos.
- Put in a burrito/tortilla with salad vegetables and roll up. Serve with cheese and avocado slices.
- Cut a small boiled or baked potato (skin on) in half and top with heated Bean mixture.
Noodles, Corn & Chicken
Noodle lengths with chicken shreds, corn kernels and a blend of cheesy vegetables.
- Cook in small pie dish topped with puff pastry for a quick and tasty pie.
- Use as a filling in puff pastry parcels – just like little chicken pasties.
- Fill small vol-au-vent cases and bake.
Pear Mango Rice Pudding
A thick rice dessert with sweet tasting pureed pear and mango.
- Serve with sliced fresh mango and/or pear.
- Serve with a dollop of vanilla yoghurt.
- Serve on a pikelet
- Serve in short crust pastry with crumbled biscuit on top
Strawberry Chocolate Custard
A fruity twist on the ever popular chocolate custard, with a subtle strawberry flavour.
- Use as a quick filling for butterfly patty cakes.
- Make a quick trifle with peach slices, custard and baby fruit gel. Layer with some vanilla yoghurt.
- Fill mini tart cases and top with slices of fresh strawberries.
Download these great recipe ideas and pass them onto your friends.
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Junior Drinks - from 6 months |
From around six months you can introduce your baby to a drinking cup. He/she will need some assistance and will probably take some time to manage drinking from the cup. Use the cup to introduce water or diluted fruit juice to your baby's diet. However, never put fruit juice in your baby's bottle as the natural sugars and may cause tooth decay.
It is recommended that you limit diluted juices to no more than 120mL per day until your child is 12 months old.
The 125mL size is the perfect amount of diluted juice for them and travels well in your nappy bag.
If your child is not yet ready to use a straw, just snip the corner from the 125ml pack and pour into their sipper cup. Golden Circle Junior Drinks have NO added sugar and contain less then 4% natural fruit sugars.
It is important that infants do not consume undiluted fruit juice as it is high in natural sugars. Golden Circle Junior drinks offer the perfect blend of fruit juice and purified water (diluted with around 70% sterilised water), so it is ready to drink and convenient for you. Golden Circle Junior drinks are also available ion a convenient 750mL fridge pack.
