From around eight months of age, you will start to know more about your baby's preferences and behaviour and the introduction of new tastes and textures is another exciting step in their development.

---

What do I do?

• From about eight months you can give solids before breast milk or baby formula, but you should still be giving the recommended amounts of milk each day. Your baby may now consume two or three solid meals (half to one cup or 120-250g) in addition to four or five breast or bottle feeds (about 600-800ml) each day.
• It's not recommended to feed your baby direct from the storage container as enzymes in your baby's saliva can affect the food, making it runny. You also risk contamination, as the bacteria from your baby's saliva will grow in the food. It's best to put the required quantity into a serving dish.
• Begin to offer a range of tastes and textures to broaden your baby's diet and to encourage chewing.
• Once pureed fruit and vegetables have been introduced, you can then add lean meat, chicken and boneless fish. Meat should be pureed, very finely chopped or minced. Meat is an excellent source of iron which plays an important part in your baby's development.
• Once your baby is able to grasp and hold objects, offer finger foods including pieces of cooked vegetables such as carrot or broccoli, and soft fruit such as melon, peach and pear. This will encourage self-feeding. (Remember hard, raw foods (raw carrot) will not be able to be chewed at this age and can cause choking).

NOTE: if your baby is vegetarian, you can substitute meat with other iron-rich foods such as well-cooked and mashed legumes and, after nine months of age, egg yolk. Be sure to offer a food containing vitamin C (apple, pear, potato, bananas) with the meal as this increases iron absorption from vegetable sources.

Click here for more on vegetarian diets

---

What texture should the food be?

• From around 8 months, your baby will be ready for slightly more textured foods. This encourages biting and chewing, even if they still have no teeth, and will help with teething and later, with talking.
• Foods can now be mashed, grated, diced or be a coarser puree.
• All Golden Circle products in this category have the appropriate texture for babies of this age.

Click here to view the Feeding Timeline.

---

What should my baby drink?

Breast milk or formula is recommended as a milk drink until your baby is one year of age. Cooked boiled water should also be provided to maintain hydration.

From around six months you can introduce your baby to a drinking cup. They 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 juices to your baby's diet. However, never put fruit juices in your baby's bottle as it is high in natural sugars and may cause dental caries.

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, filtered water (with just 4% natural sugars and only about 67% purified, filtered water), so it is safe and ready to drink. This makes Golden Circle Junior not only good for your child, but convenient for you.

Your child should consume a maximum of 120ml of diluted fruit juice per day before 12 months of age.

---

What to avoid

• To minimize allergies, don't use eggs whites or cows milk until after 12 months. If there is a family history of allergy to peanuts, peanut products should not be introduced until after three years.
• Do not give your child honey until they are a year old, as it may contain harmful bacteria that cause food poisoning.
• Don't add salt or strongly flavoured spices and keep sugars to a minimum.
• Avoid hard foods that are likely to cause choking. These include nuts, small bones or gristle in fish, meat or poultry, raw apple, carrot or celery (grated or cooked is fine), sausage or Frankfurt skins, whole peas, corn, beans, seeds or grapes.

---

Hints and tips

• Allow your baby to start feeding themselves. Although this can be messy, your baby will love the experience and it is important for the development of hand-eye coordination.
• Make food more appealing by serving in a brightly coloured dish or arranging different coloured cooked foods on a plate.

---

The Golden Circle range for this age

2nd Foods products are suitable specifically for babies from eight months and have pink labels.