At this stage, your baby should be able for a wider variety of foods in greater textures, and should be able to manage more than 2 textures in one meal.  You should base your baby’s meals and snacks around normal family foods and mealtimes.

Increase the variety of foods to allow your baby to experience more tastes and flavours. Offer 3 meals plus 2-3 nutritious snacks.  The approximate size of each meal should be 4-6 tablespoons but this will depend on your baby’s appetite.

Foods should be more lumpy foods, and you can also offer chopped foods in bite-sized pieces and harder pieces of finger food  that your baby can pick up and feed himself should also be offered. Continue to breastfeed on demand or give your baby their ususal milk feeds per day (maximum of 600ml/20oz). Space solid and milk feeds apart.

Suitable snack foods during this stage of weaning

Breads & Pasta

• One finger of toasted cheese on bread
• 3 – 4 well-cooked pasta shapes, e.g. bow-ties, shells
• One piece of chapatti
• Small piece of a bread stick with cheese spread or hummus
• Small piece of naan bread or pitta bread with smooth peanut butter*
• 1-2 unsalted crackers
• Small portion of a plain scone
• 1 plain rice cake
• 1 small pancake

Fruits & Vegetables

• Fruit slices, e.g. melon, banana, pear, apple, mango, orange, satsuma
• Chopped fruit, e.g. halved and deseeded grapes
• Dried soft pieces of fruit, e.g. apricots
• Soft cooked chunks of vegetables, e.g. carrot, parsnip, swede, sweet potato

Dairy

• Small pot of plain natural yoghurt with some chopped/sliced fruit
• Small pot of plain fromage frais with some chopped/sliced fruit
• Cube/triangle/slice of firm cheese, e.g. cheddar cheese

Meat & Poultry

·         Strips of freshly cooked meat or chicken

Preparing baby food during the final stage of weaning

1. At the start of this stage, move on from a mashed texture to lumpier foods by mashing less well and adding less milk so that the food becomes increasingly thicker and lumpier.
2. Once the lumpier foods are tolerated, move on to chopped foods by cutting foods into small bite-size pieces.
3. In addition to mashed foods, encourage your baby to self-feed by providing firmer finger foods as soon as your baby is ready.
4. More than two different textures can be offered in the same dish during this stage.
5. In general, butter/dairy spread should not be added to your baby’s food.
6. If extra fluid is required, your baby’s usual milk, cow’s milk or vegetable water can be added to the food to achieve the correct consistency. Do not add sauces, gravies, salt, or sugar to your baby’s weaning foods. Encourage savoury and plainer tastes.