You will think breastfeeding or formula feeding is difficult until your baby starts solid food. Both you and your baby will learn many new lessons after starting solid food. You can offer new food for your baby and wait for the surprise. Will he like it or not? Will he finish the jar or not? But these are not the only problems you will have to deal with when your baby starts eating food other than breastmilk.
The first step of introducing solid food to a baby is to offer purees with a soft consistency. Pureed food will introduce your baby to new flavors and textures of food. Your baby cannot eat pureed food forever. Many parents wonder when to make this transition from pureed food to stage two food. This article will address your concerns about offering stage two food to your baby.
CONTENT
1.  What are the stages of baby food?
2.  What are the differences between stage one and stage two food?
3.  When to start offering stage two food?
4.  How to offer stage two food to my baby?
1. What are the stages of baby food?
A baby will be fully dependent on breastmilk or baby formula until he turns six months. His digestive system will not learn to digest solid food overnight. Therefore, you have to gradually transit from milk to regular food. Stages of baby food are established to make that process easier for the parents. You start from stage one and gradually move forward as your baby gets used to the food of each stage.
There are many brands of baby food in the market. Those brands have different ways of categorizing the stages of food. But, we can generally summarize the stages recommended to each age group as below.
- Stage one – for babies from4 to 6 months. Stage one food is watery purees made of a single ingredient.
- Stage two – for babies from 6 to 9 months. These food are thicker in texture and mostly strained or mashed.
- Stage three – for babies from 10 to 12 months. Stage three food has soft, chewable, small chunks.
- Stage four – for babies older than 12 months. These are basically finger foods and small, soft pieces of foods. You can offer your baby the food from your plate when he is older than one.
2. What are the differences between stage one and stage two food?
Stage one food is liquids in nature. They are pureed vegetables and fruits that can drip off a spoon. In other words, it is the same texture of milk that your baby is familiar with but in a different taste. This is the first step of learning to eat solid food. Rice cereal, apple, and oatmeal are popular choices of parents as stage one baby food.
Stage two food is thicker than stage one food. You do not puree fruit and vegetables in this stage. Instead, you have to mash or strain them into a thick paste. Stage two food can be a mixture of flavors such as fruits and vegetables. You can also offer softly mashed fish or meat to your baby in this stage. The baby will eat bigger portions of food in this stage as his appetite is growing at this age.
3. When to start offering stage two food?
It is difficult to draw a line between stage one and stage two food. Every baby follows his own timeline. So the time to start stage two food will change from one baby to another. Generally, your baby will be ready for stage two food such as mashed fruits and vegetables around six to nine months.
These are some signs that your baby is ready to start stage two baby food.
- Grown out of tongue reflex: after the first five months of your baby, his tongue thrust reflex will start to fade away. This means that the baby no longer pushes out the food that you feed him with his tongue.
- Growing appetite: You are observing an increase in the appetite of your little one. He asks for more food than he used to do.
- Variety: You have offered him food from all the varieties such as vegetables, fruits, grains, and meat. The baby has not experienced any allergy or intolerance to that food.
- Contentment: The baby is enjoying the purees. He eagerly opens his mouths, swallows, and asks for more if he is not full.
4. How to offer stage two food to my baby?
Stage one is a great opportunity to introduce all food varieties to your baby. The more exposure they will get lesser is the chance that they will be a picky eater. It will make life easier for you while your baby grows up with healthy eating habits. Further, research in 2017 by the National Institutes of Health suggests that exposing your baby to allergenic food like peanuts early helps to reduce the risk of allergies.
As your baby moves to eating stage two baby food, these are some factors to pay attention to.
- You have to avoid offering any food that can be a choking hazard to your baby. Food like nuts and popcorn are dangerous at this age. If you are offering fruits like grapes, always cut them length-wise into thin strips.
- Honey is not good for your baby until he turns one. If you offer honey to your baby who is younger than twelve months, you are exposing him to a risk of botulism infection.
- Stay in line with AAP guidelines that recommend only breast milk, baby formula, or a little water until the baby turns one. You should not offer juices as they may contain too much sugar.
- Follow safe feeding procedures.Strap the baby properly into their high chair and carefully watch them while eating.