What Food To Give Your Baby From 8 To 12 Months

What food from 8-12 months?

What food 8-10 months: Video transcript [1]

By 8 or 9 months, you can start to offer your baby their solids before breast milk or formula. By now your baby is probably having 3 to 4 meals a day, 1 to 2 snacks, and 2 to 3 breast (or formula) feeds.

By the time your baby is 12 months, they're ready to eat a little of what the rest of the family is eating but remember to be careful about foods that can cause choking.

Grated cheese and carrot, vegetables (kumara, potato, broccoli), plates of soft cooked vegetables and fruit, toast fingers, wheat biscuits, mandarin segments, glasses of pasta, rice, plain yoghurt, baby muesli, bowls of raw meat and legumes

Try mashed vegetables mixed with minced or finely chopped tender cooked meat, chicken, kai moana, egg or slightly mashed cooked legumes (such as lentils). You could also add chopped up noodles or pasta or whole rice.

Vegetables (kumara, potato, pumpkin, broccoli), bowls of raw meat and legumes, eggs, glasses of pasta and rice

Add chopped soft fruit to yoghurt or custard.

Glass of plain yoghurt surrounded by plates of chopped soft fruit

Offer breakfast cereal - porridge, wheat biscuits and infant muesli.

Wheat biscuits and infant muesli

Introduce slightly firmer finger foods such as: soft ripe fruit or soft cooked vegetables such as kiwifruit or kūmara; finely grated raw carrot and apple; toast fingers; puffed crispbread.

Grated carrot, grated cheese, grated apple and toast fingers

Platter of soft fruit and vegetable pieces

Call PlunketLine [2] on 0800 933 922 for parenting advice, including advice about feeding your baby.

More detail (see the online version for links to more detailed content)

External links and downloads (see the online version for more information at other websites)

Infant feeding (Healthykids, Te Hiringa Hauora/Health Promotion Agency) [6]

On this website you can find out about the signs your baby is ready to try solid foods; best foods to start with and how to prepare them; tips on making this special time easier; how to make baby food at home; the signs your baby is full and had enough to eat; recipe ideas for the next steps. The information has been checked by experts and follows Ministry of Health recommendations about infant feeding.

Eating for healthy babies and toddlers/Ngā kai tōtika mō te hunga kōhungahunga (HealthEd) [7]

Food information for babies and toddlers from birth to 2 years old.

Healthy eating guidelines for NZ babies and toddlers (0–2 years old) (Ministry of Health) [8]

The content in the infant nutrition section of the KidsHealth website [9] is based on 'Healthy eating guidelines for NZ babies and toddlers (0–2 years old)'. These guidelines (September 2021) provide updated population-health recommendations for feeding children who are under 2 years of age, to promote healthy growth and development and help establish healthy eating behaviours.

This page last reviewed 14 October 2021.
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