Getting Started

Starting baby on new foods other than breast milk can be a handful. Make sure you know what you need beforehand.

The Equipment

Baby (but you already knew that!)

Masher

Bib

Child-size, non-toxic plastic fork and spoon

Bowl

It’s safest to use unbreakable, non-toxic utensils for baby. A shallow bowl with sloping sides will be all you need for now.

Strainer

Again, set one aside just for baby’s foods as this may also retain flavours from other foods that pass through it.

Blender

If you can afford it, get a new blender or set one aside just for preparing baby’s food. Food tends to stick to the blender blades, no matter how well we wash them, and you don’t want baby’s food to be tainted by the chillies you blended to make sambal last week.

High chair

Any chair will do, but a high chair puts baby at a comfortable height for you to feed him, and he can’t fall or climb out of it easily.

Plastic sheet(s) and old newspapers

Use these to line the floor around baby’s chair. If you think this is unnecessary, you must not have let your baby feed himself before.

Method	What is it?	Recommended foods to start with
Boiling	Heating liquid (usually water) with solid food placed in it	Boil vegetables (eg carrot, spinach, celery) to make vegetable stock that can be added to porridge Not recommended for vegetables to be eaten, as nutrients will be lost in the water
Steaming	Heating a stack of containers, the lowest of which contains water	Harder fruits and vegetables, eg pumpkin and apple
Mashing	“Squashing” soft food with a fork or masher until it turns into a smooth paste	Banana, steamed pumpkin, potato or sweet potato, peas, carrot, cauliflower If the texture is too firm for baby in the beginning, add some expressed breast milk when mashing
Pureeing	Using a blender to turn food into a soft, runny paste	Steamed apple, pumpkin, cauliflower Add boiled water or expressed breast milk to make the texture “wetter”
Juicing	Extracting the juice from fruits and vegetables by blending with water, then straining the fibre out and leaving the liquid	Orange, apple, watermelon