Introducing Solid Foods to a Baby

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Erica. We are in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I'm going to tell you how to introduce solid foods to your baby. There are lots of solid foods to choose from. Usually, people start with rice cereal, a type of cereal that's a little bit thicker than formula but it's not as thick as the jar food. Once your baby gets used to eating the cereal, you can start mixing it with applesauce and different things like that and get them used to the texture and how to actually eat from a spoon. Show them how to do that first before you start introducing different types of baby food. After you do that, after the baby is used to the rice cereal, or any type of cereal--there's oatmeal and a bunch of other different ones that you can choose from--you will start with the little tiny jars that are the first foods. It will actually say the age on there. So, just look at those. Usually start with the fruits and vegetables first just to give the baby a variety of nutrients and a variety of tastes. And then once the baby is older, about six months to twelve months, you can start introducing them to more of the chunkier foods, which is the third food and they are the bigger jars, because the baby will be bigger and be able to eat the whole jar. And then after you do that, then you can start introducing them to more and more different foods. You can ask your physician to see when the baby is ready for that, if you're not sure. And always make sure that you throw out the jar if it's been in the fridge for a day or so, because then it will go bad just like the infant formula. Don't save a bunch of open jars, because they will go bad. Do not leave the jar out after it's been opened, and just be sure to really ask and really try to tell when our baby is ready and always start with the right cereal or some type of cereal first."