At six months, most babies can quickly learn to chew soft lumpy food even if they have no teeth – just make sure the food is fairly soft. So, give your baby whatever you feel comfortable with offering as ‘first foods’, or what your baby seems most interested in eating.

Some first foods you might want to try:

• Mashed or puréed cooked vegetables such as potato, sweet potato or yam, mixed together with parsnip, carrot, broccoli or cauliflower
  
• Mashed ripe fruit such as banana, avocado, cooked apple, pear or mango
  
• Baby rice or well cooked and mashed white rice, oats or other starchy foods such as maize, millet, cornmeal or noodles
  
• Blended or puréed meat, fish or chicken – well cooked and prepared without salt. Remember to make sure you remove any bones
  
• Soft cooked and puréed or well mashed lentils (dhal), split peas, chickpeas or other pulses
  
• Full-fat milk products such as yoghurt, fromage frais or custard (choose lower sugar varieties) 

Once your baby has learned how to take soft food from a spoon, you can start to introduce mashed food with soft lumps. At this age babies will also begin to pick up finger foods, so offer these too. It is important to keep giving your baby different foods, different tastes and different textures. You’ll be able to use lots of the foods you already cook for yourself. But there is no need to add any salt or sugar. Just mash it or cut soft food into pieces that your baby can hold.

Make sure the food is safe. Babies are particularly at risk of tummy upsets, so good food hygiene is essential. Make sure you heat cooked food thoroughly, let it cool, then stir well and test before offering it to your baby. It’s best to dish up only as much as you think your baby will eat because you should throw away any food your baby doesn’t eat. Don’t reheat cooked food more than once and don’t refreeze any food that isn’t used. And remember, everything you use to feed your baby needs to be really clean.
There are also many foods that should be avoided up to one year because they are more likely to cause an allergic reaction. These foods include those containing wheat, gluten, eggs, fish, shellfish, liver, soft and unpasteurised cheeses.

Check food labels. Remember to check the labels of any foods you want to feed to your baby or to use as ingredients in meals you cook for your baby. Many food products such as sauces, soups, snacks, breakfast cereals and ready meals can be high in salt and sugar. So always try to choose products that are lower in salt and sugar.
Bought foods aimed at babies and young children are only allowed to use a small number of additives. You might want to check the labels of other foods to see if you think they are suitable.
Never use foods for your baby that are past their ‘use by’ date.