You will have heard the phrase food before one is just for fun. It is well meant, and it does something useful, which is to take the pressure off parents worrying about how much their baby is actually swallowing.

But taken literally it is misleading, and I want to explain why.

Why we start solids around six months

We introduce solids around 6 months of age for two reasons.

The first is that this is the window of opportunity for accepting tastes and textures. Babies are far more open to new flavours at this stage than they will be later, so it is not a window worth missing.

The second is that milk starts to fall behind on certain nutrients. Iron is the clearest example.

The iron point

Babies have a good store of iron from birth, especially if they are born at term with a good maternal supply. You may remember delayed cord clamping, which is essentially about transferring as much iron as possible.

Those stores run low by around 6 months of age. That is why it becomes important to offer iron rich foods in the weaning diet, and why solids at this stage are doing real nutritional work rather than simply being practice.

Milk is still doing most of the job early on

None of this means solids take over immediately. Milk still provides the majority of what your baby needs in the early weaning phase.

So both things are true at once. Milk remains the main source of nutrition for a while, and solids are more than a game. The point is not to miss those windows of opportunity for introducing food.

What to expect from the amounts

At the very start of weaning, babies eat very little, and that is perfectly normal. The most important thing is that they are making small bits of progress over time.

We also have to assume that not everything offered gets eaten. Some of it will be on the wall, on the floor and on you. That is part of the process rather than a sign it is going badly.

It is a journey you are both learning

You and your baby are learning together, and it should not be a pressurised event. There will be good days and bad days.

Your baby may be teething, or poorly, or incredibly active and more interested in food than usual. There will be growth spurts. All of that affects how interested they are in weaning and how much they are ready to have.

Creating a positive feeding experience matters more in the first year than hitting any particular quantity.

Variety rather than volume

In the under ones, the aim is variety instead of volume. Getting as much variety in as you can is more valuable than any individual meal being finished.

This is also the easiest stage to do it. Around 6 months is a perfect opportunity to give lots of variety, because babies are much more likely to accept different tastes at this age. By around 18 months, most babies naturally go through a neophobic stage where they start refusing certain foods, which is also very normal, but it makes new foods harder to introduce.

Menu planning helps more than you would think

Getting the right balance across a week is genuinely difficult to do by instinct, particularly when a lot of what you serve does not get eaten.

Menu planning is useful here. At V&Me we analyse the menus specifically to make sure a baby's requirements are met day to day and across the week, rather than leaving it to chance.

The short version

Solids before one are not just for fun. They are how your baby learns tastes and textures during the window when they are most receptive, and how they start meeting nutrient requirements that milk alone no longer covers.

What is true in the original phrase is that you should not be anxious about volumes. Feed responsively, look at the whole week rather than individual days, and let your baby set the amount.