| Months |
Developmental milestones |
Feeding milestones |
Start feeding your baby/toddler |
| 0 - 3 |
- Birth
- Smiling
- Early laughing
|
- Roots effectively
- Sucks and swallows
- Extends tongue beyond lips
|
- Breast milk or formula milk only
|
| 3 - 5 |
- Lifting head
- Smiling
- Laughing
- Ability to notice reflection in mirrored surfaces
|
- Closes lips to seal mouth
- Moves tongue in and out easily
- Draws in lower lips
|
- Breast milk or formula milk only
|
| 5 - 6 |
- Crawling
- More developed vocal range
- More extensive vocalization
- Awareness of own body parts
|
- Makes chewing movements
- Can control sucking impulse
- Opens mouth to accept spoon
- Turns head freely to feed
|
- Breast milk or formula milk
- Small amounts of infant rice or cereal mixed with breast milk or formula milk
- Single ingredient fruit and vegetable purees mixed with breast or formula milk
|
| 6 - 7 |
- Sit without support
- Reaches for things with a sweeping motion
- Imitates speech sounds
|
- Grasps food and utensils and draws them towards the mouth
- Sits without support
|
- Breast milk or formula milk
- Mixed ingredient purees and mashes
- Egg yolks (well cooked)
- Fromage frais
- Yoghurt
- Mashed potatoes
- Mashed bananas
- Apple sauce
- Wheat/high protein cereals
|
| 7 - 8 |
- Sit alone
- Reach, grasp and move items
- Says ‘dada’ and ‘mama’ to both parents
- Starts crawling
- Passes objects from hand to hand
|
- Controls tongue for easier spoon feeding
- Sucks from a cup
- Tolerates non-pureed foods
|
- Pureed meatsk
- Bite sizes pieces of cheese
- Fruit juice from a cup
|
| 8 - 9 |
- Stands while holding on to a support
- Combines syllables into wordlike sounds
|
- Drinks from a cup
- Understands spoon function
|
- Finger foods:
- Soft small pieces of soft, chopped fruit and vegetables
- Toast
- Tuna
|
| 9 - 12 |
- Waves goodbye
- Crawls well
- Early walking
- Cruising’ from handhold to handhold
|
- Develops pincer grasp
- Has rotary chewing movements
- Holds and moves food into mouth
- Tries to feed self
- Enjoys food with noticeable lumps Able to bite through a soft biscuit
|
- Table foods/family foods
- Soft
- Not too spicy (but not completely bland)
- Vegetables
- Fruits
- Cereals
- Bread
- Beans
- Meats, fish
- Cheese
|
| 12 - 18 |
- Imitates others’ activities
- Walking
- Jabbers wordlike sounds
- Indicates wants with gestures
- Early talking
|
- Uses a spoon effectively
- Sticks out tongue and spits
- Less frantic at mealtimes
- Able to feed self quietly
- Able to bite through harder foods depending on the presence of teeth
- Drinks some water during the day
|
|
| 18 - 24 |
|
- Chewing more challenging foods
- Chewing with their lips closed
- By 24 months, able to manage any type of food (although choking hazards still need to be cut into small pieces)
|
- From 24 months, any foods in smaller portions with less seasoning
- Unpasteurised cheeses
- Blue cheeses
|
| 24 - 36 |
|
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