A sample feeding schedule for your baby (6-12 months)
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Schedules and babies mix really, really well. They keep things predictable for you, they help your baby to understand when meal times, nap times and bedtime are, and they give babies much needed structure in their day.
Babies on a schedule sleep better and longer, eat better, and are generally in a better mood than babies whose days are constantly changing. Here is a sample feeding schedule for your little one (best for ages 6-12 months). Layla has been on this schedule since she was about 6 months old (with some modifications as she’s gotten older) and it has been working great for us!
Of course, all babies are different and develop differently – so this may not work exactly the same for your baby – especially in terms of quantities of food. But hopefully this helps as a guideline for what a schedule for a 6-12 month old might look like 🙂 Naps and other non-food-related activities are in [ ], and mealtimes are underlined to distinguish. These simple baby food recipes should help you create an easy to follow routine for your baby.
8:00am Breakfast – 5oz Fruit Purees or Chunky Fruit pieces + 2oz Oatmeal
Fruit options: Blueberry puree, prune puree for baby, pear baby food, avocado puree to name a few, but honestly any fruit combination works!
10:00am Snack (Bottle): 7-8oz bottle or sippy cup (breastmilk or formula)
[10:30am Nap]
12:30pm Lunch – 3oz veggies + 2oz lentils / beans + 2oz yogurt / cheese + 1oz grains (quinoa, brown rice, whole wheat pasta).
Veggie ideas: Green Beans, Peas Baby Food, Butternut Squash, Carrot Baby Food, Sweet Potato, Zucchini Baby Food, Broccoli/Spinach/Cauliflower
For the lentils/beans – I usually cook them down to be really soft and add spices like cumin, coriander, turmeric, garam masala
3:00pm Snack (Bottle): 7-8oz bottle or sippy cup (breastmilk or formula)
[3:30pm Nap]
5:30pm Dinner – 4oz veggies + 2oz lentils / beans + 1oz yogurt / cheese + 1oz grains (quinoa, brown rice, whole wheat pasta)
OR whatever we are eating for dinner.
[7:00pm Bath, Songs, Massage with lotion or coconut oil]
7:30pm (Bottle): 7-8oz bottle or sippy cup (breastmilk or formula)
[1 book before bed]
[8:00pm Bedtime]
Be sure to check out my post about the best organic baby formula, and once baby is older you may want to consider the best multivitamin for kids.
Hi,
My baby is on Nutramigen LGG but she doesn’t like the taste; and therefore, is a struggle feeing this to her. Dietician will be changing her formula to Aptamil Pepti 2 as it’s supposed to be more palatable. I’m really concerned that the first ingredient in the new formula is maltodextrin. Would you recommend that I stick to Nutramigen or maybe even try HIpp HA instead?
Thank you Farhana
Hi Farhana! If your baby won’t drink Nutramigen because of the taste, it will likely always be a struggle to feed it to her, in which case it doesn’t make much sense to continue with that formula. You can try HiPP HA or HiPP Comfort, but keep in mind that both of those formulas are not as broken down as Nutramigen or Aptamil — so she might not respond well and any symptoms she had that caused you to try Nutramigen in the first place will likely come back. I’m not sure how severe her original allergy was, but what I would do is talk to your dietician about trying HiPP HA or HiPP Comfort based on what they know about your baby’s allergy and nutritional needs. If they don’t think either of those formulas will work because they aren’t broken down enough, then I think Aptamil might be your only option! Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions!
Are there any store bought snacks that you recommend for babies 8 months? Thank you
Hi Bria! I like giving 8 month old babies Plain, Organic O’s like these from Cascadian Farms. I don’t recommend any of the puffs or teething biscuits you can find at the grocery store because they are packed with processed ingredients and sugar. Hope that helps!
Hi Anjali, thanks for your response. Helpful to know that store bought snacks are not as healthy as they present themselves. I had been giving my baby the Happy Baby Creamies, which doesn’t list sugar as an ingredient, but my baby sure loves it. Do you recommend the Happy Baby Puffs and Creamies?
Also, the Cascadian farms Natural Os seem to have sea salt in them, which my pediatrician has refrained from before 12 months of age. Is there another brand of O’s you recommend which doesn’t have sugar or salt added?
Thank you so much!
Hi Pinky! Unfortunately, the Happy Baby Puffs and Creamies are both just empty calories. The Puffs don’t have added sugar, but they don’t have much of anything else either (no fiber, no protein, and all refined grains). It’s probably equivalent to giving your baby white bread. The Creamies are worse than the puffs, because not only are they empty calories in terms of no nutritional value and refined starches, but they have hidden added sugar in the form of fruit juice: they list “organic carrot juice concentrate, organic white grape juice concentrate” on the ingredients list, which basically is the same as giving your baby juice on a regular basis which is not recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Regarding the Cascadian Farms Purely O’s, it’s true they do have salt in them, but you should ask your pediatrician if giving your baby 1 tablespoon of the O’s (which is really the max quantity an 8 month would need per day as a snack) is too much. 1 serving of the Cascadian Farms O’s is 1.25 cups, or about 20 tablespoons. 20 tbsp has 200mg of Sodium, so 1 tbsp would have about 10mg of Sodium. The Happy Baby Creamies also have 10mg Sodium per serving. So technically, 1 serving of the O’s should be equivalent in sodium to 1 serving of the creamies. I’d ask your pediatrician about that and get their thoughts! I don’t know of any other brand of O’s that has 0 mg of Sodium – they all have some Sodium added!
Hi Anjali!i love your recipes. my baby boy is 11 months, he eats 4 meals a day including 1 snack,je really loves his purées and eats almost everything. I would like him to move on to completely solid foods but he doesn’t like it and always has this gag reflex when i feed him chunkier food. Can you please advise on how i should go on about this? Thank you so much
Hi! Thanks so much for reaching out to me and for your kind words about my blog! I’m so glad you’ve been enjoying my recipes! To your question — you can try giving him Organic no-sugar O’s like these Cascadian Farms Purely O’s — which are super easy to gum for little ones. Give him only 1 “O” at a time, until he has fully chewed and swallowed it. It might help him to “learn” how to chew better and accept more solid foods, and once he gets the hang of those you can move on to mashed up fruits/veggies instead of completely pureed fruits/veggies — and keep increasing the “chunkiness” from there.
how are you cooking the grains? do you puree them or serve them as is?
thank you!
also, when you say cheese & grains how are you serving the cheese?
thank you!
I have served the cheese either as little mini cubes, as shredded cheese, or as cheese slices cut into small squares on the side! For the grains, it’s usually mixed in with the puree — so either cooked quinoa, brown rice, whole wheat or lentil pasta mixed with the purees. Hope that helps!
I have done both! I cook the grains as I would if I was serving it to an adult, and then will sometimes puree them. Whether to puree or not just depends on the comfort of your baby! If they are ok with gumming whole grains you don’t have to puree, but if they are new to grains you may want to puree it initially to get them used to the flavor first and the texture later on!
ok so for lunch for example are you combining the lentils/beans with the veggies and the grains and serving them together? (as in all mixed together)
what about the yogurt do you keep that separate?
thanks!
Hi Jenna! Yes that’s what I did – sometimes I’d mix in the yogurt too, sometimes I’d keep it separate. But honestly you should just do whatever works for your baby! If your baby likes to have everything separate, do that, if your baby likes it mixed together – do that 🙂
also what time does your baby normally wake up that you don’t do any food until 8am?
Both of my kids wake up around 7:30/8am – so I’d do breakfast about 20-30 minutes after getting them up, ready, and getting the food made, etc. which was usually about 20-30 minutes after waking up. So I’d just say do breakfast whenever your child is ready to eat for the day!
Hi Anjali! We started our 5 1/2 month old with avocado, butternut squash and carrots. Trying green beans and peas over the next couple weeks. We’ve been feeding him a tbsp at a time of one food at a time to make sure he’s not allergic to anything. So far, all is going well and he likes everything! I see that you’ve listed quite a bit more food at a time though. Do you know how much he should be eating at once? He’s breastfed, eating 6 times a day right now and the one tbsp of food in the evening. He looks eager for more though, but I don’t want to overfeed him.. should I increase to a few tbsp in the evening or do a tbsp 2 or 3 times a day maybe? He is still waking up at night to eat around 3-4am so I’m hoping more solids will keep him asleep at night 🙂 Thank you!
Hi Heather! I’m so glad solids has been going well for you so far! As for quantities of food — this schedule is meant to be more of a guideline, but every baby is different so there’s no “right” amount that you should be aiming for between 6-12 months. I’d say, follow your baby’s lead. If he looks eager for more, you can totally increase to 2-3 tbsp a few times a day. For reference, my daughter was eating these quantities when she was about 9 months old — from 6-9 months we increased her meal quantities gradually 1 tbsp at a time. Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions!
Hi there! I love how you laid out the feeding schedule. I have a 6.5 month old, and we’ve done purees off and on (her evenings after daycare are so hit or miss depending on if she gets that catnap in). She seems way more interested in the food we have in our hands, and loves sucking on real food. How do you recommend starting those solid foods? It’s so overwhelming and I can’t really determine what the best way is to start (also, being super nervous of course about choking). Thanks!
Hi Krista! It sounds like your daughter might be a baby-led-weaning baby. In general, what you want to do is give her large, soft chunks of food (e.g. super soft/steamed sweet potatoes, banana, squashes, etc) and let her gnaw on them. I wouldn’t recommend packaged finger foods like yogurt melts, puffs, etc. because they are super processed and too sweet – which will make it hard for your daughter to accept more “controversial” flavors like veggies/spices/etc. For the foods themselves, if the pieces are large enough for her to hold with her fist and you can watch her while she’s taking bites, you can regulate how much goes into her mouth (and prevent her from choking). If she is good at chewing and understands how to move her tongue around her mouth to manipulate food she should be ok. You should also chat with your pediatrician about it and google “baby led weaning” which will lead you to a ton of resources to help you and her get comfortable with it! Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions!
My son is 11months and he only wants food purée and he won’t eat any meat/chicken/egg.how do I switch it up so he can eat more solids? I hope worded it correctly
Hi Jasmine! I’d be happy to help you with this but this is something I usually work with parents with in a 1:1 capacity, because it can be quite a complex issue! If you’re interested in learning more, go ahead and schedule a free 20 minute call with me where I can learn more about your son and we can figure out a path forward! Thanks!
Help, my 7 month old is a picky eater! He’s refused to eat all green veggies, he even refused avocado. He will make a disgusted face and act like he’s gagging when I try to feed him these foods. But He does love all things sweet like most fruits and squash. What can I do to slowly reintroduce these foods? So that he eventually accepts them. My 5 year old was and is such a great eater compared to him. Avocado was her first food and she loves it till this day. They are polar opposites! I love your blog and all your baby food recipes, so simple and easy to follow. I downloaded your baby food book into my kindle.
Hi Monica! I totally empathize with the struggle – my son was the EXACT same way and my daughter was similar to your daughter (she accepted all foods including avocado with no problems!) Your son might just have a more sensitive gag reflex – that was my son’s issue. And basically we had to do just continually only offer the foods he didn’t like (veggies, mainly) over and over for every meal until he finally began to accept them (about 6 months later). We also did a lot of alternation (e.g. “bite then toy” or “bite of veggie, then bite of banana”) to get him to accept new foods and flavors. And now, at 18 months he is an AMAZING eater and will eat everything. But it took a year of consistent work with literally zero days where I gave in – it was exhausting but we got there! I use a specific technique for babies this young to ensure they don’t develop into picky eaters later! I can email you with more information – but hope this helps in the meantime!
Hi… My son made 6 months today and before I tried introducing solids to him but he wasn’t having it. Like I tried rice cereal on him, the first time he gagged so much he threw up all his milk he drank that morning; another time around 5 months I tried Butternut squash and he did the same thing, gagged and threw up. So I figured he wasn’t ready… so here we are, 6 months. I tried cereal again with him but he is not having it, he has all the signs that he is ready to eat but I don’t think the cereal alone he likes. I saw you started your daughter with Avocado, so I think I will try that on him. He is breastfed and goes daycare, so I carry his milk with him; Is the gagging and throwing up a sign that he isn’t ready? or maybe he isn’t accustom to the new texture; He is also teething, and two teeth popped out also. For cereal, oat is better than the rice one?
Hi Glenda! My son also had a really significant/sensitive gag reflex and would often throw up when I started solids with him. I think for my son, it was a combination of not being ready for solids but also not knowing quite how to use his tongue/mouth muscles to move the food back and swallow it, and not being used to the difference in texture. It could be a similar issue for your son. Have you talked to your pediatrician about this? They might recommend getting him evaluated by OT (which is what they did for my son and it helped tremendously!) You could also just wait and try again when he’s 7 months old – no harm in that as long as your peds is ok with it 🙂 You can definitely try avocado – and I’d thin it out a lot so that the texture is closer to milk to start (you can always thicken it later. For cereal I’d go straight to oat cereal – the rice cereal isn’t nutritious at all! Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions!
Hi I’m new here to the blog I have a 5 and half month old boy who I’m starting on solids I like the way ur schedule is but I’m wondering like for lunch and dinner do u do lentils /beans yogurt /cheese like all that’s listed there in one meals serving..? Thanks
Hi Justina! To your question – you don’t have to give all of that for dinner or lunch – those are just options. At that age – I’d give about 1 tbsp lentils or beans, 2 tbsp veggies, and 1 tbsp grains for lunch (more of each food group if your child is hungry!)
As a starting point I read a guide ‘how to introduce solid foods to your baby’ from another blog, which is a very good and understandable guide. Your blog is let say more advanced and it opened a whole new level for me. Thanks!
I’m so happy to hear that!! Let me know if you have any questions as you start solids for your little one!
Hi Anjali,pls suggest me sleep schedule and meal plan for my 9 months old twin boys.
Hi Sherifa! Your 9 month old twin boys can use this exact feeding schedule and meal plan! Regarding a sleep schedule – most 9 month olds are on 2 naps a day and bedtime around 730pm (similar to this schedule). If you’re looking for more detailed advice feel free to email me at pickyeats@gmail.com and we can chat more!
Hi Anjali! I love this schedule! 2 questions:
1. Where can I incorporate egg into his meal?
2. What schedule would you recommend for 12 to 18 month old babies?
Thank you!
Hi Jeena! I’m so glad this was helpful! To your questions: 1) You can do eggs in the morning with his breakfast, instead of the oatmeal (e.g. fruit on the side + scrambled eggs), or you can add it in at lunch instead of the lentils/beans. 2) For 12-18 month old babies, it’s actually the exact same schedule, with maybe just a bigger quantity of food at each meal (and likely more chunky/finger foods vs. purees at each meal); and maybe a little less milk in between meals! I also recommend giving water in a sippy cup with meals after 12 months of age, so that would be the only addition here. For both my son & daughter, from 12 months – 24 months, their breakfast ended up being about 6-8oz of food (pureed or soft chunky fruit mixed with either soft oatmeal or plain whole milk yogurt); lunch was 1 slice sprouted wheat toast with nut butter or cheese + steamed soft veggies on the side or veggie purees (4-5oz) on the side; dinner was a softer or mashed up version of whatever I made for me and my husband! But the timing of meals + milk was the exact same as this schedule 🙂 Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions!
oh nice! I’m gonna make Tamir use this schedule to make up a menu. He’s in charge of the meals!
Awesome!! Can’t wait to hear how it goes for you Yiwei! 🙂
Hi Anjali! I really love your recipies. I have a question. What if I dont want to give my baby all the kind of grains? And just continue with all your recipies as you have described but without them ?Should I have to increase something else? Thank you
Hi Andi! So yes! If you want to eliminate all the grains from your baby’s diet, you can just replace the grains with the same amount of fruit/veggie puree, beans/lentils, or yogurt/cheese. Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions!
Hello Anjali! Can I do a change because at 8 o’clock I have to be at work. Can I give my baby breastmilk at 7 o’clock and the puree with fruits at 10 o’clock? Thnx
Hi Ami! Yes absolutely – you can switch the milk and meal times if that works better for you! That should work just fine 🙂
Hello Anjali! I am very happy that i discovered your site. I only have one question. My baby girls soon will be 6 months and we will start with solids. I am searching for everything organic but due to some gene mutations that she has I am also trying to avoid oats, cereals, rice. Can I use quinoa everytime I make the recipe?Looking forward for your response. Thank you
Hi Amanda! Yes absolutely – you can use quinoa every time you make her baby cereal. What I would do is grind the uncooked quinoa into a fine powder using a food processor or blender, and then cook that the way you would with regular quinoa so it develops a “porridge” like consistency. Then you can mix that into any fruit/veggie puree you like! Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions!
Hi again! I have another question if you can help. Why some websites say that quinoa or other grains and also lentils should be started at eight months because their stomach is not prepared for legumes and grains at 6 months? Thank you
Hi Amanda! Lentils / beans and whole grains have a lot of fiber, which can cause gas in some babies – which is why some websites recommend waiting to introduce those until the baby’s digestive system is a little more mature. But we introduced lentils/beans around 6-7 months with no issues. It all depends on the baby – there’s no hard and fast rule on waiting until 8 months to give your baby lentils. You can always introduce it at 6-7 months and if it does seem to cause more gas, then wait a month or two before trying it again! Let me know if you have any other questions!