When your baby is newborn you won't have to be thinking about feeding them anything but breast milk for many many months. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that you wait at least until 6 months until you introduce any kinds of solid foods.

Why Babies Don't Need
Solid Foods Until They are Ready

When babies are young their intestines are not mature enough to handle solid foods, that is why they have a liquid diet until they are 6 or 7 months, around the time that their intestines mature enough to likely be able to filter out allergens. Babies are born with a tongue-thrust reflex, to help them from choking. Usually in the time that a baby is 4 to 6 months old they will begin to gradually lose the reflex. A baby's swallowing mechanism is also immature, something that develops when they are again between the age of 4 and 6 months. The ability to sit up unassisted is a must before a baby can have solid foods, some babies are able to do this at 4 months, but even if they are 7 months old if they can not sit up on their own then they should not be fed solids. A young baby can not chew and even when a baby begins to cut teeth, something that happens at about 6 or 7 months, chewing can still be difficult to a baby if they do not have bottom and top teeth. Luckily a baby gets all the nutrients that they need from breast milk, drinking every 1 to 3 hours at 0 to 3 months, every 2 to 4 hours at 4 to 5 months, every 3 to 4 hours at 6 to 8 months and every 4 to 5 hours at 9 to 12 months. So in short delaying solids until babies are between the ages of 6 and 9 months is a good idea.

KEEP IN MIND It may appear that a baby is ready to eat solid foods if they already have cut a few teeth and have taking an interest in your food, possibly attempted to place it in their mouths, when they are only 4 months old. However babies will want to imitate their parents, and frankly if they got their hands on a marble, leaf or even a dust bunny they would put it in their mouth so them reaching for your food is a false sign that they are truly ready for solids.

What Foods to Feed a Baby

What foods that you will want to give your baby will be determined by the age of your baby. When you first introduce solids, and your baby is between the age of 6 and 9 months old, you will want to make sure that you keep this mashed and feed one kind of food to your baby at a time so you can see if it upsets their tummy in anyway or causes them to develop a diaper rash. Teething, Tummy Aches, Diaper Rash and Eating Solids offers tips for feeding your baby with their are teething.

Foods Your Baby Can Try at 6 months

Introduce your baby to fruits and vegetables, one at a time and cooked, with the exception of avocados and bananas they can be served raw. Fruits like pears, peaches and apples, well apple sauce, are good options for the cooked fruits you can feed your baby and cooked sweet potatoes, green beans and acorn/butternut squash are good choices for veggies to introduced. Mash them up and add water or breast milk to them. Offer your baby sterile water to drink while try out foods to avoid constipation. Once you know if your child can handle a particular fruit or vegetable you can mix cooked oats or rice to make them more paste-like. At this stage feed your baby with the tip of your finger not a spoon. As a dry supplement you may be able to find teething toast for this age group but read the suggested age group before feeding anything to your baby.

Recommended Read
	The Family Nutrition Book: Everything You Need to Know About Feeding Your Children - From Birth through Adolescence offers all the nutrition information that you will need for feeding your baby solid foods, it even has information on breastfeeding. As your baby grows you will find that this book still offers great information for your child's health all the way through adolescence.
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