Bounty feature

Your 6-month-old

• More than one language
• Feeding a 6-month-old
• Varying the menu
• High chairs

Try a toy
Good toys for a 6-month-old are soft books with different textures or built-in rattles and mirrors. Your baby will enjoy the difference in feel of the fabric pages, and the various sounds that the fabrics make when scrunched. Looking at and talking about books with your baby will help to develop visual and sensory skills and language development. The other advantage of soft books is that you can safely leave your baby with them and wash them after they have been sucked or glooped on.

Some books and toys have see-through slots, which you can put family photos in. Your baby will recognise family and friends and love looking at photos in this safe way. Pots and pans from the kitchen can be turned upside down and turned into a drum kit using wooden or metal spoons as sticks. Your baby might love the noise and racket while improving his co-ordination. If your baby doesn’t like loud noises, try a wooden spoon on a plastic bowl.

Activity centres come in different shapes and sizes, but they all offer babies a selection of bright, colourful, textured, noisy, moving parts to look at, suck, pull, touch, push, and turn. They really can keep your child busy while stimulating all their senses!

Social time
Depending on you and your baby, you may like to plan your day and even have a routine of things that you do at certain times, or you may prefer to go with the flow and do things as the fancy takes you. There are plenty of ways to fill your days at home with your baby as well as outside activities and groups that you could get involved in. It’s up to you, and your budget, how many or how few things you do, and how you mix and match them, but getting out of the house every day will be good for you and your baby. Your baby will enjoy meeting other babies, and you won’t feel that the walls are closing in!

More than one language?
If your first language is not English, your baby can grow up learning English and your language. A baby learns a second language much more easily than an adult does, and many families throughout the world have brought their child up to be bilingual.

Knowing a second language, according to the latest research on reading, can help a child understand written languages faster and possibly learn to read more easily. Some parents say their child talks later than others of his age, but when he does speak he can be fluent in two languages. Talk to you health visitor if you are unsure about which language to speak with your baby. Many picture books for babies are available from libraries in dual languages to help parents whose first language is other than English.

Shima’s nappy rash tip
‘The best way I found to clear Ali’s nappy rash was to let him have some kicking time on the changing mat without a nappy on. I’d put it on the floor so there was no danger of him rolling off. A barrier cream helped, but the fresh air worked wonders!’

Babies this age

• are improving hand-eye co-ordination
• bang things together
• roll over in both directions
• may babble or blow bubbles
• react to your tone of voice
• learn how to sit with support, or by leaning forward on their hands for balance
• understand more about cause and effect.

Feeding a 6-month-old

Your baby will be trying her first taste of solids about now. Soon she will be ready to try quite a range of new foods and you can then experiment with different flavours.
If your baby is just starting solids, he may love:

• baby rice
• apple purée
• pear purée
• parsnip purée
• butternut squash purée
• carrot purée.

When your baby has tried the first tastes, you may like to go on to:

• yoghurt
• baby cereals
• porridge
• mashed banana
• mashed avocado
• lentil purée.

Varying the menu
Once your baby is happy eating other solid foods, you can give her foods containing wheat/gluten from six months plus, so you may want to try including breakfast cereals and breads. Cheese is another new food she can try; you could grate it on cooked vegetables before mashing them or add it to some cooked red lentils. Apricots, pineapples and citrus fruits like oranges make good easy desserts to purée. Your baby may be ready to try some finger foods as well. It is important for your baby’s development to have introduced lumpier, textured food, and finger foods by ten months.

Sugar and spice
Babies don’t need many sweet foods. Too much sugar can harm her teeth and may make her overweight. Sugars are found naturally in fruits, vegetables and milk so, as a general rule, don’t add sugar to your baby’s weaning foods. Only use a small amount if you have to, for example to make sour fruits more acceptable.

High chairs
Once your baby is sitting up (at around six months) she will enjoy sharing family meals in a highchair. These are some things to think about when you’re choosing one:

• How much space does it take up?
  If there isn’t much space in your house, make sure you buy one that folds away easily when it’s not being used.
  
• How easy is it to clean?
  A chair with lots or crevices of gaps will soon become sticky and grubby. A chair with a removable tray makes cleaning much easier. A tray with high edges also helps stop quite so much food going on the floor.
  
• Does it have a harness?
  The best harnesses are those which go over your baby’s shoulders, round her middle and between her legs. Some highchairs have these ‘built in’; if not, check that there are D-shaped rings at the base of the seat area for attaching your own safety straps.
  
• Will it last?
  Your baby is likely to use her highchair from six months to around two years. Some then convert to a chair and table. Padded seat cushions help make your baby more comfortable, but they also wear; check if the manufacturer supplies replacements.

Which milk?
Ordinary cows’ milk is not suitable as a main drink until your baby is one year old, but you can use full fat cows’ milk to mix with cereals and cows’ milk products, e.g. yoghurt from six months. Breastmilk is still the ideal milk for your baby. If you are bottle feeding, you can continue to give your baby formula milk. ‘Follow-on’ milks are milk drinks designed for babies who are also eating a mixed diet, but you don’t have to swap to follow-on milk. If your baby is happy with her formula milk, you can continue with this for the next six months.

For the next You and your growing baby guide Chapter, Minding the baby, Click here