Starting Solids & Feeding

Australia focused starter for solids. Begin around 6 months, prioritize iron and allergens, plus a simple Honey & Sage mealtime kit.

Evidence backed teething timeline for new parents: eruption ranges from first tooth to 20 teeth, with safe soothing tips and when to seek care.

What feeding essentials do I actually need for starting solids? Starting solids in Australia doesn't require a cupboard full of gear. You need a proper highchair, a suction bowl and plate that stay put, a set of soft-tipped spoons, and a sippy cup for water practice. That's it. Everything past those four is nice to have, not need to have. Here's why each one earns its spot, and why the alternatives usually end up in the donation pile. Signs your baby is ready to start solids Before the gear even matters, it helps to know you're starting at the right time. Australian health guidelines generally recommend introducing solids around six months, alongside continued breastfeeding or formula. Readiness signs to look for include: •     Sitting upright with minimal support, and holding their head steady •     Showing interest in food, such as watching and reaching during family meals •     Losing the tongue-thrust reflex that pushes food back out of the mouth •     Being able to bring objects to their mouth in a coordinated way If you're unsure whether your baby is ready, your maternal child health nurse or GP is the right person to ask. This guide covers the gear, not the medical timing. 1. A proper highchair This is the piece of gear everything else depends on. A highchair with a wide, stable base and a tray your baby can't easily shove around makes every meal easier, and it's worth choosing one that's simple to wipe down rather than one with lots of fabric or padding that traps food. A highchair that pulls right up to the table also makes mealtimes feel like part of the family, rather than something happening off to the side. You don't need anything elaborate. A firm, easy-clean seat with a secure harness and a tray that comes off for washing covers everything solids actually require in the first year. 2. A silicone suction bowl and plate that actually stay put This is the piece of gear that saves your floor and your patience. A bowl that slides or gets thrown mid-meal turns dinner into cleanup before it's started. Our Silicone Baby Feeding Set uses a genuine suction base designed to grip highchair trays, not just sit on them. One of our customers, Natalie, put it best: it sticks so easily to the highchair without her daughter throwing it on the floor. That's the entire test for this category. A few things separate a suction plate that actually works from one that doesn't. Look for a firm, flat base rather than a soft, flexible one, since flex is what lets babies pry a bowl loose. A textured or slightly tacky underside also helps it grip laminate or timber highchair trays, which are more common than smooth plastic ones in most Australian homes. Divided compartments are a nice extra if your baby prefers foods kept separate, but they're not essential to the core job of the plate. 3. Soft-tipped silicone spoons Hard plastic spoons can be uncomfortable on new gums, especially in the early weeks of baby-led weaning. Soft silicone tips flex slightly, which makes early spoon-feeding gentler and gives bub something safe to gnaw on between mouthfuls. Look for spoons with a shorter handle if you're letting your baby self-feed, and a longer handle for the parent-led scoops. A set of two to four spoons is generally enough. Babies often prefer to hold their own spoon while you feed with a second one, so having a spare on hand avoids a mid-meal meltdown over a dropped spoon. Silicone spoons are also dishwasher safe in most cases, which matters when you're feeding three times a day. 4. A sippy cup for water practice Introducing a cup alongside solids helps with the oral motor skills bub will use for eating and, later, talking. Our Silicone Sippy Cup with Straw is soft enough for little hands and mouths, and it's a gentle way to build the coordination for independent drinking without committing to a fully open cup straight away. Start with small amounts of water offered at mealtimes rather than a full cup handed over unsupervised. It's less about hydration at this stage, since breastmilk or formula still covers most fluid needs, and more about building the habit early. Baby-led weaning essentials Australia: what to skip You don't need a dedicated blender if you already own a stick mixer or food processor. You don't need branded pouches, purpose-built freezer trays, or a full matching dinner set. Start with the four essentials above and add gear only once you've identified an actual gap, not a hypothetical one. Other items that sound essential but rarely are: specialised baby-food steamers (a regular steamer or microwave does the same job), branded food scissors (regular kitchen scissors work fine for softening finger food), and elaborate storage systems for purees, since most families settle on a simple set of reusable containers or ice cube trays for freezing. First foods worth starting with Whether you're following baby-led weaning, purees, or a mix of both, first foods are generally chosen for being soft, easy to manage, and low allergy risk to start. Common first foods in Australian households include: •     Steamed and softened vegetables such as sweet potato, pumpkin, carrot, or broccoli, cut into finger-sized pieces or mashed •     Ripe banana, avocado, or steamed pear, which mash easily and need no cooking •     Iron-rich foods such as well-cooked minced meat, or iron-fortified baby cereal, since iron needs increase significantly from six months •     Allergen introduction, such as smooth peanut butter mixed into puree or egg cooked well, ideally introduced early and often under guidance from your GP or health nurse Current Australian guidance actually recommends introducing common allergens like peanut, egg, and dairy early rather than delaying them, since early exposure is now understood to reduce allergy risk rather than increase it. Always check with your GP first if there's a family history of allergies. How much mess is normal? More than you'd expect, and that's genuinely fine. Early solids are about exploration as much as nutrition, and a lot of what goes on the tray ends up on the floor or the baby rather than in their mouth. An easy-clean highchair and a suction bowl that doesn't go flying do most of the heavy lifting here. Mess generally settles down as babies build coordination, usually somewhere between nine and twelve months. Safe, non-toxic baby teethers for the transition Starting solids often overlaps with a teething stretch, and having something safe on hand for sore gums makes mealtimes calmer for everyone. Our Nest Silicone Baby Teether and Reef Silicone & Beechwood Baby Teether are both made from food-grade silicone, so they're just as safe in a teething baby's mouth as they are next to their dinner. When choosing a teether, look for food-grade silicone free from BPA, phthalates, and PVC, and check for any relevant safety certification. Teethers with a beechwood component add texture variety, which some babies prefer during the harder teething stretches, but the wood should always be untreated and food-safe. A note from Kate I bought so much feeding gear before I actually needed it, and most of it sat unused in a cupboard. What got used every single day, without fail, was the highchair, a bowl and plate that didn't move, a couple of decent spoons, and a sippy cup. That's genuinely it. Start small. You can always add more once you know what your baby actually needs. Shop the Silicone Baby Feeding Set →   Honey & Sage AU designs feeding, sleep, and settling essentials for Australian families. Explore our full feeding collection for suction plates, bowls, and teethers made for the realities of the first year.

Myth: any bowl and spoon will do for starting solids. Truth: the bowl that slides across the highchair, and the spoon that clatters to the floor, are doing half the work of the meltdown. It's an easy assumption to make. Solids feel like they should be the simple part — surely a bowl is a bowl, a spoon is a spoon, and the real challenge is just getting your baby to actually eat the food in front of them. But talk to enough parents a few weeks into starting solids, and a pattern emerges: a surprising number of mealtime meltdowns have very little to do with the food itself. Early Feeding Is Already A Lot Put yourself, briefly, in your baby's position. New textures. New temperatures. A completely new object — a spoon — that has to be understood before it can be tolerated, let alone enjoyed. A small person is being asked to process an enormous amount of new sensory information in one sitting, several times a day. It's a huge amount of new information for a baby to process in one sitting — and the tools matter more than we're usually told. A bowl that won't stay put turns every meal into a small battle before the food has even reached their mouth. Every slide, every near-tip, adds a jolt of unpredictability to something that's already unfamiliar. A spoon that's too big, too hard, or too hot straight from the dishwasher adds friction to a moment that's already asking a lot of a first-time eater — and any of these things alone can be the difference between a calm meal and a frustrated one. What Actually Helps None of this means the right gear will guarantee a perfect meal — nothing does, at this stage, and mess is simply part of the process. But it does mean you can remove a few of the more avoidable obstacles. Food-safe silicone, soft on new gums, takes one variable out of an already unpredictable meal. A suction base that holds firm on the highchair tray means the bowl stays where you put it — no chasing it across the room mid-bite, no watching a full bowl of purée slide toward the edge of the tray at the worst possible moment. A spoon shaped and sized for small mouths, without hard edges or an awkward angle, means your baby can focus on the actual task of learning to eat, rather than also managing an uncomfortable tool at the same time. Why the Small Things Compound The reason this matters more than it might seem is that early feeding already asks a lot of a baby's nervous system. Every new texture, every unfamiliar taste, every unexpected temperature is a small challenge to work through. A bowl or spoon that adds its own layer of unpredictability on top of that isn't a minor inconvenience — it's one more thing competing for a baby's limited capacity to cope with something new. Take that variable away, and what's left is just the food, the mess, and the milestone — which is plenty for anyone to be managing at eight months old. A Realistic Expectation It's worth saying plainly: good feeding tools won't turn every meal into a calm, photogenic moment. Some days will still end with purée in someone's hair and half the bowl on the floor. That's a normal, expected part of learning to eat, not a sign that anything's gone wrong. What good tools do is quietly remove the obstacles that have nothing to do with learning to eat, and everything to do with equipment getting in the way. That's a small shift, but for a stage of parenting that's already full of new challenges, it's one worth making.  

Three simple habits to protect your feeding essentials. Silicone feeding sets are built to last, and that's part of why so many families choose them over plastic or melamine — they're durable, food-safe, and able to handle the day-to-day chaos of feeding a small child. But "built to last" and "will last automatically" are two different things. A few small habits make the difference between gear that still looks brand new at six months and gear that's stained, dulled, and losing its grip well before then. None of this requires an overhaul of your routine. It's mostly about timing — doing a few small things at the right moment, rather than an elaborate care regime. Clean Surfaces for Better Suction Always wipe down your highchair tray before attaching the bowl or plate. It sounds like an unnecessary extra step in an already busy mealtime, but it solves a specific and common problem. Small crumbs break the suction seal, leading to frustrating slips and spills during mealtime — and this is often mistaken for a fault in the bowl itself, when it's really just a surface that needed a wipe first. A suction base can only do its job on a clean, flat surface. Yesterday's crumbs, a smear of dried food, or even a bit of moisture left on the tray can be enough to stop it gripping properly. The fix takes about ten seconds: a quick wipe before you attach the bowl, every time, until it becomes automatic. Rinse Immediately After Messy Meals Rinse your plates right after eating, especially after serving tomato-based sauces. Tomato is one of the most common culprits behind stained silicone, and it's also one of the easiest stains to prevent if you catch it early. This prevents stubborn stains and odours from soaking into the silicone, which is far easier to manage in the first few minutes than after everything's dried on. Silicone is porous at a microscopic level, and food that's allowed to sit and dry has much longer to work its way in than food that's rinsed off straight away. It doesn't need to be a full wash immediately — just a quick rinse under water is usually enough to buy you time until proper cleaning. Keep Away From Direct Heat Avoid placing your silicone sets near hot stovetops or oven vents while serving up. It's an easy habit to fall into, especially when kitchen bench space is limited and dinner is happening right where the plates need to sit — but it's worth building in a bit more distance where you can. While heat-resistant, constant exposure to extreme direct heat can gradually degrade the material's durability over time. This isn't about one accidental placement near a hot pan; it's about repeated exposure, meal after meal, gradually softening or weakening the silicone in ways that aren't obvious until the set starts to feel different in your hands. Why These Habits Are Worth Building None of these three habits are complicated, and none of them add meaningful time to your day once they're routine. But together, they protect an investment that's meant to serve your family through months — sometimes years — of meals, snacks, and everything in between. A few tiny shifts in your routine will keep your essentials working properly for years to come — which, with how quickly everything else changes in this stage, is one small thing worth holding onto. It's not about being precious with your gear. It's about getting the full lifespan out of something that's designed to earn it.