Please read the following notice

Consult a healthcare professional to make an informed choice on feeding your baby milks & weaning onto solid foods.

Breastfeeding is best for babies and provides many benefits. Combining breast feeding with bottle feeding in the first weeks of life may reduce the supply of your own breast milk, and reversing the decision not to breastfeed is difficult. If you choose to formula feed, you should follow manufacturer’s instructions for preparation and use carefully.

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Fibre in your baby’s diet

Breast milk is recognised as the best source of nourishment during the first six months of life¹. When your baby is around 6 months old and showing signs of readiness, the Department of Health recommends introducing solid foods into their diet². There are a lot of different nutrients that will make up the foods that you will introduce to them, including fibre.

The two types of fibre

“Dietary fibre” is a term that’s used for plant-based carbohydrates (as opposed to “carbohydrates” such as sugars and starch)³, and there are two main types of fibre; soluble and insoluble.
Soluble fibre is easily dissolved in water and can be found in foods such as fruit and oats.

Insoluble fibre does not easily dissolve in water and can be found in wholegrains and nuts*.

How much fibre do babies need?

In the UK, there’s no daily recommended amount of fibre for children under the age of two. However, when you start weaning at around six months, The European Society for Paediatric Gastroenterology Hepatology and Nutrition (ESPGHAN) recommends to gradually increase the fibre in your baby’s diet, so that by the time they are one year old they are having 5g fibre per day⁴.
Make sure you slowly and gradually increase the amount of fibre in your baby’s diet, to allow their gut to adjust to small increases over time. It’s also important that your baby has a varied diet.

It can take up to 10 tries or more⁵ for your baby to welcome a new food into their diet, especially when they're at the very first stages of weaning. Don't forget, your baby has only tasted their usual milk before so new tastes can be somewhat strange.

Having too much fibre may not be the best for your little one. The NHS suggests that foods containing a lot of fibre can fill up small tummies leaving little room for other foods, meaning that your child could feel full before getting the calories and nutrients they need⁶.

When weaning, you can also introduce your baby to drinking sips of water with meals (from a cup or beaker)⁷.

Which foods are a good source of fibre?

Lots of foods naturally contain fibre, including some manufactured baby foods. When foods in the supermarket say ‘source of fibre’ on the label, this means that the food has at least 3g of fibre per 100g8, or at least 1.5g of fibre per 100kcal. Some foods may contain at least 6g of fibre 100g, or at least 3g of fibre per 100kcal, which is classed as ‘high fibre’⁸.

Good sources of fibre for babies:

There are many good sources of fibre that you can incorporate into your little one’s diet once you have started their weaning journey, including:

Starchy foods such as porridge, baby cereals, sweet potato, pasta and rice
Beans, pulses, hummus and dahl
Vegetables, including peas, parsnip, mixed veg (from frozen), green beans, carrot, canned sweetcorn and broccoli
Fruits such as pear, apple, raspberries and blackberries, plums, banana and orange
Nuts* such as almonds, peanuts, hazelnuts⁹.

*Do not give whole nuts to babies and young children due to risk of choking. Provide ground nuts only until they reach the age of five9.

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