Make them chew or they'll be fussy

Evidence from mothers interviewed for the 'Children in the 90s project' showed that infants who were not introduced to chewy foods by the age of ten months were much more choosy about what they would eat when they were 15 months old than those who had been introduced to chewy foods at an earlier age.

Dietician Pauline Emmett, who is also senior research nutritionalist on the ongoing research project, said, 'Previous research had suggested that babies are ready to learn to chew food at between six and nine months of age, and that problems might arise if this ideal time was missed. To see if this was so in the Children of the 90s group, we decided to look at how they were being fed at the ages of six months and 15 months, and whether they had been introduced to chewy food at between six and nine months.' The researchers found that the majority of infants had been introduced to lumpy food between the recommended ages of six and nine months. About ten per cent were introduced to it before six months, though this did not seem to cause any problems.