Fibre in your baby’s diet

“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*.

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.

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.

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.