How to Offer Soup to Baby

Did you know you can offer warm and cozy soups when doing baby-led weaning (BLW)? Introducing your baby to a wide variety of textures is important, including soups! When selecting a soup, it is vital to consider the consistency of the soup and the tools that will help baby’s feeding development. Here are my go-to tips on how to introduce soups to your baby.

Soups for Sensory Awareness

When you give babies the opportunity to try something new to eat, you want to provide them with multiple ways to succeed. For example, try soups from a spoon on one occasion, then from an open cup at another meal to allow baby to challenge their sensory system. This makes it less likely for baby to reject new foods during the toddler years. Score!

Soups via Spoon

For babies six to nine months, you can offer a preloaded spoon. For babies 9 to 12 months, you can let baby start to dip and scoop thick soup by themselves! The ezpz Tiny Spoon is a perfect size for infants developing mouths and hands, making baby-led spoon-feeding ezpz! Offering a spoon early and often will help your baby make their spoon-feeding milestones!

Soups via Open Cup

For babies six to nine months, you can give them warm soup via an open cup (held by an adult) to slurp. For babies nine to twelve months (and for some much earlier), they will start to hold the cup independently with one or two hands! Soup drinking practice (and breastmilk + formula, too) gives your baby the repetition they need to achieve the 12-month-old feeding milestone of drinking from an open cup independently with minimal spillage. Use the ezpz Tiny Cup to help your baby achieve this critical milestone.

Soups via Oral Development Tools

You can also help your baby be more adventurous by offering soup via the ezpz Oral Development Tools. For example, dip the Tiny Development Tools in warm soup and offer it to your baby. Then, watch their tongue lift and go through the hole in the tool. This is building tongue elevation skills which will help protect baby’s airway. You can also use the Mini Developmental Tool by placing soup in the eye depressions of the smiley face and having baby slurp it off! Finally, use the Happy Development Tool by placing soup on the tip of the tool and work on lip rounding and sucking, which are the oral motor skills needed to prepare them for straw cup drinking. Score!

Soups for Texture

Soups are a great way to introduce animal protein to your baby, especially if they are picky about taste or texture. For example, I boil veggies with either lamb, chicken, beef, fish, or liver and mix it all in a blender. This is especially helpful if you are nervous about your baby choking on a piece of meat. Here are some additional tips for introducing this blended texture:

Soups for Temperature Change

As with offering warm beverages to your baby, you want to make sure to stir the soup and try a sip. If the temperature is too hot, add a little breast milk or formula to cool it off.

I hope these tips help your baby make adorable soup slurping sounds! What soup flavors does your baby enjoy most? Have you tried serving soups in a baby-led cup or spoon?

P.S You can get the ezpz Tiny Spoon + Tiny Cup and and Oral Development Tools at ezpzfun.com and use the code: BABY10 for 10% off. You can also snag them from my Amazon Store too!