Stage 3 Baby Foods, Puree & Smoothie Ideas

By: Lauren Mahesri, RD, The Pediatric Dietitian.

Starting solids is an exciting milestone for you and your baby. It’s a time of exploring new flavors, developing motor skills, and building positive eating habits. But it can also feel overwhelming to ensure your baby gets the right nutrients while safely handling new foods.

Especially with stage 3 baby foods, your baby’s diet is expanding quickly. While they’ve taken the next step in advancing textures, what elements of nutrition are important? What foods should you be serving? In this guide, we’ll break down stage 3 baby foods, essential nutrients, feeding schedules, and easy meal ideas to help you confidently feed your baby.                           

What is Stage 3 Baby Food?

Baby food stages are based on texture to match your baby’s developing oral motor skills. These textures are designed to be safely tolerated and provide just enough challenge to help your baby develop essential chewing and swallowing skills.

While exact age ranges can vary, here’s a general guideline:

Stage 1 (4-6 months): Fully blended, thin purees often made from one ingredient.

Stage 2 (6-9 months): Mashed or lumpy foods with subtle texture variety, can be multi-ingredient.

Stage 3 (9-12 months): Soft, bite-sized pieces and “mushable” foods, often chopped versions of family meals.

Signs Your Baby is Ready for Stage 3 Foods

Your baby might be ready for stage 3 foods if they have improved hand coordination, show interest in family meals, can handle soft textures without gagging often, mash food with their gums or early teeth, and use a pincer grasp (picking things up with their pointer finger) to pick up food.

These advanced textures help babies develop oral skills for future eating. Studies show that the textures babies are exposed to play a key role in how they accept food textures as toddlers.

Best Foods to Introduce with Stage 3 Baby Food

Although breast milk should be a substantial source of nutrition for the first year of life, baby’s nutritional needs start to change at 6 months. This is why it’s important to complement breast milk with solid foods. More on this in the article Working Together: Breastfeeding and Solid Foods.

Key nutrients babies need at 9-12 months:

• Iron: By 6 months, a baby’s iron stores start to decrease, and breast milk alone isn’t enough to meet their needs. Iron-rich foods like fortified cereals, meats, beans, and eggs are crucial for brain development and overall growth.
• Protein: Both plant-based and animal-based proteins support healthy growth and muscle development. Great sources include poultry, fish, tofu, yogurt, and beans.
• Healthy Fats: Essential for brain development, growth, and absorbing important vitamins, healthy fats should come from sources like avocado, nut butter, and fatty fish. Animal fats also provide valuable calories and nutrients.
• Fiber: Fibrous foods support digestion and help develop a healthy gut microbiome, which plays a role in immune function and cognitive development. Include fiber from fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, and whole grains.

Food List for Stage 3 Baby Food

With all stage 3 baby foods, make sure they’re well cooked, slightly flattened (for small circular foods like peas or berries), or cut into small pieces.

• Well-cooked vegetables: Sweet potatoes, carrots, butternut squash, pumpkin, zucchini, eggplant, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, green peas, green beans, bell peppers, tomatoes (peeled), beets.
• Fruit: Banana, avocado, ripe peaches, ripe pears, ripe plums, ripe mango, ripe nectarines, watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, cooked apples, cooked pears.
• Proteins: Scrambled eggs, shredded chicken, shredded turkey, ground beef, ground turkey, flaked fish (salmon, cod, tilapia), tofu, tempeh, lentils, mashed beans, cottage cheese, yogurt, ricotta cheese, shredded cheese, hummus, nut butter (mixed into foods).
• Starches: Oatmeal, rice, quinoa, couscous, whole wheat pasta, mashed potatoes.

These foods, along with breast milk or formula, provide the calories and essential nutrients your baby needs. While most nutrients don’t require supplementation, a few are recommended for some babies at this stage:

• Vitamin D: 400 IU/day until 12 months, then 600 IU
• Iron: 1 mg/kg/day for exclusively or partially breastfed babies
• Vitamin B12: 0.4 mcg/day if the mother is vegan

Foods to Avoid

Although babies can handle a variety of textures, they still need to avoid choking hazards. Avoid foods that are sticky, slippery, overly chewy, or small and hard such as:

• Cheese cubes/cheese sticks
• Cherry tomato
• Crackers
• Grapes
• Gummy candy
• Hard candy
• Marshmallows
• Meat cubes or large chunks (hot dogs, jerky, etc.)
• Popcorn

Feeding Schedule

Below is a sample meal schedule for babies 9-10 months and 10-12 months, showing how meals gradually evolve and the variety of foods offered.  Keep in mind that every baby is unique, and you can adjust the timeline to fit your family’s needs.

9-10 Month Example Meal Plan

6:30am: bottle or breastmilk

7:00am: breakfast (scrambled egg, avocado, smashed blueberries)

10:30am: bottle or breastmilk

12:00pm: lunch (ground chicken and sweet potato mash, well-cooked green beans)

2:00pm: snack (full-fat yogurt with hemp hearts & Little Bellies banana softcorn)

4:00pm: bottle or breastmilk

6:00pm: dinner (mashed lentils and zucchini, ripe peaches)

6:30pm: bottle or breastmilk

10-12 Month Example Meal Plan

6:30am: bottle or breastmilk

7:00am: breakfast (oatmeal with nut butter, cooked apples)

10:00am: snack (Little Bellies Veggie Tubes & cottage cheese)

12:30pm: lunch (mashed black beans with cheese, ripened plums)

2:00pm: snack (broccoli and hummus mash with Little Bellies Mango Yogurt Pick-Me Sticks)

4:00pm: bottle or breastmilk

6:00pm: dinner (shredded turkey with textured cauliflower and avocado puree)

6:30pm: bottle or breastmilk

The “right” amount to feed a baby is based on their appetite. Focus on responsive feeding by observing their hunger and fullness cues. A good rule of thumb is to begin with 2-4 tablespoons of each food and offer more if they finish it.

What About Snacking?      

You’ll notice that snacking is included in the schedule, but doesn’t replace meals or occur too frequently that babies aren’t hungry for meals.

Babies should be fed every 2-4 hours, either with milk or solid food. If they eat during a family meal, offer that, and if their feeding time doesn’t match a meal, give them a snack. Don’t overcomplicate snacks—think of them as mini meals! Aim for a protein or fat served with a carbohydrate.   

Stage 3 Baby Food Recipes & Meal Ideas

Mash the ingredients together for a puree or blend further with breast milk or water until it becomes liquid like a smoothie.

Cinnamon Sweet Potato: Sweet potato, pear, cinnamon

Mango Avocado Mash: Mango, avocado, lime juice

Pumpkin Spice Blend: Pumpkin, apples, cinnamon

Berry Beet: Beets, blueberries, yogurt

Green Bean Pear Purée: Green beans, pear, ginger

Zucchini Apple Medley: Zucchini, apple, basil

Butternut Squash & Lentil: Butternut squash, lentils, cumin

Savory Chicken & Peas: Shredded chicken, green peas, thyme

Tomato Rice Purée: Tomatoes (peeled), rice, oregano

Creamy Peach Dream: Peaches, cottage cheese, vanilla

Even with all the resources and recipe ideas, feeding your baby can be a huge learning curve. Every baby progresses at their own pace – there’s no rush! The key is to keep offering a variety of foods, allowing your baby to explore new flavors and textures while you enjoy bonding together.

Photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash