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Feeding schedule for a 8-month-old baby
✓ Last verified against the official sources on 1 September 2026.
From tasting to real meals
Solid food now grows into real meals. You build up towards two and then three eating moments a day, with vegetables, fruit, potato or bread and a little meat, fish, egg or pulses. Milk stays important, but supplies less and less of the daily intake.
Milk gradually provides less of the daily intake as solids take over.
What changes this month
The big shift this month: food no longer needs to be smooth. Small soft lumps ask for chewing, and that is exactly what develops the mouth muscles and, later, speech. Finger food alongside gives your baby control over what goes in.
An example day
This is what a day could look like. It is an example, not a prescription: your baby tells you when they are hungry, and that shifts from day to day.
From around 8 months food no longer needs to be smooth: small soft lumps are exactly what develops the mouth muscles. Finger food — soft fruit, cooked vegetable sticks — is very welcome alongside.
| Around | What |
|---|---|
| 7am | Milk feed (180–200 ml) |
| 8.30am | Breakfast: cereal or toast fingers |
| 11.30am | Lunch: vegetables and potato, mashed rather than pureed |
| 2pm | Milk feed (180–200 ml) |
| 4pm | Finger food: soft fruit or cooked vegetable sticks |
| 5.30pm | Dinner: small pieces of what the family is having |
| 7.30pm | Milk feed (180–200 ml) and bed |
Introduce the common allergens, including peanut and egg, once solids are under way and before 12 months — one at a time, in small amounts.
What about breastfeeding?
With breastfeeding you don’t count millilitres — feeding responsively is the guidance, and your baby regulates the amount. The volumes above are for formula; the number of feeds a day is still a useful reference point either way.
Working it out for your baby
The rule of thumb is 150 ml per kilo of body weight a day, spread across the feeds — capped at 200 ml per bottle. Work it out with your baby’s weight →
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