Weaning your baby on vegetarian or vegan diet

The same advice applies as for non-vegetarian diet. Once your baby’s showing all the signs they’re ready to wean, start at around 6 months by introducing single veggies. Once they’ve accepted savoury flavours, you can begin to introduce fruits too, followed by new food groups, textures and flavours.

At first, breast milk or infant formula fulfils all their nutritional needs. But as they progress and become more reliant on food for their nutritional needs, a varied diet is key.

If you’re raising your baby on a vegetarian or vegan diet, you need to take particular care that they’re getting enough Vitamin B12, protein , calcium, iron and omega-3 fatty acids in their diet. It’s a good idea to talk to a healthcare professional about any supplements you might need to give your baby to meet their recommended daily intake of vitamins and minerals.

From around 7 months, when you start introducing a wider range of foods, a vegan or vegetarian diet can sometimes be high in fibre, which can make your baby feel full up before they’ve taken on enough calories and nutrients to power all that growing and developing. If you're worried your baby’s not getting enough energy from this age, try offering them higher calorie foods like hummus, smooth nut butters or full-fat unsweetened yoghurt or yoghurt alternatives. You can also offer white bread and rice rather than wholegrain or brown varieties as they contain less fibre and therefore won’t fill them up as quickly.

Vitamin B12 is found in foods like eggs, cheese and milk and helps keep your baby’s nervous system healthy and also helps prevent a type of anaemia¹.

Plant-based foods don’t contain vitamin B12 unless they’re fortified¹, so if you’re raising your baby on a vegan diet, you’ll need to make sure they take a supplement that contains vitamin B12 or eat foods that are fortified with B12.

• Fortified breakfast cereals.
• Fortified yoghurt and milk alternatives, such as soya, oat, coconut and almond drinks.
• Yeast extracts which contain no added salt.
• Nuts and seeds, ground or served as smooth nut butters, such as almonds, cashews, chia seeds and flaxseeds.

Proteins are essential for healthy growth. Made up of different amino acids, they’re found in every cell of your little one’s body and are essential for repairing damaged cells and building new ones².

Certain amino acids are considered an essential part of your baby’s diet as they can only be obtained from the foods they eat. Protein from animal sources, such as eggs, milk and cheese, contain the full range of these ‘essential’ amino acids². However, if you’re weaning your baby on a vegan diet, they can get all the amino acids they need by eating a good variety of plant-based protein sources².

• Dairy products like cheese and unsweetened yoghurt.
• Eggs stamped with the red lion mark.
• Lentils, pulses and beans.
• Grains such as oats, barley, rice and quinoa.

Calcium is vital for the healthy development of your baby’s bones and teeth. It’s needed by every single cell in your baby’s body, helping their muscles and nerves to function, aiding digestion and enabling blood to clot3.

• Dairy foods such cheese and unsweetened yoghurts
• Dried figs
• Ground almonds, or smooth almond butter.
• Green leafy vegetables like broccoli, spinach or kale.
• Beans, lentils and chickpeas.
• Whole cows' milk can be used in your little one’s meals from 6 months. However, it’s not suitable as their main drink while they’re weaning because it doesn’t contain enough iron⁴ and other important nutrients for healthy growth and development.
• It’s safe to give your baby unsweetened calcium-fortified milk alternatives, such as oat or almond milk, from the age of 12 months as part of a healthy, balanced diet. However, don’t give your little one rice milk until they’re at least 5 years old, as it can contain levels of arsenic that are harmful to your little one⁵.

Iron is essential for the formation of haemoglobin in your baby’s red blood cells, which carry oxygen around their body, and plays an important role in their immune system⁶.

There are two types; haem iron (from animal sources) and non-haem iron (from plant sources).

While non-haem iron is harder for the body to absorb, vitamin C helps the body absorb more iron. So combining iron-rich foods with vitamin C-rich foods like red peppers and broccoli, or offering vitamin-C packed fruit like strawberries or kiwi fruit for dessert, will help your baby absorb more iron from their meals.

• Fortified breakfast cereals.
• Beans, chickpeas and lentils.
• Leafy green vegetables.
• Dried fruit, such as figs and apricots.

Omega-3 is an essential fatty acid which is important for the development of your baby’s brain and vision and can only be obtained from their diet⁷.

• Flaxseed (linseed) oil or ground linseeds.
• Ground walnuts.
• Ground chia or hemp seeds.
• Eggs enriched with omega-3 that carry the red lion stamp.

The Department of Health recommends that all little ones between the age of 6 months and 5 years are given a daily supplement containing vitamins A, C and D in order to meet their recommended daily intake⁸. Because infant formula is already fortified with nutrients, if your baby is having at least 500ml (about a pint) of formula milk a day, there’s no need to give them vitamin supplements.

Vitamin supplements for babies are given in the form of drops – your health visitor can give you advice on the best vitamin drops to complement your baby’s diet.

Not all forms of vitamin D are suitable for vegans – so if you’re raising your baby on a vegan diet, look for a supplement containing Vitamin D2 which is vegan-friendly. Certain varieties of Vitamin D3 are derived from lichen and are also suitable for vegans^9.

If you’re raising your baby on a vegan diet, they may also need to take a supplement of vitamin B12 too.