You ll know your baby is old enough for solid foods when he can sit well with support, has good head and neck control and can turn his head away on purpose if he doesn t like a food or has had enough. This usually happens around 4 to 6 months. In the 4 and 5 month fact sheet in this series, we ll tell you how to start your baby on solid foods. Thumb or Pacifier Babies need to suck, and sometimes feeding isn t enough to meet their sucking needs. Extra sucking on a finger, thumb, fist or pacifier can help baby to calm herself down when she is upset.
Finger sucking is natural.
Some babies suck their thumbs even before they are born. Most children will stop thumb sucking by themselves by the time they are 5 years old, if no one draws too much attention to it. Pacifiers can also calm babies. Babies may prefer a pacifier with a nipple just like his bottle. One-piece pacifiers are safer.