Hi All, I am a First time mom, and a little lost as to how should i go about with feeding solid food to my young one, she is 5mnth old , can someone let me know after how many hours should i feed her and at what time gaps should i give her soup/juice..would appreciate if someone could be my guide Mel replied. You can start off with rice cereal (Cerelac / Farex). Start with just a small teaspoon of rice cereal. Then offer her 1 teaspoon of cereal 3 times a day. Watch her bowel movements, if everything seems fine... then you can slowly increase the quantity, until she' s eating around one small katori for each of her 3 meals.

After a week or two, introduce one veggie (preferably potato), mash and mix with the cereal. Offer her only potato and cereal for 3-4 days and watch bowel movements. If there is no allergy (rash or changes in her potty), then you can proceed to introduce one more item (dal / carrots / lauki / spinach / rice / pumpkin, etc.) Don' t introduce fruits first, as infants quickly take to the taste of sweet fruits and reject veggies later. So, introduce rice, dal and veggies first. And introduce fruits after a month and a half.

A few tips: let her eat as much or as little as she wants. Don' t force her. And if she repeatedly rejects a particular item, just omit it from her diet. They have likes and dislikes just like us.
Keep mealtimes stress free and fun, so that way she will associate eating with something positive.
Don' t introduce eggs whites, chapati (or any wheat products), meats until she completes 8 months. Don' t introduce egg yolk until she completes 1 year.
Make sure all food (fruits / veggies / rice / dal) is cooked thoroughly and pureed as she is too young to chew.
Once she gets a reasonable set of teeth, then you can progress from puree to very small soft lumps.
Don' t offer juice. It' s high calorie and sweet. She will develop a liking for it, and it is predominantly empty calories which will fill her up and reduce her appetite for other nutritious foods. Instead, wait for a month and a half and offer fresh fruit puree. (Apples and pears should be boiled and then pureed.)

About how often to feed her, apart from milk at her usual routine, start with one meal, then progress to 3 meals, and by the time she is 1 year old, she should be having 3 meals and 2 snacks.

Sample menu:
Wake up: Milk
09:00 - 10:00 a.m.: Rice cereal with fruit
12:30 - 13:30 p.m.: Lunch (Rice + Dal + Veggie)
3:30 - 4:30 p.m.: Snack (Cheese, Dahi, Biscuits, Mashed Potato, etc)
06:00 - 07:30 p.m. Dinner

Apart from this, offer her milk on demand.