Stick to rice cereal, once or twice a day, for two weeks or so — or even as long as a month. This food is easy to digest, unlikely to cause allergies, and can be prepared with a thicker consistency as your baby gets more proficient at eating.

Slowly introduce other foods to your baby's diet. “Slowly” is the key word here. Feed your baby a single new food, in tiny portions, for at least three days straight before moving on to another food, and watch for signs of allergic reaction. (Don't serve a mixed food until you've allergy-tested the ingredients first.) It is much easier to allergy-test at the food introduction stage than figure out what caused an allergy later. It's a good idea to keep a chart of what foods you've introduced, and what reaction, if any, you noticed.

While there is wide agreement that rice cereal is the perfect first food, there is less agreement on what the second food should be. One theory is that the next few foods should be vegetables, not fruits, so your baby doesn't get the idea that all food is sweet. The other theory holds the opposite: that fruits, because of their sweetness, are more likely to interest your baby and therefore should be introduced before vegetables.

Both theories make sense, so go with what seems to work for you and your baby. Every few weeks introduce a new type of cereal into the mix as well. In general, the order doesn't matter that much.

TOP TEN FIRST FOODS