Around one in five mothers in Ireland wean their babies onto solid foods before 12 weeks of age, well below the recommended age of 17 weeks, a paediatric dietician has said.

According to Teresa Kelly of Cork University Hospital, nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life ‘has a positive lifelong effect on health and well-timed nutritional interventions in the first year may be crucial to future health'.

"This is period of unprecedented growth. At birth, an infant's brain weights 400g. At 12 months, the weight has increased three-fold proportional to body weight," Ms Kelly explained.

She emphasised that good weaning practices ‘program food choices well into childhood'.

According to Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) guidelines, weaning should take place at around six months.

"Infants should not be introduced to solid food before four months (17 weeks) of age and the start of weaning should not be delayed past six months (26 weeks) of age. However, over 20% of mothers in Ireland wean their infants onto solid food before 12 weeks of age," Ms Kelly explained.

She pointed out that the greater the variety of tastes an infant is introduced to, ‘the greater the food choices in later childhood'.

"Infants accept and learn to like strong-tasting foods within weeks if they are given often. Weaning onto a wide range of home-prepared foods helps infants to develop taste and predicts better acceptance in the future," she explained.

Ms Kelly acknowledged that parents can be confused by ‘inconsistent information from families and healthcare professionals'. However, she noted that children learn by association and are capable of accepting patterns and routine from 10-12 weeks.

"When these patterns are encouraged, it lays down an excellent foundation for weaning onto solids. For infants, food is about exposure to new tastes and textures, however it must be age appropriate," she added.

Ms Kelly made her comments in World of Irish Nursing & Midwifery (WIN), the journal of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.