6-Month-Old Baby Guide: Weaning, Sleep, Development & NHS Care

What might your baby do by 6 months?

Many babies now recognise familiar people, laugh, answer sounds with sounds and reach for an object they want. On the floor, your baby may push up on straight arms, roll from tummy to back and lean on their hands while sitting with support.

These signs do not all arrive in the same week. Sitting without support has a broad normal window, and crawling is not expected at six months. Look at the direction of development rather than comparing a single day with another baby; use corrected age after an early birth.

Starting solids with your GP or health visitor

NHS guidance suggests starting at around six months when three signs appear together: your baby can stay sitting with a steady head, coordinate eyes, hands and mouth to pick up food, and swallow rather than push food straight back out. Before starting, discuss readiness and the first feeding plan with your health visitor or GP. An early birth, growth concern, swallowing difficulty, medical condition or known allergy makes that individual review especially important.

The first meals are for learning, not finishing a portion. Breast milk or first infant formula remains the main drink while tastes and textures build gradually. NHS examples can help you understand the range of foods, but they are not a personal menu. Agree the safest foods, textures and pace for your baby with the GP, health visitor or specialist team that knows their health history.

Allergens and iron need a personal plan

NHS guidance says foods that can trigger allergy may be introduced one at a time from around six months so a reaction can be recognised. It also advises speaking to a GP or health visitor first when a baby has eczema, an existing food allergy or a family history of allergy, eczema, asthma or hay fever. Use that guidance as a framework, not as instructions to run an allergen trial from this page.

Before introducing egg, peanut or another major allergen, agree the food, form and circumstances with your GP, health visitor or allergy team. Never retry a food that has already caused a reaction unless the clinical team directs you. Iron-rich foods and any supplement should likewise follow your baby’s feeding history and professional advice. Whole nuts, thick spoonfuls of nut butter and hard round foods remain choking hazards.

How this month fits NHS reviews and vaccinations

The routine 6–8 week review has already happened, and there is not a universal NHS 6-month vaccination appointment for every baby. Contact with the health visiting team and local developmental reviews can vary by area. Check the Red Book and the appointment offered locally rather than expecting an online list to match every family.

This is still a useful time to discuss growth, feeding, movement, hearing and vision responses, oral health and safety. Take an actual record of recent sleep, milk, solids, nappies, medicines and questions so the conversation is based on the pattern, not one unusually good or difficult day.

Sleep at 6 months: what the evidence actually says

A broad reference for 4–12 months is 12–16 hours in 24 hours, including naps. There is no official nap count or universal wake-window timetable that every six-month-old should follow. Night feeds and variable naps can still be normal, and the NHS explicitly warns that starting solids does not make a baby more likely to sleep through.

Nerumi learns from the sleep your baby actually records to estimate personal awake intervals and the next likely sleep. As the pattern changes, the predictions change with it. That makes the wide medical range useful in real life without forcing your baby into somebody else’s schedule.

Teething, growth and signs to discuss

A first tooth may appear now or months later. Drooling, chewing and sore gums are common, but a true fever or diarrhoea should not be dismissed as teething. Growth is about the direction of weight, length and head circumference on the chart, not reaching one fixed number at six months.

Contact your GP about poor head control, very little response to voices or faces, persistent one-sided movement, repeated feeding difficulty or loss of a skill. Not sitting independently or crawling is not a concern by itself. Call 999 for severe breathing difficulty, blue or grey colour, a seizure, unusual difficulty waking or swelling of the face or tongue after food; contact NHS 111 urgently for dehydration or another rapidly worsening concern.

Vaccinations

United Kingdom

This schedule is for reference. Which vaccine your child needs and when is your doctor's call.

Schedule: UK Health Security Agency · GB-UKHSA-2026-01 · reviewed 2026-08-09