The World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) recommend babies be exclusively breastfed, solid foods to be introduced when they are around 6 months, and breastfeeding continued until at least 12 months. However, in Australia, the median age for introduction of solids is 4.7 months.

In 2018, child and family health nurses (C&FHNs) in Sydney Local Health District (SLHD) became increasingly aware that running stand-alone education sessions for parents on the introduction to solids when their babies were 6 months old came too late, as most parents had introduced solids before this time. A quality improvement (QI) project was conducted to investigate if including information on the recommended time to introduce solids in new parent groups (NPGs), attended by parents with babies 6–12 weeks old, would assist them to introduce solids at the recommended age.

Data was collected on the infant feeding practices of the 2018 cohort. When their babies were between 6–7 months, parents who had attended the revised NPGs were surveyed on when they introduced solids. A total of 58% of survey respondents introduced solids at the recommended time. As a result, solids education has been integrated in all NPGs in SLHD. This project demonstrates how data-informed program redesign can result in positive outcomes at little cost.