From around six months, we start with a small amount of smooth peanut butter, thinned to a runny drip with water, breast milk, or formula, or fine peanut powder blended into a little liquid. It always goes in thinned or finely ground, never a thick spoonful from the jar and never a whole nut. If you are starting her later, around nine or ten months, begin the same gentle way.

Because peanut is a common allergen, that first taste goes on its own, just a small pinch, with no other new foods for the next few days while you watch her.

Once she has taken it well, it can go through the soft foods she already eats: her cereal, porridge, mashed fruit, or curd. Keep it plain, with no added salt while she is little, no added sugar before she is two, and no honey before she turns one, because it can bring on botulism, a serious illness. Let her appetite lead.

Peanut still goes in finely ground or as smooth peanut butter thinned down, never a whole nut or a piece she picks up. What changes at nine months is that she feeds herself, so the same ground peanut or thinned butter now stirs through the thick, scoopable foods she manages on her own.

She can also hold a soft food herself. Roll a piece of soft fruit she already takes in a little ground peanut, and it becomes easier to grip. A thick spoonful on its own is never safe, one plain scoop of peanut butter can choke her. A small amount a few times through the week is plenty.

From a year, the same ground peanut and thinned peanut butter simply move into the family's food, stirred through whatever soft meal she shares. The rolling trick still works too.

The form never changes: still thinned or finely ground. Whole peanuts stay off her plate for a long time yet, since a whole nut stays a choking risk.