When should I move from purée to lumps?

ESPGHAN’s wording is worth quoting almost directly: infants should be eating lumpy foods by 8 to 10 months at the latest.

On finger foods the two main sources differ slightly, and it is honest to say so. WHO says most infants can manage finger foods by eight months. ESPGHAN puts self-feeding and family-food adaptation from nine months. A month of disagreement between two good sources is a range, not a deadline.

Why the upper end matters

The reason there is a “at the latest” in that sentence is that delaying texture tends to make texture harder later. It is one of the few places in weaning where waiting has a cost rather than being the cautious option.

Safety does not relax as texture progresses

Moving to lumps is not the same as moving to anything. The choking rules stay: strips rather than rounds, cooked until soft, nothing hard and round. Molars that grind food into a smooth bolus do not erupt until around 30 months, which is why the safe-cut rules run well past the first birthday.

Every recipe in the library carries its own safe cut for the age band you are cooking for, so you do not have to hold this in your head.