Babies and children need very little salt in their diet. We recommend sticking to the NHS guidelines below.
| Age | Maximum amount of salt per day |
| Up to 12 months | 1g salt (or 0.4g sodium) |
| 1 to 3 years | 2g (or 0.8g sodium) |
| 4 to 6 years | 3g (or 1.2g sodium) |
| 7 to 10 years | 5g (or 2g sodium) |
| 11 years and over | 6g (or 2.4g sodium) |
Breast milk and formula milk already contains the right amount of minerals your baby needs. There’s no need to add salt to their feeds or snacks (keep this in mind if you’re cooking for them along with family meals).
1g of salt is about what you’ll find in a packet of crisps or two medium slices of white bread. A bacon sandwich (two rashers and two slices of bread) contains approximately 2.4g salt.
Some food labels only tell you the sodium content, so it’s useful to be able to work out how much salt that is. To do this, multiply the sodium figure by 2.5.
If the label says there’s 1g of sodium in a 100g portion, multiply 1g by 2.5. That means there’s 2.5g of salt in every 100g.
Some food labels use the traffic light system, which can be easier to read. A green sticker for the salt content means this food contains only a little salt or sodium. Amber means there’s a bit more, and red means quite a lot.
Try to pick more foods with green and amber stickers if you’re trying to keep salt intake down.
This advice was written by our experienced Parent Talk coaches. Parent Talk is a free online service for parents and carers, provided by the charity Action for Children. For more advice, message our parenting coaches with our online chat.
