The tastes that infants prefer are sweet tastes.
An infants preference for sweet tastes is believed to be innate and helps to ensure that the infant consumes breast milk or formula, which is essential for the infants nutrition.
Infants also usually dislike or hate bitter tastes as bitter tastes can indicate poisonous substances.
The infants ability to taste salt also develops gradually and usually around 4 to 6 months of age is when infants often develop the ability to taste salt.
Newborns are not yet able to properly taste salty flavors until around 4 to 6 months of age.
A newborns taste buds for salt are not mature enough until 4 to 6 months of age.
Although newborns can detect and show their preferences for sweet flavors and savory flavors or umami tastes and also have reactions to sour and bitter flavors.
A newborn's early taste experience starts in the mothers womb through amniotic fluid and continues after birth through breast milk.
And early exposure to flavors, especially in breast milk, helps babies to become more accepting of certain foods late on, once the baby is introduced to solid foods.