Objective To investigate the contamination of deoxynivalenol (DON) in cereal-based complementary foods and its health risk in infants and young children. Methods 360 samples of cereal-based complementary foods, including 183 rice flour samples, 91 biscuit samples, 67 noodle samples, and 19 other types, were collected from 6 provinces in China. The concentration of DON, 3-acetyldeoxynivalenol (3-Ac-DON) and 15-acetyldeoxynivalenol (15-Ac-DON) in each sample was analyzed. Point estimate and simple distribution estimate were applied to evaluate the acute and chronic exposure risk, respectively. Results The positive rate of DON in all samples was 60.3% (217/360), with the average and maximum levels of 116.3 and 1 198.7 μg/kg, respectively. The average DON concentration in noodles, biscuits and rice flour samples were 342.7,3.0 and 12.0 μg/kg, respectively. Acute DON exposure from noodles had the risk of exceeding the group acute reference dose. The average DON exposure from cereal-based complementary foods was 0.27 μg/(kg·d) in infants and young children, and there were 7.3% (243/3 320) of individuals exceeding the group provisional maximum tolerable daily intake. The average exposure in each age group were 0.22 μg/(kg·d) for 0-<1 years, 0.31 μg/(kg·d) for 1-<2 years, and 0.37 μg/(kg·d) for 2-<3 years. Noodles contributed a major proportion (77.8%) to the average DON exposure from cereal-based complementary foods. Conclusion DON exposure from cereal-based complementary foods carried health risk in infants and young children, which needs to be concerned.