Hellobee Boards

Um, mine does this. Crams it in, then barfs it up because she FLIPS OUT when there's a chunk of food in her mouth. She likes the flavor, not the texture. Maybe it's part of the learning process? We've just been letting her torture herself =\

Like I said on the other thread, I just cut things into super tiny pieces, like pea size. She can grab them well enough to get some in her mouth. If I give her some on her tray, and then have something like soup to feed her she will eat bites of the soup/purée in between awkwardly trying to shove tiny bites in.

Try a mesh feeder!

But really, we did pieces that were very large, like a whole roll or a whole piece of very dry toast, or the bottom half of a banana, a half avocado, or one half of a pear, or one cross section round of a sweet potato. Nothing long and skinny.

I think it is important to see gagging as a sign of learning and no to think of it as being the same as choking. Of course that is easier said than done! We did BLW and didn't have any choking issues. The closest we have had is now him shoving a million pieces of food in his mouth at once!

@Silva: yes I agree. Thanks to BLW my LO had a pretty good pincher by like, 8 months so that middle time only lasted a short while.

@jojogirl, well I've always given her a few seconds to dislodge whatever is in there and she's always managed to cough or spit it up. But I've poised my hand over her back a few times before, ready to grab and flip.

@Silva: I guess it depends on the child's age/size? At six months mine could barely get his mouth around a banana )I mean a half a banana, not one cut into rounds or spears), and by 7-8 months he was eating small pieces of food. Also sweet potato I did rounds cut across the potato and he would just mouth the edges.

I would also say BLW is big on the whole food before one= fun, so for a hardcore BLWer, the ideal would be to hold off on certain foods until baby is more able to handle them? Again, that is hardcore BLW though!

That sort of choking/gagging really freaked my DH out, and he refused to give E any large chunks of food. We cut everything up into dime sized pieces. It wasn't until after he got molars that he really got good at biting off chunks of food that he could chew well. I really wanted to push BLW weening more at first, but after a while I came to the realization that it wasn't a big deal. It's not like he'll go off to college, or even kindergarten, needing us to cut his food up into tiny pieces.

@Mrs. Sketchbook: How do you handle the million pieces of food in the mouth at once? My LO does this. But if I try to take her plate away and get her to chew what's in her mouth before taking more she freaks out and starts trying to launch out of her high chair to get the plate back from me and I feel like that just creates MORE of a choking hazard.

@JoJoGirl: this happened to me we tried half a banana but she is teething and just bit off a huge chunk... that I took out of her mouth... we are doing purees instead!

@MamaMoose: I am probably too laid back about it! I just let it ride or give him a sip of water. He drinks from a straw so it is fairly easy to slip the end of the straw in his mouth. My husband totally flips out. I agree that doing a mouth sweet unnecessarily feels like adding gasoline to a fire! We have gone back to putting only a few bites of food on his tray at a time too. Which is annoying because it means I have to constantly check back to see if he needs more bites.

We were lucky in that LO was very good about knowing her own limitations. If she bit off more banana than she could handle she would fish it out with her hands, bite a smaller piece, chew, repeat.
Because of that I never really had to cut small cubes.

You should just cut it into small pieces for LO then. They should be practicing their pincer grip anyway at that age.

@T.H.O.U.: Yup, you're right about that. Actual choking doesn't make any noise. The airway is completely obstructed preventing any noise/air from exiting or entering.