About cutting grapes

[user1471433387]

We have a 2.5 year old and the other day I noticed DH was cutting grapes widthways for her. I said that you’re meant to cut them lengthways in order for them not to be a choking hazard. I notice today he’s put some grapes out for our daughter and again they’re cut widthways not lengthways. I asked him in future to please cut them lengthways but he’s refusing!

WIBU? Am I being over the top?

I think quarter ways is probably best but there’s no way he’d agree to that.

Of course the risk is tiny - looking purely at numbers of kids eating grapes vs numbers choking. BUT the effort involved in cutting properly is so minimal. It's not like he has to make a massive trade off in order to avoid the risk, so he should just do it. Especially considering he is already slicing width ways so it takes no more effort to slice length ways. Why bother slicing at all if you're going to do it wrong?

I think a big reason is he just doesn’t want to do it “my way”.

Yes but do you go through red lights? No. Because that would be an avoidable risk. Same with grapes. No problem with eating them. Just cut them the correct way so that the skin doesn’t get caught in her throat and allow extraction if it does.
Of course there is risk. That’s why we minimise it. Would he let her play near a swimming pool and go off to make a cup of tea? No? Why not? Because that would involve making a decision that involves taking a risk that is avoidable. Does that mean she never gets to swim? No! Does that mean you need to hover around her near a swimming pool for the rest of your life? No! But while they are young and unpredictable you mitigate risk.
I know he thinks he’s being ‘scientific’ but he’s actually being deeply illogical.

It should be plainly obvious.that if you give your small child some grapes. that they have to be cut up in small pieces,the same as a largish strawberry. I had a friend many years ago, who used to lob any fruit onto her daughters highchair, and three times, witnessed some near choking incidents,with a too large piece of something. It's a very frightening,and horrible thing to see a choking child.

That is just a ridiculous reason. It’s not ‘your way’, it’s the recommended way. If you told him not to let her play near an open fire would he insist on doing it just because it was YOUR rule? He can be as spiteful as he likes to you but not while playing roulette with your child’s health. He’s free to be a dickhead but just leave the kids out of it.

Have your husband read this.

adc.bmj.com/content/102/5/473

YANBU to want him to cut them lengthways, if you’re going to cut them you may as well do it that way.

Having said that the risk of choking on grapes per the amount consumed around the world is vanishingly small and I don’t understand the MN obsession with grapes when it comes in third in fatal choking from food after sausages/hotdogs and sweets. I’ve seen umpteen threads on cutting up grapes but never seen one on the importance of cutting up sausages. Shock news stories are always horrifying but given the millions of tons of grapes consumed by children every year it’s very rare and that’s not due to cutting up, it’s just statistically rare.

Biggest risk is children under 3, so maybe wait 6 months until she can chew them properly if you’re really worried.

Ask him if he’s willing, when the inevitable happens, if he will be honest to the paramedic/hospital about why DD choked, ask him if he will say “I purely didn’t cut them length ways because I don’t like all my wife’s rules”

Better yet, ask him if that’s what he’ll say at the front of the church when DD potentially chokes and dies.

I cannot believe what I’m reading. I’m never usually the LTB type but if my DP put his ego before our DD safety that would be a huge deal breaker.

also never give them to dogs.sorry major off topic.

I wish there was some scientific evidence I could show him to convince him.

Well there is. Make a circle with your finger and thumb, about the size of your child's oesophagus and then pop a grape in it to show your idiot husband how it fits perfectly and is the ideal size for choking a child. Your husband is the worst kind of dickhead, playing Russian roulette with your children's lives. Ask him how he would justify it to himself if the worst did happen, all because he was too childish and stubborn to listen to his wife.

You don't need scientific evidence it's just common sense. Because of their circumference grapes form a 'perfect plug' in the airway. To prevent them becoming lodged in the airway, you cut the length ways.

Just basic math.

What a tiring attitude to have to live with. So any safety advice you follow has to be backed up with a power point presentation of evidence?

Does your DH understand that advice like this has been issued after evidence has been collated by professionals with access to the relevant data in order to give parents the opportunity to avoid killing their kids? What does he think it is otherwise, some sort of conspiracy by the knife industry?

The onus isn’t on you to prove why the advice is right, it’s on him to prove why it’s wrong and only a particularly arrogant prick would be happy to use his own children as crash test dummies to prove his point.

If he’s got such an issue with ‘rules’ (what a free thinking non-conformist spirit he is ) then he needs to be well versed in what to do should his theory be proved wrong and get himself on a paediatric first aid course ASAP.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pizza-hut-jacob-jenkins-grape-choked-to-death-a6876856.html
Show him this.

Start putting them in the bin. The second they appear in the house. He can’t be trusted so they shouldn’t be in your home.

Can’t believe he’s willing to take the risk just to be stubborn.

How could he be so defiant over this.
I think you've big problems with this one OP.

He KNOWS they're a choking hazard and won't change what he's doing anyway? Ask him what he'll do when she chokes

I don't really understand why he's cutting them at all then? Unless he's really stupid, he must be able to grasp the concept that cutting them widthways doesn't in any way alter the choking risk, because the circumference is still the same as when they're uncut. So why bother cutting them at all?

This post has made me so angry and upset.

What an arsehole

I always cut the grapes and my daughters are 6 and 3.

It's just not worth the risk

Horrible man. I would cut the grapes as soon as I saw them

WOOW, he doesn't want to do it YOUR way, so he would rather risk his child's life to prove a point? Honestly id leave him! Who does that 🤦🏻‍♀️

Does anyone have a statistic on number of deaths in uk from choking on grapes last year?

You've had children with a stubborn idiot, OP.

But he can't have just become a stubborn idiot overnight so you must have already known that.

I wouldn't be so disparaging if it wasn't for the fact that he's deliberately risking your DCs' safety to make a point to you.

He's also clearly thick if he doesn't realise that cutting grapes in half width-ways is pointless as it doesn't fix the cause of the problem - the width.

When you drive a car it’s a managed risk, seat belts, airbags, car seats etc. When you give your child grapes you manage the risk by cutting them lengthwise. Perhaps you could ask him which specific children he would like to be given whole and ‘fat half’ grapes in a test to check whether or not they die for his statistical evidence...?
I would tell him that he either cuts them or stops buying them.
Reference and advice here including that grapes are the third most common food for children to choke on Guardian article

Sausages are a choking hazard for the same reason, people cut them into circles when you should cut them in half again ! A little boy died at school choking on a sausage!

My nephew is 3 he swallowed a chip and nearly choked to death! I managed to get it out but imagine if that was a grape! No way, it would of been stuck for good 🤦🏻‍♀️