Toddler chewing then spitting out

[BagofHolly]

He's 27 months, and the light of my life, but goodness this spitting out is trying! He doesn't bite properly, stuffs too much in his mouth and then gags and out it comes, often with a full-body shudder!
Why is he doing it and is it a phase? We've tried cutting things up into small pieces, holding things and making him bite etc with limited success.
WWYD?

I would reccomend reading 'Your Toddler Month by Month' by Tanya Byron. There a few sections on mealtimes and just generally good for understanding toddler behaviour.

I think (from memory) she says in it that raising tensions during mealtime can create more problems with food later.

The stuffing too much in and gagging is just normal part of learning how to eat. Toddlers are a bit weird about how they explore things like food (this is my opinion, not Tanya's! ).

Just relax, eat together as a family round a table and model good eating behaviour, praise him as soon as you notice him doing it right.

Thanks ramade. We do cheer him on when he eats nicely, but then he sometimes gets over excited, shoves the food in and then gags. It concerns me that he doesn't bite much. He'll do it if we remind him to "make moon shapes" on his sandwiches etc but otherwise the lot goes in. I really hope you're right and that it's just a developmental thing. Once he's done it, he tends to stop eating, and say "bye bye dinner" and tonight has gone to bed on almost nothing.
I'll try and relax more about it. I have that byron book somewhere, ill dig it out.Thanks again.

i'd just ihgnore it

eventually he will learn to take smaller bites.
you could limit the amount he has in front of him for a while, but generally speaking i'd make as little fuss over it as possible