Baby led weaning and choking

[faffer44]

I feel very worried about this and I'm not sure if I'm overthinking. I didn't do much BLW with my older dc as they preferred spoon feeding but 10 month old dd likes feeding herself.

I offer things in sticks. Toast fingers, veggie sticks etc. Recently cut up a chicken goujon into thin strips and she seemed to enjoy it but then sicked up a full chunk of it that she had swallowed but not chewed properly.

Today she has some sliced apple and was just sucking on them but I felt myself getting panicky about the size and shape of them and took them away. She cried as she was enjoying them but I just got a horrible feeling about it. How do you mitigate risk with BLW? She often just stuffs things in and it's actually quite scary. Having read the horrendous story about the poor baby boy who died at nursery I'm also worried about her eating there if people aren't paying as much attention to her as I would.

Bump

I’m the same OP, so no real advice. I did come across a good account on Instagram called Solid Starts which explains how to cut things appropriately for age which is useful to refer to. But yes I have the same anxiety around it too.

My understanding of BLW is that baby learns to chew and manipulate food in the mouth whilst the gag reflex is furthest forward. As they get older the gag reflex moves further back into the throat. Babies who are given liquidised/blended food are not getting the practise of learning to chew and move food round their mouth until a later stage when the gag reflex is further back in their mouth, and therefore poses a greater risk.

I am actually quite liking the blw. Solid starts app helped a lot as it has every food and then diagrams of all the portion shapes.

Gave me confidence but the bottom line is bigger is better and claggy is out (so no sliced white soft bread).

I grit my teeth and decided it was more important he got the practice. Life is full of risk and there will continue to be more risks in his life as he grows and develops. I minimised the risk as best I could by following advice from the solid starts app.

I would see if you can find some videos that show you the difference between gagging and choking, it really helped me to relax when ds was weaning.
Gagging is part of them learning to chew before they swallow so it's not a bad thing as such.
Knowing which foods are the ones to worry about helps too. It's not so much about size as it is about shape. So grapes, sausages cut in rounds etc - something like a chunk of apple would bother me a lot less as its shape wouldn't cause the same issues.

All bar one of my dc did BLW, with some purees. Only dc1 was weaned old-style on purees.

During weaning, less than12mo, 2 of my dc choked on food, stopped breathing and went blue. Fortunately I was able to help them, and they suffered no harm. But it was terrifying.

They both choked on purees.

None of my dc ever choked on lumpy foods or self-feeding. They might gag, they might cough up a bit of food, or even throw up, but they never choked.

The best thing you can do to keep your dc safe is to support their independence and take a paediatric first aid course.

I am currently weaning my 7 month old. He has a mixture of purées/finger food, the past week I’ve moved onto slightly more textured food and haven’t puréed his food, just blended it so it has chunks in for him to chew.

He loves toast with purée on, banana, cooked carrot sticks, etc. It is worrying to see them gag on food but it’s how they learn to chew/swallow. The more food I give DS the more confident I feel about his eating. Good luck!

I didn't do baby led weaning. I did it the old fashioned way with purées to start, then mashed and gradually moved to things I was comfortable with. My children are older now and eat normally, chew normally and don't choke. No drama. I think that it's a matter of choice but I don't personally believe it makes a huge difference. Some younger kids will prefer BLW as not like the texture of purée so will work better for them and some will gag so much on sticks of things it'll put them off eating altogether & cause much anxiety for parents so purée is better etc

Could you do a baby first aid course to help feel more confident in the event of something happening? I did one after DD stopped breathing in the middle of the night once and now feel a lot more prepared for emergencies.

Thanks all. See I find it confusing that they can choke on purées because surely they are so smooth they should just slide down? Yesterday the size and shape of the slice of apple she was sucking on just gave me chills because I thought if that goes down her throat it will get stuck. And because it's a firm food I couldn't see how it would dissolve/move. It would just stick. Whereas at least with softer or blended foods you could possibly try and manipulate them more.

I thought about it a lot and came to the conclusion that the smooth texture of a purée is harder for the body to interpret as 'wrong', and so perhaps does not trigger the cough reflex. Also being smooth it's harder for the tongue and throat to manipulate into the right location - or out of the wrong location.

Cooking is not because the food doesn't 'slide down'. Cooking is when the food goes into the windpipe instead of the oesophagus. Gagging and coughing are triggered when the food either pokes the back of the throat (like making yourself vomit) or touched the top of the windpipe. Gagging and coughing over food may look scary, but are fine. They mean the person is still breathing, their windpipe is not obstructed. Choking is silent, because the windpipe is blocked.

Please do a paediatric first aid course. It will make you feel so much better about this, because you will understand the risks, refocgnise danger and know what to do if something goes wrong.

I was a trained first aider at work before having dc, and I am so incredibly glad of that!

Choking, not cooking!

(Flippin autocarrot)

@faffer44 Choking is where food (or something else) blocks the airway. Either by going down the wrong way (ie down the windpipe), or by blocking the windpipe. Purées can slip down the wrong way, hence why babies can choke on purées.

Gagging is the body's natural reaction to prevent choking. Gagging is good!

BLW baby’s are generally pretty good at moving food themselves if it gets stuck. Meaning they generally sort it out before they start actually choking.

We had some gagging and one time that DS vomited to shift some potato skin but nothing worse than that.

As baby’s grow up they do lots of things that can cause us to worry. There’s lots of guidance about how to cut food, I think with apples the key is cutting it quite thinly.

Learn how to cut and prepare food correctly, and take a first aid course so you know what to do when they actually choke.

The gagging sets me on edge, I know the fear. The biggest issue I ever had funnily enough was with puree - DD managed to git the back of her mouth with her spoon, and inhaled as she cried and swallowed all the food in her mouth and started choking.

I didn't cut things as recommended on places like Solid Starts because it just felt too dangerous to me, they'd be sucked right in. I cut up everything everything into very small pieces that couldn't be choked on and only gave a few at a time, then gradually increased the size of them when appropriate..