Eating behaviour of 7year old

[TheERose]

Help! A few weeks ago my daughter choked on a noodle and since then she’s developed a real fear of choking. She was always great with her food but now she’s barely eating at all and when she does she will chew her food until it’s pure liquid before swallowing it, even then she’s frightened to swallow. This evening it has taken her an hour and half to eat two chantany carrots chopped up, one piece of broccoli chopped up and 15-20 pieces of penne pasta in tomato sauce. We have cut down her portion sizes so her plate doesn’t look too overwhelming and cut up all food into small pieces, we’re not paying too much attention to the situation (in front of her) and really trying to stay calm, even though it’s so frustrating to see, but I’m really at the end of my tether and I just don’t know what to try now…, I really want to nip it in the bud now before she develops a seriously bad relationship with food…

The fear of it happening again has taken over. I can understand your worries about this and for her long term relationship with food and possibility of this escalating into food related conditions.

Can you get her to drink a little before she eats so that there is less chance of it happening again and be vocal in your reassurance that it won't happen again to give her confidence.

Being 'at the end of your tether' is perfectly normal but hopefully you're not showing this anxiety to your daughter, particularly at mealtimes, as that will make the situation worse.

Longer-term, you could try not cutting up her food so it is the same as everyone else's and ignoring her eating and see how she gets on as making her food visibly different from everyone else's could also create other food issues. By cutting up the food you are drawing attention at each meal time to her one choking incident so she then has that incident at the front of her mind when she eats at home.

It would be useful for you to know whether she is the same with food that she eats at school, at friends houses etc so you can see whether it's performative at home too / she's picking up on your anxiety about the choking.