8 month old "choking"

[stilo]

My ds has just turned 7 months old and although he has started to eat more lumpier food I am still not giving him finger foods as I gave him a slice of banana a couple of weeks ago which he started to gag and choke on, this has made me a nervous wreck about giving him any other finger foods eg toast,quavers,choc buttons which so many people have offered to give him. Have I got the first time mother overprotective syndrome???

I found dry wholemeal toast fingers the easiest thing to start my DS and DD on as they generally just mush it to death with their gums. The other thing I tried which slips down easily is a very ripe pear cut into thin fingers, it needs to be very juicy so that it again just turns to mush in the mouth but gives the baby the feeling of eating something solid. Hope this helps, don't worry about being sounding neurotic, most mums will admit to the feeling of not knowing how to go about this. I am still struggling with my DD who is 9 months, trying to remember how I did it first time round!!

some kids take a little longer to get to grips with lumpy stuff - ds was on "4months" pots until he as 10 or 11 months as he gagged on even the tiniest lump. Now 13 months he'll manage most things.

Keep trying every so often, and try not to make a big deal out of any choking; very hard I know - the times I've said "chew, chew, good boy" with a smile on my face and my heart pounding as he's half choked, gagged it back up and chewed some more. My GP said not to worry until they turn a year.

My DD is nearly 8 months & when I started giving her a rusk or biscuit to suck on as soon as she gagged I stuck my fingers in her mouth to pull out what she was eating. My friend told me to let her work it our for herself 7 stop panicking, (obviosuly within reason!). Which meant me being on stand by ready to 'save' her as I tried to relax while she enjoyed a biscuit but if you give them things small or soft enough & watch them then they do work out what they can swallow & what they can't. My DD spits out lumps which I feed her but absolutely loves sucking on wholemeal toast with Marmite or Laughing cow cheese & after she's chomped on that I can normally get some lumpier veg down her as shes more used to the lumps.
The cow & gate biscuits are excellent as they can suck them & they don't crumble too much.

Ds was on 'not very lumpy' food until he was 15-16 months and now he is 20 months and has only just got the hang of it. The amount of times I've got to the end of a meal only to find that a small lump has brought the whole lot up onto the highchair tray - Nice!!

He has got there eventually, We were very patient (we didn't really have any choice.) We found 'wetter sloppier' food went down better, rather than say bread or toast and if he did have drier food, we tried to encourage smaller mouthfuls. He will still cram as much as possible in (especially a banana) and doesn't really get that you don't have to literally fill your face.

Don't panic, keep calm and be patient. Keep introducing lumpier foods but do it at the beginning of a meal so if your ds is sick you know how much he's had to eat and also there will be less to clean up. Also foods like chocolate and quavers, we found good because they melt quite quickly so giving them the sense at first that it is lump but not really having to deal with it IYSWIM.

know just what you mean stilo - my heart is in my mouth so to speak several times a week but ds seems fine after a quick coughing fit. He really likes slices of melon and bits of bread to squish.

I don't want to sound overly clucky though but I do think it's important to learn how to stop them choking just in case - apart from anything else, it makes it slightly less stressful and easier to sit back and give ds time to cough a bit if I know I can step in and do the right thing if nec. Mind you, I still haven't been on the baby first aid course I meant to do. Rather traumatically I learnt the hard way watching the nurses in hospital stop ds choking on mucus:milk just days after he was born and when he was too young to have that good coughing reflex that they have a few weeks later. 'What to expect the first year' have a good section on baby first aid that covers this - otherwise as a brief description, if the usual slap on the back while lying face down on a bit of a downward angle doesn't work, you can rub upwards quite strongly in the middle of the rib cage from just above an imaginary line between the nipples to the top of the ribcage. The best piece of advice I read was to keep trying as the longer the airway is blocked, the more relaxed it becomes and so it becomes easier to dislodge the object that has got stuck.

I really hope this hasn't worried you - it wasn't meant to at all and I think babies are designed to be able to cough up stuff that they stuff in their faces! We feed any old stuff to our ds now and he's only 7 months old (well YKWIM)

Thanks everyone for your advice, will definitely try to be more calm and not panic, relieved to hear that other mums feel same as me. ds had small slice of toast with dairylea on this morning and thought it was great fun squidging it everywhere! bless.

A friend with a baby the same age as mine told me that babies have an excellent anti choking reflex which they lose as they get older (maybe this is what Janeway's GP was on about?). Anyway, ever since she told me, I really stopped worrying and just let dd get on with it. She regularly gagged (choked I think is too strong a word to describe it) on bits of lumpy food and I just felt calm and watched her as she learnt to 'sick it back up again', chew it a bit and then swallow it back down again.
The only food you really need to worry about are grapes, cherries and cherry tomatoes. These are so smooth and exactly the wrong size and shape that if they are swallowed whole and get stuck are very difficult for the baby and anyone else to shift. So always cut these in half (or if you're out, bite into them yourself so they are not 'whole' anymore).
I think the trick is to as stay calm as you can (or at least pretend you are!) and not make a big issue of it when a baby gags. If you do, then they pick up on it and then maybe lumpy food gets to be a problem?

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thanks everyone for your advice, just to update you on the subject I am now alot calmer whilst feeding my ds lumpy food. He still gags on some foods but I stay calm and just mash up his food a little more. Trouble now is trying to keep my dh calm as he is still panicking and now tells everyone not to feed our ds finger foods until he is a couple of months older. Oh well such is life