Every time I give finger foods, DS coughs, chokes and then vomits

[zebedeethezebra]

Is this normal?

DS is 7 months old and can manage quite coarse purees perfectly well. But every time I try to give him a finger food (e.g. rice cake, or Plum spelt biscuit, both of which are meant to be suitable for 7 months plus), he chews it for a bit then coughs, looks like he's choking then throws all his lunch up that he's just had.

Does this happen to other people? How do people doing BLW manage? Am I doing something wrong?

could you try softer finger foods first> banana/cooked carrot/cheese, that sort of thing?

Perhaps because he's used to purees, he's trying to swallow without chewing which is causing the gagging?

I would suggest continued access to finger foods so he can practice, while you demonstrate exaggerated chewing. He'll get the hang of it.

In the mean time, 7mo is quite early; he doesn't need to be taking on 3 set meals a day and the majority of his nutrition should still be coming from milk (breast or artificial), so stop worrying.

BLW babies learn to chew/move food around their mouths, then swallow. Puree babies learn to swallow, then to move food around their mouths. I think jemjabella is right - he's probably slurping it in as if it's puree and then it's triggering his gag reflex.

It looks scary, but it's gagging rather than choking. Gagging moves food from the back to the front of the mouth, preventing actual choking (blocking of the airway). It sounds as if his gag reflex is fairly sensitive, or that the food is going way back in his mouth.

Foods which mush very easily will be better - very well-cooked carrot, roast butternut squash & sweet potato are good.

If you eat with him, he can copy your chewing. Make sure you know what to do if he does choke (signs are no sound at all and baby going blue) - there are useful first aid videos on YouTube if you search.

My BLWing 7.5 m.o. DS is quite gaggy, albeit in a small-scale way, and he still gags on things like rice cakes, bread, omelette and fruit skins, even though he's eaten all of them regularly since 6 months. Dry things like rice cakes & biscuits seem to be particularly gag-inducing IME.

The rice cakes and biscuits are probably a bit dry. Can you try softly cooked veg instead at first? Then when he gets the hang of that, introduce things that need a bit more chewing. Sometimes I chew things myself before giving to DS to see if they're ok for him!