DD is just past 6 months old. We are doing BLW about 70% of the time but I'm still giving her some purees, porridge (real stuff not baby porridge), mashed potato etc. that require spoons. Most of the time I put food on the spoon and hold the spoon out to her and let her take it and smear it all over her face or put it in her mouth but I have to admit that I have spoon fed her myself a few times, especially when she's getting frustrated.
Anyway, when we're doing the baby led meals DD has a habit of biting off huge pieces of food (even without any teeth!) and gagging repeatedly on them until she eventually swallows, spits them out or I take them out of her mouth as I can't stand watching her gag any longer. I know that as long as she's making a noise she's fine and it's all her way of learning to move food around, chew and swallow lumps but I find it terrifying to watch her. And some of the pieces she ends up with in her mouth are enormous!! This morning we had eggy bread for breakfast and she was just cramming more and more of it into her mouth, biting more off even when she still had some in her mouth. She seemed to be enjoying it and every time she'd recovered from her coughing and spluttering would go straight back for more, she ignored the fruit on her plate and kept reaching straight for the eggy bread. In the end I pinched the rest off her plate when she wasn't looking (bad mummy!!) as I was so scared I couldn't stand watching her any longer. Similar at lunch today, she was loving chewing on a strip of chicken but I kept worrying that the bits she was biting off were too big to cope with so I ended up taking the chicken off her. I know this is not what I'm supposed to do but I get so terrified!
So I suppose I have two questions. Firstly, have your babies done similar and if so how long did it take before they learnt to take smaller pieces? And secondly am I better making the food bigger or smaller to help? I was thinking that if I gave her bigger pieces (e.g. half a slice of eggy bread instead of a strip) she wouldn't be able to fit the whole piece in her mouth and would have to take smaller bites. But then again if I made the strips thinner she might take smaller pieces, or would she just cram a longer piece in her mouth and get just as much?
I know I'm supposed to relax and let her get on with it but it's so hard!!