Finger Foods - Help!

[littlepinkgiraffe]

DD will be 7 months next week. She loves her purée and will eat pretty much whatever I give her but I'm too scared to give her finger foods. I have given her some small slices of toast but as soon as the slices get smaller I take it away as im terrified she's going to choke! I would like to try her with more finger foods, sandwiches for lunch etc but I'm so scared she will choke on it. Can anyone reassure me or have any tips please?

Ds2 is 7mo and has:
Steamed carrot sticks
Apple slices
Banana
Red pepper slices (raw)
Cucumber sticks
Toast or pitta bread with butter, cream cheese or avocado
Rice cakes
Baby biscuits/rusks
Yogurt and porridge (I load the spoon and hand it to him)

He's so far been very good at bringing up any bit which is too big to swallow, but I agree it can be a bit scary!
I did BLW with ds1 (who's 8 now) and just keep reminding myself that it's fine!

Thank you! Choking is one of the things I'm so paranoid about because I think I would panic and freeze! I may try her with some toast again later or scrambled egg (I've seen someone mention that on here before) whilst DP is home so there's someone else here to reassure me. I have tried her with rusk before too but feel more comfortable with those as they just turn to mush.

The carrot is good too, as I steam it so it's firm enough for him to hold but it very quickly turns mushy once he starts on it.
It's funny, I didn't worry at all with ds1 but do more do with ds2!

You'll be fine! My dd was amazing at chewing with her gums and softening everything up before swallowing, she's almost 11 months and blw and we haven't had any choking whatsoever and minimal gagging. First things we tried were easy to grip things like pittA bread strips, peaches with skin on, sweet potato mashed up, avocado with some skin still on, porridge well done which she could just grab and eat, then moved on to all sorts of fruit and veg but also try chicken and even steak, lamb and so on cos they love to chew, gum and suck meat and it's a good source of protein and iron etc. Just be prepared for mess but it's great for their development of fine motor skills and my dd loves exploring the new tastes, textures and so on.

I know how you feel op but they are very good at gumming things to mush! I found that my dd liked:
Well cooked green beans and asparagus
Steamed courgette batons
Well cooked batons of potato/sweet potato
Scrambled egg
Strips of ripe pear and banana

Her firm favourite is homemade scotch pancakes. I got the recipe from the river cottage weaning cookbook but any American style pancake recipe minus the sugar should work! I just cut them into strips and they went down really well. You can add blueberries/slices of banana to the mixture before you cook them to sneak in some extra goodness.

Sounds as though you are doing really well. My dd only really started to take an interest in food from about 9.5 months onwards so don't worry too much if most of it ends on the floor to start with!

One thing that gave me a little comfort was remembering that they have a more sensitive gag reflex at this age which is stops them from choking, so although it looks scary most of the time it's fine.

Thank you for replying and the reassurance! I will try her with some more this week I think, I'm planning on home making some meals for her so will try and do some finger foods too. The pancakes sound nice, I hadn't considered those and then I can have some too!