blw foods that are easy to pick up

[WeWishUAMerryXmasNANappyNewYr]

at the moment ds is just sliding the food around the table. i think he is trying to pick it up, but can't cos the foods are to slippery. any ideas?

am guessing you've been to Aitch's blog and stolen all her tips already...

Toast is good... Carrot stick? (boiled)

broccoli and cauliflower florets
Chips
Pasta twirls
steamed parsnips roughly chopped

just tried cucumber. he can hold this without it crumbling unlike the fruits but still isnt making an attempt to pick it up himself so now i'm outa ideas!! guess i'll have to leave it for a bit longer.

are pasta twirls not a bit slippery or even a bit small?

ok just had to put my fingers down ds throat to retrieve a piece of cucumber that he was chewing on but couldn't break off (should i have took the skin off to make it easier to break off) maybe we will leave that one for a while i gave it him to help his teething aswell. i was holding onto one end and he just sort of sucked it down!

Pasta twirls are great! I was very scared and dubious, but, DS loves them! Do them slightly soft, and they just rip them and slurp them up! I found cuttung cucumber into slices, then folding them was best, so DS could bite and rip the main part better. Seemes harder as finger slices. Brocolli is easy to grab too.

folding them?

i will try the pasta but i am not hopeful of ds doing anything with them. if he has to actually rip i reckon it will just stay where i put it. lazy so and so!

yes, sliced thin... like you would for a sandwich, and floded over abit. That might just be him though, liking them like that!

*folded

how big are you doing the cucumber? i take the skin off, then do it like big fat chips. you do have to give them chance to get big lumps out themselves though. it might look like choking, but it's gagging to stop them choking IYSWIM. aitch's blog explains it all very well.

he has gagged before on stuff and then swallowed it fine but this was a whole chip length piece so i got it out thinking he wouldn't be able to just swallow it down. did i do wrong? i have been doing them oven chip width. should i be doing it fatteR?

and bearing in mind this was not meant for eating, but teething it was much longer than i would normally do it cos i was holding on to it(or meant to be) at one end.

what i mean is that say when he sucked the cucumber chip in, did you go straight in and pull it out or did you give him chance to get it out himself? of course you don't leave them there choking, but i mean you sort of have to let them figure it out for themself. i did do things very fat to start with. when i tried baby carrots for the first few times dd would suck them straight in, but she'd cough them out again IYSWIM.

oh i seeee! then i would say let him hold it himself really, then he can control what happens to it.

he tried to cough it up but i could see it getting further and further down. not sure why i didn't pat him on the back like a normal person though instead of delving in there with my fingers!

hmm. tricky when i obviously can't see him eating! thing is, in the early days, if MIL was with us she was forever wanting to pat her back and stick her fingers in dd's mouth to fish food out. she was always looking at me funny as i just did chewing faces at dd to remind her to chew and not panic with gagging. now dd's 7 months and she doesn't gag on anything, well, except cabbage cos it's a bit papery.

this is the problem we are having. he only holds stuff if i put it in his hand, he doesn't pick anything up himself. any then even when i do put it in his hand it goes no where near his mouth! he hates the teether/dummy thing i bought him and holding cucumber for him to chew seems to cool his gums. i will definitely hold on to it a bit firmer though in future. so if i make things fatter are we saying he won't suck them in? i was scared of making them too fat incase he did and then he got them stuck in his airways. i know they tell you to half grapes and stuff for this reason.

i asked on your other thread what things you have tried so far, a lot of things are surprisingly slippery at first.

cucumber, carrot, runner beans ( i know they probably will have been too hard for him but i just gave him some off my plate to see if he would) roasted parsnip, pasta, banana. cucumber seemed the best for the no crumble factor but seemed a bit hard for him to chew anything off.

ok. maybe try fruit with skins on, like pear (make sure it's soft), peach, nectarine. also grated fruit such as apple (skinned) and chinese pear (skinned).

i even think that grapes should be halved and then squished about a bit, tbh. they always seemed a bit dangerous in the beginning i remember. have you tried celery? it's a great teether and not much breaks off because the stringy bits hold it together. cold from the fridge is best for their teeth.
and i didn't peel the cucumber as i recall, because dd found it too slippery if peeled. and we swiftly moved onto thick slices that she held like little biscuits.
if you do an infant resus class they tell you to pat on the back or turn the baby upside down before delving in their mouths as if the object is stuck (which i doubt, tbh) then you might stick it in further.
i think that leaving babies to learn their mouth skills (gagging, coughing, moving around with the tongue) is actually pretty important, so i only intervened on a couple of occasions. once, she was definitely choking on an apple (that i shouldn't have given her but we were out and with an older baby so i was showing off a bit ) but a slap on the back sorted her out.

green beans are good as well...

so what's the consensus, thin or fat chip shapes to begin with?

haven't tried celery because as i don't like it we never have it in. will go and buy some though.