Puree- how do babies learn to chew?

[Cinnamon84]

Probably a really silly question!

Ds is 6 months. Have been giving him smooth purée. I want to try blw but terrified of choking though I will give it a go soon.

What I don't understand is- everything he's had in his mouth so far has been liquid so he hasn't had to chew. If I introduce lumps will he just swallow it? If I give him finger food he goes to take off a huge chunk which makes me really nervous he's going to try and swallow the whole thing.

I know I'm being silly, didn't expect to be so nervous moving onto solids!

They just...do, lol, not that helpful eh?

Try less well puréed stuff, or things with soft lumps and let him have the finger foods, if he tries to swallow things while he'll soon realise he can't.

Neither of mine ever had purées (just clamped their mouth shut!). They play with food, gum it, move it around in their mouths. Their gag reflex is really far forward so the changes of choking are really slim.
They can't learn to chew if they're not given anything to chew.

Their first food is more to teach them how to move food from the front of their mouths to the back to swallow.

Thanks. Can anyone recommend some good first finger foods- everything I've tried so far has just been mushed in his fingers- banana, avocado. I guess it needs to be soft enough to go down even if it's not been chewed?

Cooked carrot sticks, broccoli, lumps of cheese... I just gave mine bits of whatever we were having from day 1.

DD2's first food was rare steak . She really gummed it!

One of the first finger foods I have was baby crisps (they are usually carrot flavour or some sort of veg). Mainly because they completely dissolve, so if the baby gets puts too much in their mouth they wouldn't choke or gag.

Then I moved on to fruit and veg

My baby is now 8m and eats whatever we are having. She's loves eating which is good as she's never really drank a lot of milk.

I would personally avoid the baby crisps for now, because they dissolve. You don't know yet how well your baby can swallow lumps, and the crisps kind of dissolve in to a lump that needs to be swallowed. That lump might be bigger than your baby can handle but will be sticky and more difficult to bring back up.

I did purée and blw together. First finger foods were cucumber and carrot sticks, toast fingers Apple segments etc. Things that are quite firm and big enough to fit in their whole hand. I also gave veg like peas and sweetcorn to help develop the pincer grip. DS filled up on the purée and messed about trying to eat the finger foods while I cleaned the kitchen around him. It worked really well as a routine, I had a small kitchen and stuck the high chair in the middle and just worked round him, listening for chocking sounds!!

Good luck with it!