9 month old choked a few times on toast

[Cafeaulait27]

Proper choking not gagging, he goes silent and red with his mouth open and looks scared.

I do a mix of mashed on a spoon and finger foods for his weaning, we started at 5 months but didn’t start finger foods until 6 months. Spoon fed he is fine, and most finger foods like cooked carrot, sweet potato, broccoli are fine but really struggling with toast at the moment. I don’t know if he’s just going through a phase because he used to be ok with toast, but recently he’s shoving loads in and sucking it for ages so it goes all pasty and then he chokes on it. I have to get him out of the high chair in a panic and he seems to clear it himself, I haven’t had to do back hits yet. I don’t want to freak him out and I don’t want to give him purées forever but I’m scared now.

ive also found that he sucks whole finger food pieces of fruit out of his fingers and into his mouth which luckily hasn’t gone in his airway yet, they just go straight down his throat fast which shocks him.

he loves his food and I want to be relaxed with all this but I am worried. He will go to nursery at 1 year and I’m scared of what they might give him. They tend to do like afternoon tea in the afternoon with sandwiches and I haven’t even tried bread on him yet, only toast.

how on Earth do I get past this phase? Is this normal?

Instead of fingers of toast, try fingers of melon or mango- good for grip but possibly easier for him to swallow. Little pieces of toast are fine, food isn't the only way they learn to grip!

I had this issue with my DS slightly younger. I contacted my HV and she told me to request a SALT referral from my GP.

It happened three times - the third time was a piece of soft carrot that he coughed up and sucked back in repeatedly, it was awful. And for some reason he couldn’t drink water without coughing and spluttering either.

The SALT assessment basically came back that he was too eager to shove things in his mouth and needed help to learn to regulate what he was having. (Or as my DM put it “struggling with the concept of two hands but only one mouth”).

We stepped the weaning back from the finger food (unless really soft) for a few weeks and he was fine when we started again.

@Carrieonmywaywardsun the OP says her son swallows the whole finger of mango whole. He probably just has to have stuff cut up or mushed for now. Honestly, big chunks of fruit are a choking hazard if he's not able to chew/mush them with his own mouth, hence cutting up grapes.

@parrotonthesofa no worries, I was probably being a bit sensitive!! 😵‍💫☺️

@Carrieonmywaywardsun mango was way too slippery for him, he sucked a whole finger sized piece down his throat because he was loving the taste so much… never again!

the thing is though he does know how to chew, and does a really good job of that mostly… it’s just the toast thing at the moment. He used to be very careful to chew little bits off but now he shoves in too much without biting off and it all goes pear shaped.

@RockAndRollerskate that sounds really scary!! I was thinking I might give the HV a call, but maybe I’ll try scaling back a bit first. Thanks x

I think maybe your child would benefit from resistant foods to help practice chewing. Things like the pit of a mango, corn on the cob, chicken drumsticks. They all help your baby make a map of their mouth which improves their eating skills. solidstarts.com/why-we-love-resistive-sticks-of-foods-for-babies-starting-solids/

Try rolling the mango or other slippery foods like banana in dessicated coconut. It gives them a bit more grip and might help with the swallowing a whole piece!

@Cafeaulait27 My DS is gagging on harder foods like toast, raw peppers and cucumber. Was this just a phase you went through with your little one and did weaning/solids just click one day or did you end up getting his tongue tie looked at/revised? X