Biting into food type question...

[TettyLouBar]

Hi all.
DD is 8 and half months and is doing fantastically well with the weaning. She loves her food and will eat anything I give her. She cut her first 2 teeth at 5 months and the 2nd 2 have just emerged so I've been trying to get her into biting small mouthfuls out of a bigger piece of food e.g. some toast, but she just rams the entire piece into her mouth abd then chokes! The amount of times I'm ended up with her entire meal coming back up because shes vomited to clear whatever shes rammed into her mouth!

Is this normal? I can only get her to eat tiny pieces that ive cut up really small. She then chew it for a while and swallow it fine. But sometimes she tries picking up several pieces at a time and stuffing them all in!

Will she learn by herself? Am I rushing it? or is it something I need to teach her about taking small bites?
In some of the weaning books Ive read it says to offer chip sized foods for them to grasp and bite off the ends but she never ever does this.

Just need a bit of clarification -

I'd give her bigger pieces of food - so half apples, big fist sizes of veg, bread rolls, so that she can't get it all in her mouth at once and has to bite it.

Sit in front of her and eat the same thing, making an exaggerated effort at biting bits off and she'll soon get the idea

well, with small pieces just give them one or two at a time, that way she can't stuff too many in.

but if you want to encourage her to bite just give her big things that she can't fit in her mouth, ie, a whole apple or pear, or a slice of toast

ok will try again. dont wanna go through slapping her on the back again, yesterday I was truly worried when she was choking on her toast. She always clears whatevers choking her but yesterday it took ages and I really thought it was serious. Frightened me!

is she really choking, i.e. can't breathe? Gagging is very normal, when they go red and wretch, and is something they just work through. yes I'd say give something really big like a whole piece of toast that can't be stuffed in at once.

well i'd say MOSTLY gagging, but she's definately choked a few times too. Sorry I used the wrong terminology really.