BLW, choking & spoon feeding

she will almost certainly gag as she learns to chew and swallow whole foods but this is not choking! Its actually a good thing as it shows the gag reflex is working well and wanting to clear her throat of foreign objects...

Jake has never choked on food but he has gagged and an awful lot... it can be quite distressing for mum to watch soits a personal choice... If you dont think you can cope and have a really big fear of her choking then that could affect her self feeding as she will pick up on that.

That said, she may never gag and she may learn really quickly how to chew and swallow and it will fine!

That amount of food is pretty normal really... its more about learning now than actually eat iygwim as her main food source is still milk. I wouldnt worry about how much she eats rather that she is experiencing different foods and learning how to eat

Hopefully what I have just written isnt to garbled, my brain isnt working properly today

I got the book yesterday and quickly read the choking section to see what they had to say abou it.

It is really that gagging sound that sets me off. And that annoys me. I just get freaked out to the max until she stops. Booo.
It may have to do with her being on Losec and she continually gagged from the granules and it freaked me out until we changed her to the liquid.

The point is, I'm already annoyed with spoon feeding (and it's only been 2 weeks) and just want to get over myself and just stop spoon feeding altogether.

Just feel a bit stuck about the details, i.e. just swap to BWL cold turkey or 'wean' over a couple of weeks...

You could always wean over a couple of weeks I guess, I had planned to go cold turkey on the spoon feeding and dive straight into BLW but Lily is happy with both atm and for us the BLW is more of an experimentation for her with the food than actually eating.

I did a first aid course and they said that the only time you need to be worried is when they aren't trying to cough the food back up or making any noise. DS only ever proberly choked once on a piece of courgette but he managed to get his gag reflex working within a second. And has never touched courgette since.

The first ever food he tried was banana and then we just let him sample what ever we were having. Most of the time in the first month he just sucked the food, though he really enjoyed soft fruits. I have also spoon fed him his yoghurts and what not, just till he learnt how to do it himself. But other then that we just let him help himself to his food and he soon figured it out.

I was scared about choking too but it's so much less likely with a child who has done BLW than a puree fed baby.

I'd never heard of BLW when DD was a baby so she was weaned the 'traditional' method.  One day when she was nearly 2 years old we were walking home and she was eating chips while DH and I were talking.  DH was carrying her and he stopped to figure out why she was thrashing against him.  A chip had lodged in her throat and she was choking, she didn't make a sound.  It was so scary and it still upsets me to think how close we came to losing her that day.

When someone is choking air cannot get into their lungs which means they can't make any noise.  That's why the gagging sound is actually a good thing.  Gagging means they're breathing.  Gagging is simply the sound your tongue makes when expelling something from the back of your mouth (try it, you'll make the same sound too).

We did BLW with DS because I am scared of choking and learning to chew before learning to swallow makes so much sense to me.  At 14 months old he will happily sit down and eat a bowl of frozen blueberries (for eg) with no trouble.  He is so capable when it comes to mealtimes.  He's as good with cutlery as his 4yo sister and he will try anything (while his sister refuses to try most things).

mack choked on puree food beleive it or not. his throat was pretty bung anyway (commonish with reflux) and he did the whole stop breathing, turn blue, had to tip upside down thing and whack his back a few times. i wouldnt let choking put you off BLW as it is possible to choke on other stuff anyway

Thank you for your lovely advice!

I definitely don't think I *have* to do it but I know I will regret it if I don't because the only reason would be MY fear of choking.

I've decided to go with it and hopefully Nina will give me a break today and have a decent sleep so I can get stuck into the book more.

She's had pear this morning and didn't gag when she had big pieces in her mouth. Fx