solids question (for non-BLWers)

SanHawaii08 · September 2011

How did you transition from purees and soft/mushy bits of food, to bigger/harder chunks of food?

I'm still paranoid about E choking Stick out tongue and when i give him something like shredded chicken, it looks like he mushes it a bit with his gums, but then just swallows it - is that how it's supposed to work right now?

eacerna · September 2011

I haven't really given LO big chunks of food. I still cut them up in tiny little pieces (but big enough for her to pick up). I've also wondered whether she chews/gums the food first or just swallow them right away lol. These days E likes to feed herself (which frustrates me sometimes) and she puts food in her mouth one bite after another! TMI but I have seen whole pieces of cut carrots (yeah, i check out her poop :-P) in her poop so I therefore conclude that she just swallows some of it lol.

MauiWedding08 · September 2011

J is 18mo and still swallows food whole. I almost prefer to not give him small bite things because I know if he has to gnaw off a piece of something he is more likely to chew. (unavoidable with things like berries and peas).

My mom bought him some Annie's fruit snacks and he can inhale a small pack in like 5 seconds. I have to individual hand them to him and remind him to chew.

We did BLW so I can't really give advice about what to expect, but since you are giving him such small size pieces just follow his lead. Let him watch you chew (maybe over exaggerate a little) to see if he catches on.

mrs.winter · September 2011

It took me a long time to let Ashton have anything bigger than the size of those gerber puffs. I didn't start to give him anything larger until he had some teeth besides those top and bottom 2. Ashton is 2 and I still cut up his grapes into 4's:-)

lelekay · September 2011

Sounds about right to me! Henry just "chews" with his gums, then swallows. I figure as long as they aren't having trouble with it, why worry? I just started by steaming most veggies and fruits and dicing them small. When he did great with those, I experimented with chicken, meatballs, pasta, and toast strips. Now I'm working on steaming things less and less so he will get used to a more firm texture.

lola808 · September 2011

I just gradually thickened up his foods when I thought he was ready, but I stuck to soft foods and cut them up into bite-sized pieces until he was 1. Since then, he's eaten regularly prepared table foods, but I still cut them up small. He chews a lot, but sometimes he still swallows things whole. I guess it just depends on his mood or how much he likes the food at hand.

mrspresley · September 2011

lelekay:
I figure as long as they aren't having trouble with it, why worry?

totally agree w/this we started with purees but quickly went to BLW.... the pedi even told us at her 9 month checkup that we could go straight to cut up small pieces of chicken instead of purees....it wasn't even shredded...and she had no teeth, but they do a great job gumming the food it is obviously good to know how to do the baby heimlich but i've never had to do that....and i did stuff like giving her raisins (I didn't know you weren't supposed to LOL) and more recently i give her whole grapes b/c she INSISTS on it. she screams "whole! whole! whole!" and has a tantrum if i start to cut them. so i give in....

MauiWedding08 · September 2011

mrspresley:
and more recently i give her whole grapes b/c she INSISTS on it. she screams "whole! whole! whole!" and has a tantrum if i start to cut them. so i give in....

where do they get these notions? J is the SAME. When I would bite the stems off a strawberry when we would sit and eat them out of the garden and he would loose it. He also likes to eat plums from our tree and won't let me cut them so I have to watch him like a hawk to make sure I can grab the pit.

redshoegirl · September 2011

lelekay:
Sounds about right to me! Henry just "chews" with his gums, then swallows. I figure as long as they aren't having trouble with it, why worry? I just started by steaming most veggies and fruits and dicing them small. When he did great with those, I experimented with chicken, meatballs, pasta, and toast strips. Now I'm working on steaming things less and less so he will get used to a more firm texture.

This is pretty much what we did. We progressed to lumps and mushable pieces (like somewhat overcooked carrot) at around 8-9 months, then went from there.

They were very keen on feeding themselves, so by the time they hit a year old, we were pretty much on table food exactly how Ben and I eat it. That said, we did still alter their servings a bit - shredding the chicken, cutting a potato into smaller bits, etc. - but essentially they were having regular food cooked at regular consistencies (i.e., not overcooked to make it mushier).

These days I don't really change their food except for red meat, which they still find difficult to chew.

Married2MrWright · September 2011

MauiWedding08:

My mom bought him some Annie's fruit snacks and he can inhale a small pack in like 5 seconds. I have to individual hand them to him and remind him to chew.

OMG! Libby too. She cries "bunnies!" after she's wolfed down the entire package. I also have started giving them to her one by one, or sometimes, even breaking them into two pieces to make them last longer. They were our saving grace at the end our of flights to/from CA last month...especially in that last hour when she'd start saying "all done...off!" We'd bust out a package of bunnies and break them into smaller pieces and stretch them over a longer period of time and by then it was much closer to landing time...thank goodness!

mrspresley · September 2011

MauiWedding08:
mrspresley:
and more recently i give her whole grapes b/c she INSISTS on it. she screams "whole! whole! whole!" and has a tantrum if i start to cut them. so i give in....
where do they get these notions? J is the SAME. When I would bite the stems off a strawberry when we would sit and eat them out of the garden and he would loose it. He also likes to eat plums from our tree and won't let me cut them so I have to watch him like a hawk to make sure I can grab the pit.

Miss A loves peaches, apricots, and nectarines....so I taught her the word "seed" (well, in Vietnamese, not English, but still....) and now whenever she eats anything with a seed she takes a few bites then shouts "seed! seed! mommy take it out!" (yes, she says half of it in Viet. and half in English LOL) and then hands it over to me.... then I take it out and tell her that I'm putting it in the garbage and she says "seed! in the garbage!" so she totally gets it and I don't have to worry about her eating the seed anymore. maybe if you keep doing it in front of him and talking him through it he'll start to get the idea too

(as an aside, her favorite thing to do with whole peaches and nectarines now is to bite off all of the peel, with a little bit of fruit, and then hand me back the rest of the fruit after it's been "peeled" LOL)

stargirl76 · September 2011

mrspresley:

Miss A loves peaches, apricots, and nectarines....so I taught her the word "seed" (well, in Vietnamese, not English, but still....) and now whenever she eats anything with a seed she takes a few bites then shouts "seed! seed! mommy take it out!" (yes, she says half of it in Viet. and half in English LOL) and then hands it over to me.... then I take it out and tell her that I'm putting it in the garbage and she says "seed! in the garbage!" so she totally gets it and I don't have to worry about her eating the seed anymore. maybe if you keep doing it in front of him and talking him through it he'll start to get the idea too
(as an aside, her favorite thing to do with whole peaches and nectarines now is to bite off all of the peel, with a little bit of fruit, and then hand me back the rest of the fruit after it's been "peeled" LOL)

Seriously, your stories about her CRACK me up. She is so damn cute.

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