Can you just hand your baby a cracker?

Addy1227 · November 2013

This might be a silly question but every once in awhile I try to give LO something that he'll have to bite instead of me breaking it up for him and he attempts to shove the whole thing in his mouth! I'm talking big bites even for an adult and naturally the gagging doesn't stop him from trying. I don't know if he's still just too young to know better or his eyes are bigger than his stomach.

nanabanana06 · November 2013

Gagging is how they learn to eat and chew. I give my kid a whole cracker. He bites it and chews it just fine.

JessAnnJ · November 2013

We can give her a graham cracker and she will take bites. If you are only doing it every once in awhile maybe he just needs practice.

Addy1227 · November 2013

I won't lie I'm very hasty when it comes to giving him big things for him to chew because he has choked multiple times on them. I know gagging and choking can be confused but I'm talking distorted face, can't breath, popped blood vessels around his face and eyes and it's the scariest moment of my life every time! He's done it a handful of times and I think it's because he literally stuffs his face. He doesn't take 1 or 2 cheerios, he crams as many as he can in his mouth and gags. I gave him a piece of graham cracker and he shoved the whole thing in his mouth and choked. Aside from trying it more often, is there anything else that might help him bite? He chews just fine, it's just the initial bite.

Litgirl77 · November 2013

Sam has done well with Baby Mum Mums and graham crackers for learning how to take bites. I also give him bigger pieces of toast or sandwiches. He mostly sucks the filling out until it gets soggy but he's getting there. I also give him spears of banana by taking a big chunk and quartering it so he can grab them - he mostly shoves those in his mouth, but they break out so he can sort of get them bite sized himself.

schumakr · November 2013

I will give Alexandra a whole saltine and she will walk around the house taking little mouse bites out of it. Its pretty fun to watch.

SebsMum · November 2013

Addy1227 said:

I won't lie I'm very hasty when it comes to giving him big things for him to chew because he has choked multiple times on them. I know gagging and choking can be confused but I'm talking distorted face, can't breath, popped blood vessels around his face and eyes and it's the scariest moment of my life every time! He's done it a handful of times and I think it's because he literally stuffs his face. He doesn't take 1 or 2 cheerios, he crams as many as he can in his mouth and gags. I gave him a piece of graham cracker and he shoved the whole thing in his mouth and choked. Aside from trying it more often, is there anything else that might help him bite? He chews just fine, it's just the initial bite.

Yikes! In this sort of case, I would suggest that you keep giving him things to bite into, but that he is always supervised until he stops doing this. I know it's basically what you're already doing, but I wanted to basically just back you up as it must be so scary to watch him do that!

JessAnnJ · November 2013

What about a teething biscuit? We were using the plum ones and it seemed like it would be hard to take a huge bite out of one of those. Maybe he can practice taking little bites with those.

It took a lot of practice for my LO to eat anything other than purees because she gagged really easy so she was very cautious about what she put in her mouth. I would feel freaked out too if she did what you described. Maybe giving him more than a tiny piece but not that much more and then slowly increasing it?

SingleMom31 · November 2013

DD is like that - she'll periodically try to put as much as she can in her mouth. We've stopped giving her that much. Like, we only give her a couple puffs at a time and they give her more when those are done.

I second the teething wafers from Plums. We've yet to have a problem with those, other than it sounds like she's sick of them at daycare. She likes the Gerber crunchies at the moment. They're bigger than a puff, so she'll try to bite them most of the time, but they still get soft pretty quickly for when she doesn't.

raraavis28 · November 2013

I give LOs crackers, teething biscuits, pieces of toast....L also loves to shove things into his mouth, but we haven't had any problems with choking. Most of what I give them is pretty easy to dissolve. Agree w/ @Nana_Osaki06 that they have to learn how to bite and chew somehow....but if choking has been a problem, maybe try some more crumbly, softer things first?

peacelove&mama · December 2013

I give him whole crackers and for toast, I cut it into strips or four quarters. He either breaks it apart himself, or takes bites.

Lalarochelle1220 · December 2013

At first LO did try to stuff the entire cracker in her mouth, but now she's fine and takes little bites. Mostly, she'll take a cracker, break it in half so she can have something in both hands.

StefandTodd · December 2013

Yes, I've given him whole crackers since he started solids just before 6 months and he manages just fine. He didn't even have a tooth until almonst 10 months, and he could bite and chew.

Addy1227 · December 2013

Still no success, I bought hard teething cookies today hoping he'd chew on it until it was soft but he shoved the whole thing in his mouth, and surprisingly it fit. Ironically enough though he'll bite his cheerios in half and then chew one half and then the other and I gave him small chunks of apple today that he bit in half first even though they were small enough where he could have just gummed them.

nanabanana06 · December 2013

Addy1227 said:

Still no success, I bought hard teething cookies today hoping he'd chew on it until it was soft but he shoved the whole thing in his mouth, and surprisingly it fit. Ironically enough though he'll bite his cheerios in half and then chew one half and then the other and I gave him small chunks of apple today that he bit in half first even though they were small enough where he could have just gummed them.

Try the baby Mum Mums. These are similar to crackers in shape, but dissolve fairly quickly. This way if he does shove it in whole it'll just turn to mush.

ilenegrace · December 2013

We love Mum Mums. They dissolve easily so thats what we started with.

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