Fear of finger foods

[Anonymous]

I know that Noah would do a lot better eating if he could feed himself. He’s really good about mouthing on biter biscuits and wagon wheels. The problem however is that he doesnt really chew and doesnt move the food around his mouth very well. I have given him crackers and things that disolve pretty well, but he still needs to chew these things before he swallows. The few times I’ve given him things like this and he has bitten off a small piece, he might chew once, then he gags, inhales and sort of swallows. I’m so petrified that he is going to inhale the food into his wind pipe. I’m a nervous wreck every time I give him even a tiny piece of Gerber Veggie bites. He always takes a huge breath after he gags and I swear he’s going to choke. Should I just hold off on these types of foods and just stick with stage 2 purees that he swallows instantly without chewing? I hate to keep him from progressing, especially since I know he really likes to try to feed himself. But I am so paranoid when he has anything in his mouth that requires chewing.

[Anonymous]

Hi Lisa,

My son had some difficulty learning to chew – actually toddlers don’t “chew” food, they munch it. We’ve had lots of therapy and help from specialists and he had the same type of difficulty as your son in the beginning. In fact, he choked so much trying to swallow chunks of unchewed foods that he eventually developed an aversion to them. (A mistake on my part.)

We had to give him “bite and dissolve” foods since he would not take pureed foods – he would only eat if he could control the foods. Bite and dissolve foods essentially turn liquid or dissolve when they mix with saliva so choking is much less likely than if he is swallowing chunks of cookies, etc.

I live in England but am from the US but haven’t been back there for 7 years so kind of forgot the names for foods but can give you a rough idea of some of the foods that are bite and dissolve:

Small chocolate drops, pink wafer cookies, sugar puffs or puffed wheat, cheerios without milk, sponge cakes, jam tarts, wotsits (cheetos?) or puffed corn type of chips (here they make healthy ones without all the preservatives for kids), monster munch, etc…

I know these are appalling when you first read the list as far as nutrition is concerned but I tried to think of them as a psychlogical tool rather than nutritional. My son learned to munch by eating this type of food and he now can eat/chew pretty much anything.

The next stage is called “bite and mash” and includes bread, pancakes, bananas, steamed vegetables, avocadoes, grapes, soft french fries, you get the idea. So the next stage is DEFINITELY more healthy than the first so you can keep that in mind when he’s sucking on a Cheeto!

I don’t know if this is helpful for you, I had to take things very slowly with my son so there were lots of little steps with these foods. If you have any questions, please let me know. Best of luck to you and your little man!

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