Mouthful of food, won't swallow or spit it out. Is this a thing?

[aeiou]

My 22 mo DD has recently started getting a big mouthful of food and just holding it in her mouth. She seems somewhat distressed, but won't spit it out or swallow it. She gets more frustrated when I try to help her by asking her if she wants to spit it out in the sink or napkin or something. She's done this once or twice a day for the past few days, and I'm wondering if this is a thing I should be worried about or just a toddler control thing. I'm trying to just let her do her thing food-wise, but she seems to get distressed by this glob of food in her mouth so I guess I'm also wondering how to help her without frustrating her more. 

[SilverFish]

well, i remember very clearly my younger sister doing it, and so in that case, i guess it is a "thing"! she did it with rice, usually. she hated rice but in my family we usually had rice a few times a week. have you noticed that it's with a specific flavour or texture of food? otherwise, yeah, i'm guessing it's one of those wonderful toddler quirks that they'll get over eventually. 

[transylvania_mom]

My ds used to do this, be careful because constant contact with food is not good for the teeth.

[elizaMM]

I've never heard of it, but since you got very few responses I thought I'd weigh in.

How to help her w/o frustrating her more? Maybe on the front end--by making it less likely to happen? Is she eating too fast? Is she super hungry? It sounds like maybe she's just forgetting to swallow and she keeps shoveling it in until she realizes, "ack! my mouth is FULL!" So I guess I'd make sure she is getting snacks between meals and if she still keeps doing it try to distract her so she has time to swallow before she shovels more in?

[aeiou]

It's usually towards the end of the meal, like she might be done but still has food in her mouth and didn't realize before she put it there that she didn't want to eat more? She never has the food in her mouth for more than a minute or three, and then spits it out. It's usually bread, but once it was strawberries. I don't know if the strawberries were just a fluke or what, though. Maybe I'll try to pay more attention towards the end of meals so she doesn't get a huge mouthful, but if she does we'll make sure to brush teeth after. 

I guess it's just a relief to hear that other kids do it too.