Not Chewing Food

[EJTmommy]

My DS is 13 months. Sometimes I feel that he is not chewing his food enough - while other times I see his mouth moving so it appears he is chewing. I show him how to chew and say "chew chew chew".  If he's really hungry he wants to eat so fast. I have to slow him down.  Of course I plan to ask the ped next time we are there but wanted to see if anyone experienced something similar.

TIA!

[Rani]

Yes...we used to say "See Food" and open wide to our dd so that she would show us it was all chewed and gone. Especially after we found her chewing someting HOURS later after lunch one day...and discovered it was the brocolli from lunch..ewwwwwwwwwww...she took it and just never chewed it up and swallowed. ..i think sometimes they take it then discover they don't want it but haven't learned to spit back out

I also started making the pieces a lot smaller so not as much chewing required at first.

[MommyofNRM]

My ds does the same thing and he's 19 months old. He always seems like he's in such a hurry to get all his food in there that he'll put more in his mouth than he can chew. Sometimes he'll even gag on it and I have to remind him to "chew chew" and "one bite at a time". Just offer small bites and keep a close eye on him while he's eating. Good luck! 

[sunwise]

DS is around the same age as yours, and I have had the same concern at times. For instance, we fed him an edamame salad recently, and I realized after seeing the contents of his diaper the next day that he swallowed many of the edamame whole. He rarely gags on food anymore, and so far this behavior hasn't caused us any problems, so I am hoping that he doesn't do it with most food.