Baby Led Weaning - Starting Solids - Page 6 « Back to Group Discussions

[Mal85]

Gagging is totally normal when they're learning to eat solids. It freaked me out the first few times DD1 did it, but I don't get so freaked out about it anymore. A good pat on the back and some encouragement "Cough it up, cough it up" and we're over it. You'll be able to tell the difference between gagging and actually choking.

[seraf]

If I can hear him, I know air is getting through, but he doesn't do a ton of gagging.

We have totally moved on to redneck solids. Shay is still off dairy, wheat, honey and citrus but otherwise we let him chew on whatever. He will take mashed, steamed veggies and puréed greens off a spoon but otherwise doesn't like purées.

I pinch off bits of meat and fruits. He can't get rice into his mouth but he picks up peas and feeds them to himself.

I'm going to start encouraging beans for iron because his level is low.

[jbk21]

Nicole did you say Cheeto Puffs?  Or do you mean, like, Gerber Puffs?

[CDsMom1031]

Cheeto Puffs. LOL I was eating some the other night and he was staring at me like, "Bitch, share!" so I did. LOL

[Jaimee]

Jill... gagging is totally normal and some babies have more sensitive gag reflexes than others.  Be sure to allow the gagging/coughing as she will get the food back up on her own.  Choking is silent and requires immediate action-  quick thrusts to the back while baby is held over your forearm, face down.  I pasted choking first aid below for more details.

Christina- Usually the problem is that too large of pieces are getting in the mouth and often this is b/c the food has been cut up into chunks or offered in pieces.  You mentioned you were offering large pieces.. how large?  Offering the whole food can prevent this more.  So offer half a banana instead if chunks or slices if banana.  Offer spears of sweet potato, squash, pear, etc. that he can easily hold and gnaw bits off of.  Have you been lightly steaming the veggies?  That could help as well.  In my experience it takes just a couple weeks for baby to get used to gnawing and gumming before swallowing.  But if the gag reflex is super sensitive, gagging could happen every time food makes it anywhere near the back of his mouth no matter how small the piece.  This reflex will relax over time. 

From NIH website:

DO NOT perform these steps if the infant is coughing forcefully or has a strong cry. Strong coughs and cries can push the object out of the airway.

If your child is not coughing forcefully or does not have a strong cry, follow these steps:

1. Lay the infant face down, along your forearm. Use your thigh or lap for support. Hold the infant's chest in your hand and jaw with your fingers. Point the infant's head downward, lower than the body.
2. Give up to 5 quick, forceful blows between the infant's shoulder blades. Use the palm of your free hand.

If the object does not come out of the airway after 5 blows:

1. Turn the infant face up. Use your thigh or lap for support. Support the head.
2. Place 2 fingers on the middle of his breastbone just below the nipples.
3. Give up to 5 quick thrusts down, compressing the chest 1/3 to 1/2 the depth of the chest.
4. Continue 5 back blows follwed by 5 chest thrusts until the object is dislodged or the infant loses alertness (becomes unconscious).

IF THE INFANT LOSES ALERTNESS

If the child becomes unresponsive, stops breathing, or turns blue:

• Shout for help.
• Give infant CPR. Call 911 after 1 minute of CPR.
• If you can SEE the object blocking the airway, try to remove it with your finger. Try to remove an object ONLY if you can see it.

DO NOT

• DO NOT perform choking first aid if the infant is coughing forcefully, has a strong cry, or is breathing enough. However, be ready to act if the symptoms worsen.
• DO NOT try to grasp and pull out the object if the infant is alert (conscious).
• DO NOT do back blows and chest thrusts if the infant stops breathing for other reasons, such as asthma, infection, swelling, or a blow to the head. DO give infant CPR in these cases.

[Abraisme]

Yup, this is right.  My DS has a VERY sensitive gag reflex and used to gag and throw up all the time.  There was a time when he threw up while eating at least once a day.  Talk about a way to desensitize a person to puking.  :/  Although, from my experience, babies that gag easily are a lot less likely to choke.  Cyan would always puke long before he would get anything stuck in his throat.

Originally Posted by Jaimee 

Jill... gagging is totally normal and some babies have more sensitive gag reflexes than others.  Be sure to allow the gagging/coughing as she will get the food back up on her own.  Choking is silent and requires immediate action-  quick thrusts to the back while baby is held over your forearm, face down.  I pasted choking first aid below for more details.

Christina- Usually the problem is that too large of pieces are getting in the mouth and often this is b/c the food has been cut up into chunks or offered in pieces.  You mentioned you were offering large pieces.. how large?  Offering the whole food can prevent this more.  So offer half a banana instead if chunks or slices if banana.  Offer spears of sweet potato, squash, pear, etc. that he can easily hold and gnaw bits off of.  Have you been lightly steaming the veggies?  That could help as well.  In my experience it takes just a couple weeks for baby to get used to gnawing and gumming before swallowing.  But if the gag reflex is super sensitive, gagging could happen every time food makes it anywhere near the back of his mouth no matter how small the piece.  This reflex will relax over time. 

From NIH website:

[LunaLady]

Thanks for the advice, girls. Yep, I am offering VERY large pieces and whole foods to R. Like half a banana, a huge slice of bell pepper (like 1/4 of the whole pepper in one slice), big chunks of avocado about the size of his palm (that one is kinda pointless because he squashes the crap out of them before it even makes it to his mouth), etc. For meats, I pre-chew unless it is like a steak or something he's not going to even get a bite off of.

But, anything he has that he can get a bite off of, he'll choke. He takes HUGE bites, he doesn't just nibble! 

Edited by LunaLady - 6/25/12 at 10:52pm

[Jaimee]

Well, he may just be a bit slower on the chewing; it can take some babies longer to figure it out. Dd took longer than ds1.  But he will figure it out and before you know it gagging will be a thing of the past.  Peppers are kind of hard to chew... maybe stick with smooshier foods for now?

[seraf]

Shay can't get pieces of pepper off, but he lacks teeth. He also doesn't nibble. He takes big bites, and then rolls them around his mouth for a while, spits them out and bites the bite in half and repeats until he has little bits that he can swallow or he is covered in the food and I take it away.

He actually eats more if I break it into pieces, tho.

Things like corn chips or banana chips he breaks off a piece and chews on it until It gets soft enough to swallow.

[TalkToMeNow]

Wow, you guys are brave! And busy! Jasper is still eating mushed sweet potato, avocado, banana, and puréed prunes. Oh, and sometimes brown rice or quinoa. That is all. I like to take it as slow as possible. He only eats once a day now. He's not interested at other times. And he eats very little. So I guess that's still CLW... I'm following him. He just isn't all that into food. I haven't tried offering big chunks yet. Well, I did with banana. It's so tough for him to hold it. The one thing he really loves is his tiny little cup of water. He can't get enough of it and has learned to drink from it quite well.

My girls were like this, too. No serious eating went on for a while. I'm cool with that!

[KayPea]

Oren loves to eat, but hasn't yet figured out that he can feed himself. So for now, I am offering him large pieces of soft foods to gnaw on, but I hold it for him. We don't have a high chair yet though, so when I get him to try to eat something with his hands, I stop soon after, because we are both getting too messy (he  just likes to play and mush the food with his hands, which I am fine with, but I'd let him do it more if we had a high chair.) He will eat from a spoon too, but I haven't done much of that, mostly because making mashes and purees means extra work. He's had avocado, sweet potato, banana, apple, frozen blueberry,broccoli and egg yolk so far. But he's getting a rash from something, so I may start from scratch again. 

But this kid LOVES to eat. He's a great chewer, and he doesn't gag. He's usually very mellow, but when it comes to food he is very passionate. He'll get so mad if I don't feed him fast enough, or walk away when he is in the middle of eating. We need a high chair ASAP. 

[Jaimee]

Kirsten, I'm not sure if you read the high chair posts we had a month or so ago, but I highly recommend a booster chair instead of a high chair.  It will take up one of your dining room chairs (unless you get the clip on kind), but I find it highly preferable to a high chair for many reasons (easier to clean, portability, takes up less space at the table, converts as child grows, cheaper, etc.).  Here's the one we have:  http://www.amazon.com/Safety-1st-Deluxe-Snack-Booster/dp/B001UCQ7JU

[KayPea]

Yeah, we have one of those (not that brand) and it's a BEAST to clean. And we brought it out and DD has claimed it. And we only have 4 dining chairs, so if we have two boosters on them, we can't have friends to eat. But I should just get him in the booster and endure the wrath of DD (no small feat, that) because Oren just loves to eat and play with food. I've been on the lookout for a wooden high chair at a decent price, but no luck. 

[jill the pill]

We have the Fisher Price booster seat and it is awesome!  There are no crevices for food to get caught in and I find it very easy to clean.  We used to take it to restaurants with us with dd1 and I found it very easy to bring anywhere and keep clean.

[Jaimee]

Huh, ours is SO easy to clean.  Just wipe down with a wet cloth for spills, vacuum it for dry spills and periodically, I take it out on the porch and hose it down.  It also doesn't have any crevices to get disgusting. The "cushion" is removable, so we don't even use it.  I found one similar to it at a garage sale back in October for $4 so I bought it, knowing that ds1 wasn't going to want to part with his by the time that Avery was ready for it.

[TalkToMeNow]

I took Jasper in for his 6 month check-up today. He only gained 3 oz in the past month. Before that, he was gaining 2 lbs per month. He's currently 18.5 lbs. Anyway, his doctor actually seemed mildly concerned by this. I thought it was normal for babies to slow down around 6 months... I know he is nursing less. He nurses 5 times between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. Then, he nurses several times at night. (I'm not sure how many as I am half asleep! Probably 3-4.) I guess he's nursing every 3 hours, day and night. Seemed like plenty to me! He's not eating much... not that interested. Plus, one of my woo areas is feeding solids. I personally believe in going very slow. The doctor recommended that I start feeding him 3 times a day and giving him more types of food. Also, doing a weight check in a while. Hmm... To me, he's gaining some, he's happy, and he has plenty of stored fat. He's only 26" tall! I'm confused. Any thoughts??

I went ahead and fed him lunch today. I gave him some garbanzo beans, pureed butternut squash, and banana. Same thing for dinner, minus the banana. He ate a lot of lunch but very little dinner. He's just not into more than one meal per day.

[KayPea]

Yeah, ours "folds up" so it has all kinds of places for food to gather, and in order to clean it I have to take it apart and tackle it with a toothbrush. And the straps are just eternally yuck now. It was a gift. I should keep my eye out at yard sales for one of these easy to clean ones. 

ETA: It's a Safety 1st booster, that folds up for travel. Now you know what NOT to get!

[ZippyGirl]

I must have missed the high chair thread, so sorry if this is old news.  But we LOVE the Stokke Tripp Trapp chair.  DD is still using hers (at 5.5 yrs), and I think she'll continue to use it for a good long while.  We had started DD with the Svan Chair, which was really a bummer because she was able to pull it down and it also constantly got wobbly no matter how tightly we re-screwed it.  So, we tag saled it, and got the Tripp Trapp and never looked back.  I am desperately scouting tag sales and Craigslist for one for DS, but I haven't been successful.  I might end up just buying a new one with the infant set.  I don't bother with cushions for high chairs.  

Well, today DS had his first food.  I probably broke all the rules.  He had some of my green smoothie, and LOVED it.  He kept reaching and crying for it until I gave him some.  It had a bunch of ingredients, so the notion of trying one food at a time just went out the window here.   

[KayPea]

Well, the clasp broke on our booster today, and rather that try and repair it, I'm taking it as a sign to find something else. I wish we could afford the Tripp Trapp, I think they're really cool, but right now my high chair budget is in the $20-$40 range. 

[ZippyGirl]

Originally Posted by KayPea 

Well, the clasp broke on our booster today, and rather that try and repair it, I'm taking it as a sign to find something else. I wish we could afford the Tripp Trapp, I think they're really cool, but right now my high chair budget is in the $20-$40 range. 

I was able to get DD's Tripp Trapp at a yard sale for $40.  I hope I can get a good deal on one for DS!  Still looking...