How small should food bits be?

[lotushjerte]

Hi guys!

DD is almost 9 months now. She is still pretty much fully breastfed, but has had tastes of lots of different purees i've made, since she was about 6 months. At first, she was really interested, but now that has waned and she's not interested at all when we come with a spoon. I think she'll be way more interested if she can feed herself now...
I've occasionally given her a large piece of apple/carrot/etc to suck on but now she has 2 bottom teeth (and 2 on their way on the top!) and i'm getting more worried about her being able to break off a piece, so i watch really carefully.

I tried giving her little TINY pieces of banana today and that went pretty well, but im so nervous about her choking- so my question is how big/small should the food pieces be? I mean soft foods now (cooked/steamed) of course. Also tips as to which foods your babies liked when they started feeding themselves...

She's a reflux baby with severe milk protein allergy, and has had lots of episodes of projectile vomiting, so i've ended up with a bit of a choking-paranoia...

Thanks for tips! :)

[naomifrederickmd]

Kellymom Finger Foods page (http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/finger-foods.html)

You sound like you mgiht be concerned over chokable sizes...see this link at Dr. Sears's website-- CHOKABLE FOODS (http://www.askdrsears.com/html/3/T030400.asp)

Here is a little humor from Kellymom on the subject...so you can relax a little!

On Starting Solids
by Eleanor Goulding Smith
http://www.kellymom.com/writings/children/solids.html (http://www.kellymom.com/writings/children/solids.html)

I hope that helps!

[lotushjerte]

Haha thank you! Great read!

but she's only got her two bottom teeth, so im still unsure as to size of chunks for her. I'll just keep trying tiny ones and see how it goes! :)

[naomifrederickmd]

Children do mash with their gums....number of teeth dosn't necessarily determine piece size!

[EcoMaMa]

With my children I didn't cube or chunk. I did strips... This way if they did get overzealous it can slide down their throats and no choking. The strips were no longer than 1 inch for my children that age and very thin.


I am veggie, but this is very helpful if you are meat eaters. Meat is the biggest choking food for kids.

Here they have these little bags of organic carrot strips and organic broccoli slaw. Those are always great to steam and let kids play with!

Peace & Blessings,

Jo

[tkfour]

Deleted Message.