My 10 Month Old Baby Chokes on Anything with Texture

I would hold off on the table foods for now and try again in a month or so , she just may not be ready for those yet , if you persist then it may lead to fussy eating habits when she is older.

Hi, You have some good answers but if it were me , I would want to go to a specialist and maybe have them do some xrays or some tests to make sure that the tongue and the throat are formed right, just a thought. I would just want to make sure, why wait and put her through more if it can be fixed now. I would just go straight to the top. Just my opinion. Good Luck

Hi –
I have worked with numerous children who are similar to your dd. An interesting comment that you made which raises a flag to me is that she sucks her food down (she should be using more tongue movements at her age). Being a thumb sucker does not have anything to do with the gagging, however sucking her food down may relate to gagging. In order to manipulate food with lumps/solids you need to be able to manipulate it with your tongue. If she is sucking food down, she is not actively using her tongue.

Some suggestions are:
Take a step back – you do not want her to relate feeding to an unpleasant experience (you are correct to question your doctor – you do not want her to continually gag on foods – this may lead to significant feeding aversions).
1) Make sure you do NOT force feed her
2) Try your best not to feel overwhelmed/stressed during meal time (she will feed off your stress (i know easier said than done - I'm sure this is VERY stressful for you)
3) place a food that you are eating (that is safe for her) on her tray (without ANY expectation that she will eat it).
4) let her explore the food and get messy – this allows her to learn the properties of food (smell, feeling, sight)
5) offer foods she eats and try to expand within the same food area (e.g. if she eats pureed banana try banana yogurt).
6) offer easily dissolvable foods (e.g. club crackers, short bread cookies, puffs – rice is not dissolvable and will trigger a gag)
7) do you brush her teeth/gums? If not start doing this. Make sure to get the sides of her tongue too (try not to trigger a gag – if you do say sorry and don’t go back as far)
8) I would not recommend going to whole milk - baby's digestive system can't digest cow's milk proteins. Cow's milk also has too much sodium, potassium, and chloride, which can tax your baby's kidneys. As a suggestion you can offer http://www.naturesone.com/pediasmart/ after the age of 1 – it is for picky eaters and adds calories.

If you do not see an improvement you may want to consider asking your pediatrician for pediatric occupational therapy or speech therapy referral for feeding. It is MUCH easier to work on feeding issues when they are younger verses older.
Remember encourage her, praise her, and even though it is hard try not to show her your stress.
I hope that helps! Good luck!

my son is the same way. He finally is eating just about everything (except banana's and avocado's). What I did is I cut up EVERYTHING into itty bitty pieces and put them on his tray to let him figure out what they were. After a while he figured out what things were. I just never went farther than 5 feet just in case he really was choking. With him he'd gag and throw up. . .that was fun.

Please don't fret! My son was the same way. I tried to swallow the food myself and could totally see why he was choking on it.

Here is what worked for him! Buy a cheap stick/hand blender--they run about $25 at WalMart. You can use this to grind/puree ANYTHING. My son has been eating non-bottled baby food from the get go because he just wouldn't eat the bottled stuff. I season his food to about 80% adult levels and grind it up. He has a really broad palette now and will basically east absolutely anything, but I think it's in large part to the fact that it tastes really good. There are very easy/healthy things you can make that truly take a total of 20 min of your time. I make his food in 3-4 day batches. Here's one of his favs: boil this all in one pot--some cheese tortellini, whole wheat pasta, sweet potato, zucchini, onion. Boil this for longer than you would for adults so it all gets really soft. Drain off some of the water, add a can of pure tomato sauce, some spices, milk (you need more milk than you think--esp w/pasta because it will thicken as it cools) and puree away. You can get a really, really smooth consistency. Add enough milk/formula/b-milk to make a thick soup texture. For my son if it's too thick, he won't eat it.

My son is 18 mo now and I still puree his food. Sometimes I use a white/brown rice mix, I add chicken, tofu, lots of veggies. You can grind up just about anything. I don't make it was smooth as I used to, but he gets PLENTY of "solid" food practice with his snacks cheese, and fruit. And he's happy to taste things off our plates. For snacks, there are these Gerber puffs that my son loved at that age--they just melt away. And things like oyster crackers melt/get soft really quick too. I'm sorry our doc told you to keep trying, I disagree. I feel that it's more important that she (and you) enjoy the eating experience to make her a healthy eater rather than pushing her to a texture she's not ready for yet. Having to turn her over to give back blows is so scary for you! :(

Oh, and please don't worry about her weight! Some kids are just in the lower %ile and that's ok! My son has been in the 25% since he was a few weeks old. And when I look at baby pics of my husband and I--we were skinny too! :)

Best of luck, you're doing a REALLY great job!!

She may be lactose intolerant or allergic to something you are feeding her. I started my granddaughter on some good wholefood nutrition at 2 days old and watched everything change from colic whezzing; sleep challenges and as she got older behavior changed also.

The environment plays a huge role in our childrens health.

Goodluck.

N. Marie

stick with breastmilk until age 1 - it has the perfect amount of fat etc. for your baby and the added bonus of immune system boosters from your body. A thin baby is not a bad thing - both of my kids are on the low end of the "percentiles" for weight - my son caught up around age 4.
It sounds like she has a very sensitive gag reflex. Keep that in mind when you feed her. Have you tried the little cereal puffs from Gerber or plain old Cheerios? My baby choked on them the first time (no teeth) so I ate one in front of her and chewed it really exaggeratedly and said YUM! She picked one up and imitated me and hasn't choked since. A teething biscuit may help too - sit next to her and watch her eat it and take it away when it gets soggy. Also, you can get little mesh bags that are attached to handles that look like pacifiers - you can put fresh fruit, etc. in the bag and let the baby gnaw and suck on them. I put a peeled slice of plum in one for my daughter yesterday and she LOVED it! I had to show her how to do it first.
For my gag-monster son I mixed a jar of baby food with a small amount of
couscous to gradually get him used to the texture - each feeding I put a little bit more of the couscous or tiny pasta like Acini de Pepe. Eventually he could eat spaghetti mashed with a fork or mashed potatoes etc. Our son threw up so often that when we bought our house we paid extra to have the entire ground floor tiled - no carpet!
Every kid is different - even siblings! My baby girl - 9 months is already night & day different than her big brother in every way!

My son was the same way. We would joke that he would need to take baby food to school. He was unable to eat anything lumpy. Just keep giving her strained food. Still give crackers ans cereal and let her self feed those. Every kid is different and you don't have to do the toddler stage of lumpy food. Eventually she will want to try more big people food around two and a half. My son will be 19 years old in two weeks and he has been eating very well since age three. So just keep offering big people food that she can eat off the tray. Cereal, crackers, cheese, fruit snacks and as long as she has no physical problems it will be alright. I am an old Mom of 3. 27, 18, and 11, I also have two Grandchildren and another one on the way, so there is a little bit of experience talking. Good luck and I know your discomfort in the whole highchair tray of BARF. Try not to worry and both of you will be fine. :)

My daughter had a very strong gag reflex at that age, and I had a lot of anxiety as a new mom giving her anything. I used to crumble up puffs for her so she wouldn't gag!! I woudl do the opposite of wha tthe doctor suggets and just back off from the table food. GIv eit a month and try again. She will learn to eat more textured food , but ther eis no need to rush her or stress out yourself.

I didn't buy jar foods, I just kept giving her purees and gradually make them lumpier. I let her learn to eat tabloe food by giving her cracker and bread and pasta. Eventually she did well enough that I started giving her junks of steamed veggies and fruits. Meat took even longer. It was proabably a year before she ate a variety of stuff. Don't rush her. It's not like she will be doing this when she is three.

My sons friend had a similar situation and he had to go to some type of therapy. He didn't like different foods touching him. It was the whole texture thing.He was introduced to different type of foods like pudding or whatever.
Also as one of the exercises he had to play with play doh. I would call early intervention in your county. I believe they will come out to your house to evualate him. I believe its free.

Has the dr checked her tongue the underneath part if it is attached (fused) incorrectly she is unable to use her tongue to help with the chewing and swallowing process she is getting confused that she can only swallow with pureed foods milk & juices vs. textured chunky foods.There is a procedure to fix the problem by clipping it back don't know the details but it is a good point to bring up with the dr.

I would just take a break....... She truly could go without ANY other food besides the breastmilk for awhile yet if you chose. Maybe just try again in a couple weeks or a month. She'll get it eventually but choking at every meal is probably not the best for her.......