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Giving bigger pieces of food?

Marcy - posted on 03/10/2009 ( 4 moms have responded )

My son's 13 months, and has been doing great with finger foods for a while. I've still been cutting everything up pretty small b/c I've been worried about him chocking, but he seems to do pretty well with it all (even when he stuff 5 pieces of bread in his mouth all at once...! lol). I'm wondering when it's ok to start giving him bigger pieces-- like a half slice of bread, or a slice of apple, etc, rather than cutting everything into bite-size pieces?

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Marcy - posted on 03/11/2009

I thought you had to be really careful w/ hot dogs as they're almost the perfect size to choke on?

He has 8 teeth and seems to chew pretty well (though a lot of the time things that I thought he's chewed down will come out the other end pretty much still whole...). I gave him a slice of apple yesterday hoping he'd take small bites off, and he just tried to cram the entire thing in him mouth, lol! But he's done well with bread. Thanks, guys.

Silja - posted on 03/11/2009

109

How many teeth has your son got? Does he chew well or mostly just try to swallow things whole? I don't think there is any hard and fast rule when you don;t need to cut things up anymore, but the child needs to know what to do with bigger fod to be able to eat it and make it safe. I don't cut things up into small pieces anymore unless it is difficult to chew, such as bits of cheese pizza. Everything else, such as hot dogs, slices of meat, pieces of toast etc they get whole, though they find apple quite hard so I usually very lightly stew it.

Jennifer - posted on 03/10/2009

I started at 10 months but w/ apple you should microwave them in water to soften them alittle. They are a choke hazzard hard. Bread should be toasted or if plain use wheat because white gets gummy in the mouth. I give a whole piece of toast and when he bites it, it breaks off in pieces

Sam - posted on 03/10/2009

What sort of sizes do you cut things like bread into already? I think my daughter was about 9/10 months old when I started given her finger foods in sizes where she needed to bite bits off to chew rather than in small pieces that she could just pick up and eat. Over the past week, I have even started given her half a banana in one piece rather than in little mouthful pieces. If your son bites and chews his food, he should be fine with taking the next step and having his food in bigger pieces. I think if he can manage 5 bits of bread all in one go, he will do well lol