Won't my baby choke on table food??

Question

My baby is almost 9 months old. Should I be feeding her more than just baby food and formula? I hear about all these different table foods people are feeding their babies and I'm so afraid she will choke on that stuff. How long should I continue to feed her baby food before I go to only table food? Right now I feed her about 2 jars of stage 2 food and about 25 oz. of formula a day.

Answer 1

At 9 months you can give a baby most anything, except for milk, honey, nuts, etc... Even if your baby doesn't have teeth, you can make it real small. The baby will not choke on it. My nephew is 9 month with no teeth and when I watch him I give him spaghetti, quesadillas, etc.... I also work with infants and toddlers and teach parents about feeding.

Answer 2

At 9 months my daughter started on table food. She didn't have any teeth. Now at 11 months she is totally on table food and doesn't eat any baby food (or formula). She JUST got her first tooth on the bottom. She occasionally will gag on foods she doesn't like (for instance, peas) but on things she likes she has no problem. I just make sure that the food is diced up before I give it to her and that it is soft enough for her to mash with her gums. Try giving your baby some soft mashed potatoes or squash (I get the frozen kind that you cook and thaw). These should be soft enough...just give a very little bit at first to see how your baby does. Good luck!

Answer 3

Our baby is 9 monthes old too.. and up until about a month ago I was terrified to try new things with her.. but she is now eating more and more table food. You can get stages finger foods for your little one.. Gerber they are in the shapes of stars.. they literally melt in your mouth within 20 seconds. I tried them first. I also give her bread cut up into small bites with jam, she loves that. She eats macaroni noodles, cause they are soft. As long as your not putting alot of food in your babys' mouth at once, and letting them figure it out. Read up on what they should be eating at this stage, and give it a try.. you'll be surprised at how well your little one does.

Answer 4

She can be fed stage 3 foods. It does depend though on how many teeth she has and how good she is at swallowing, if she does well with the stage 3 ( as that has some chunks in it) and she has some teeth you can start experimenting with table food. You just have to make sure she can eat food without the natural gag reflex kicking in that babies have.

Answer 5

my babys almost 9 months and i feed her mostly anything i eat in little bites she still eats baby food at each meal to fill her up i think when they get enough teeth to chew its safe just make the food small enough bites so she won't choke

Answer 6

I don't think you need to feed her "real" food, but it would hurt to start giving her food she can pick up with her finger. If you want something safe try the Gerber Puffs. I got these for my son. They literally disappear after having them in your mouth for a second. Try them yourself I did. I did start feeding my son other foods at 10 months. Small pieces of banana, cheerios, over cooked pasta cut into very small pieces. Just remember to giver her very small bites and wait until her mouth is empty.

Answer 7

Spoon feeding is a bigger choking risk than self-feeding.

http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintroductie/vast_voedsel/rapley_guidelines.html
Won't he choke?

Many parents worry about babies choking. However, there is good reason to believe that babies are at less risk of choking if they are in control of what goes into their mouth than if they are spoon fed. This is because babies are not capable of intentionally moving food to the back of their throats until after they have learnt to chew. And they do not develop the ability to chew until after they have developed the ability to reach out and grab things. Thus, a very young baby cannot easily put himself at risk because he cannot get the food into his mouth in the first place. On the other hand, the action used to suck food off a spoon tends to take the food straight to the back of the mouth, causing the baby to gag. This means that spoon feeding has its own potential to lead to choking – and makes the giving of lumpy food with a spoon especially dangerous.

It appears that a babies general development keeps pace with the development of his ability to manage food in his mouth, and to digest it. A baby who is struggling to get food into his mouth is probably not quite ready to eat it. It is important to resist the temptation to 'help' the baby in these circumstances since his own developmental abilities are what ensure that the transition to solid feeding takes place at the right pace for him. This process is also what keeps him safe from choking on small pieces of food, since, if he is not yet able to pick up small objects using his finger and thumb, he will not be able to get, for example, a pea or a raisin into his mouth. Once he is able to do this, he will have developed the necessary oral skills to deal with it. Putting food into a babies mouth for him overrides this natural protection and increases the risk of choking.

Tipping a baby backwards or lying him down to feed him solid food is dangerous. A baby who is handling food should always be supported in an upright position. In this way, food which he is not yet able to swallow, or does not wish to swallow, will fall forward out of his mouth, not backwards into his throat.

Adopting a baby-led approach doesn't mean abandoning all the common sense rules of safety. While it is very unlikely that a young baby would succeed in picking up a peanut, for example, accidents can and will happen on rare occasions – however the baby is fed. Rules of safety which apply in other play situations should therefore be adhered to when eating is in progress.

Answer 8

My son started table food as soon as he got teeth in. (Mashed potatoes, mashed green beans, small peices of chicken, smashed beans) They wont choke if you are carefull and sit with them. After you introduce table food many babies dont like going back to baby food.

Answer 9

Please feed your baby real food. My aunt fed her little boy only baby food until he was about a year and a half old, he is now six and will not eat anything except for pizza and peanut butter and jelly. If you are really worried about him choking, why not sign up for a class in infant and child Heimlich. They are usually inexpensive and it could put your mind at ease.

Answer 10

NO!!!!!!!!!! As long as you cut everything into tiny pieces.
At 9 months old - children need to begin finger foods and stop ALL of the 'baby foods'. As long as a child has teeth - they can chew just about anything.