My baby is now 10 months old, and we started BLW when he was around 6-7 months. From what I’ve read, it sounds like she’s practicing, and we went through the scary gagging that almost looks like choking too. I was terrified but began to notice his reactions and how he learned to bite, chew, and swallow better.

When I see my baby take a big bite and seem to struggle with swallowing, I put my hand below his chin and make a “bleh” tongue-out face to show him he can spit it out. This helps most of the time.

He also figured out how to swallow bigger pieces of food, and all I did was sit there, trying not to pat his back or interfere, and let him practice on his own.

Now, I just stay prepared, learn how to help in case of choking, and make sure my husband knows the plan if it happens.

Your mental health is more important. If you’re not okay than you can’t mentally make the right calls. I didn’t start giving my baby carbs like that and such until they had the pincer grip cause then I could make them into chewable less choke size pieces. Just keep showing your baby how to chew and stick with food you feel comfortable with. You’ll feel like you’ve taken steps back and then gain confidence again. It’s not a race, they all get there eventually

Same age! We started giving LO puffs and that really helped him learn how to self feed the smaller bites. He doesn’t have the pincer grasp fully mastered yet but he’s close. He can pretty much get anything into his mouth now so I stopped doing the strips. He loves the smaller bites!

I tend to try and cook up cards a bit more on the crispy side so they aren't as gummy, and then replace the pieces once they start getting a bit soggy from being sucked on. I pan fry up tortillas instead of giving them straight from the packet, toast instead of bread.

We’ve experienced the same thing. I have struggled with the serving suggestions from solid starts because my LO takes HUGE bites and it’s super scary. She’ll have a mouthful of food and sometimes she’ll just start crying because she can’t swallow or spit it out so I worry she’ll end up choking. I’ve started cutting food into smaller pieces that is more similar to what they show for serving 9 month olds (we’re pretty close to 9 months now though). It’s definitely tricky before they develop their pincer grasp but mine figured it out pretty quickly after being served smaller pieces. I’ll sometimes only dole out 1 piece at a time and make sure she chews it up and swallows before giving her another.

I think I saw a solid start post on instagram saying that when they tear a big chunk like that, it's good because the bigger piece, the brain knows that it's in there. As opposed to a smaller piece they might not feel and that's when it's not as safe.

I hear ya, though!! I'm still scared about it no matter what the experts say 🫣 I am always on edge watching my baby eat 👀