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cdlamis
09-30-2003, 04:15 PM
I seem to be the only one in my group of friends that cuts up Julia's food into small pieces. Am I delaying her being able to eat/chew properly?

I hear all this stuff about choking dangers but then I see parents giving kids much bigger pieces like apple slices. I know corn is harder to break down. Am I being too overprotective?

I go to a MOMS club at church where they provide child care for the 2 hrs. They are all moms who run it and they always try to give Julia whole crackers- today it was 1/2 a graham cracker. Is this an ok size? She only has 2 bottom teeth.

The funny thing is that she won't eat anything that is bigger than normal. She refuses it until its broken into bite size pieces. Almost like she is saying "Mommy doesn't let me eat that!"

Daniella
overprotective 1st time Mom to Julia 6-13-02
http://www.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=67b0de21b32dc745c42b

lukkykatt
09-30-2003, 10:42 PM
Well, my 3.5 year old has a strong gag reflex, and also is particular about touching food with his hands - he eats everything with a fork a la' George Castanza. I STILL break up all of his food. I am starting to see some signs now that he is getting used to "biger food". I gave him a cookie the other day, and he asked to have it whole.

Anyway, our story is one of excess, but I think my long-winded point is that together with your daughter's cues, you will know when it is time. Try giving her a bigger piece of something like apple while you are right in front of her. If she doesn't want it like that, then cut it smaller for her. You are not being overprotective - you are being a great mom!

luvbeinmama
10-01-2003, 12:29 AM
ITA with Andrea that you should follow your daughter's cues on this. If she refuses it, it's too early. Go with your gut on this one. Perhaps you could bring a snack for her in bite sizes and give it to the child care moms to use instead of the big crackers.

I was ahead of some of my other playgroup moms on giving DS larger pieces and this is what I found... If I gave him bite size, he would eat normal size bites; if I gave him slightly larger (still fits in the mouth, but barely), he would stuff the whole thing in and chew on it until gone. If I gave him large pieces (1/4 graham cracker, whole nutrigrain bar, more than he could shove in at one go), he would eat normal size bites again. Now the bite size pieces sometimes get shoveled in in bunches. LOL! So when you do decide it's time to give her larger pieces I would skip any intermediate size pieces and go with something she has to take bites of. Of course, not all kids eat like mine, but it's something to think about. Plus DS didn't do much gagging. DD on the other hand always gagged on cheerios until just recently, and she still does once in a while and she's almost 1 year old now. So I probably will cut her stuff small a bit longer than I did with DS.

HTH!

jojo2324
10-24-2003, 09:14 PM
I've just started giving Gannon some bigger pieces of food. I would just follow Julia's cues. I would give him a half of a Nutri-Grain bar, and he would actually consume more than if I broke it into pieces for him. I started cutting his sandwiches into quarters, not eighth-ing a half.

I have noticed that if he smashes too much into his mouth, he spits out the excess. :) He seems to know his limits. And he does have nine teeth (one molar) and he's working on a tenth. So maybe that has something to do with it.

The biggest cue I got from him came when I gave him one of those Gerber Graduates biscuits, the sweet potato kind. He seemed very comfortable eating that and had no trouble just taking bites, not shoving the whole thing in his mouth. There are still some things I cut up, like cheese and turkey breast.

If it seems like she's happy with bite-sized food, stay with it! :)

jenfed1
01-02-2004, 04:30 PM
I have a 2.4 year old who has always had a sensitive gag reflex and we've had more choking/gagging incidents than I'd like to recall. I have had to take it very slowly with what I give her...my friends kids all walk around with food (crackers, cookies, pretzels) and I don't allow my daughter to eat anywhere except sitting down. At her school, I have them break up whatever snack they are having, just to be safe. It's only in the last few months that I give her whole pieces of anything. I think it depends on the kids...to me, it's better to be safe than deal with a choking baby. It's the scariest thing you will ever experience in your life...please trust me on that.

I have had people comment all the time that I should give my dd more freedom and give her larger pieces and let her "learn" to deal with it - you have to ignore what other people do, and see how things work for you and your child.