Are you afraid to start offering your child finger foods to eat on their own? Then you are not alone.
It's not at all unusual to have a fear at first, I get messages every day from people who are afraid. The primary fear is that the child will choke.
I can understand the fear, I was nervous myself at first. Among other things, I think it's about us being unsure of what children can handle as early as, say, 6 months. For many decades, purees have dominated recommendations for baby food and on baby food shelves. Of course, it can feel scary to have anything else then.
The good thing to take away is that children have chewing reflexes when it's time to start eating and that they chew nicely with their gums. It's a process to learn to eat but they can do it very well from the start.
There have also been studies on the number of choking cases comparing children who only receive finger foods and children who receive more “conventional” baby food. There is no increased risk seen with finger foods (read my previous article). here where I write more about this). It made me feel much calmer. It also helped me read up on what to do if, against all odds, an accident did occur.
For those of you who feel scared, I have come up with some tips. I hope these can help.
Here are my 4 best tips if you are afraid of To serve finger foods to your child:
- Gnaw Food
Let the child chew and suck on pieces of food that do not break. For example, mango core, corn on the cob, a large and chewy piece of meat, or a pineapple core. This develops motor skills in, among other things. the mouth.
- Loaded spoons
Load spoons with mashed food that you then give to the child. Then the child can bring the spoon to his mouth himself. This practices, among other things, the coordination between hand and mouth.
- Soft food pieces
When you feel okay with moving on, you can start with very soft food pieces, such as boiled potatoes, avocado, eggs, bananas, porridge sticks, liver pâté, etc.
- Mix
If you don't want to go 100% on finger foods, that's totally fine. If finger foods work with spoon feeding, then do it! You can either mix up the meals or you can dedicate some meals to finger foods and others to spoon feeding.
/Elin Oresten
Lic. nutritionist
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