Gag reflex at nearly a year old

[Kerriann]

My dd will be 1 yr old in less than 3 weeks. She hasn't done well with finger foods, so I just thought we'd keep at purees and cereal for awhile but a few weeks ago she started dropping bottles from 4 to 3, and then down to 2. And now she's barely drinking the formula in her morning bottle, which I transitioned to a sippy in the hopes she'd drink more. All this to say that now I'm panicking that I'm not feeding her table food and she's clearly ready to move on from the bottle. She does still drink 8 oz at bedtime, for now anyway.

I tried giving her stage 3 jars and she just gags on them, sometimes to the point she throws up. I read here that alot of babies don't seem to like the stage 3 food, but will eat table food. So today I cooked her a chicken with carrots and peas. I don't cook, so this is a learning experience for me. The carrots didn't mush as well as I thought they would and I didn't even try the peas. I put a few on her tray for her to play with and hoped maybe she'd put one in her mouth. I cut/tore the chicken into tiny bites. We didn't even make to the chicken though, or the peas for that matter. She kept gagging on the carrots. Even after I mixed up a bowl of cereal and tried to put some mushed carrots into that. She'd still gag if there was even a tiny piece of carrot. The she threw up everything I'd managed to get into her. I put more cereal in her bowl so there'd be less carrot and tried again. After a few more bites, she threw up again. This surely can't be normal?

Is this something that I have to wait for it to go away on it's own? Like is she just late at losing her gag reflex? Or do I need to keep offering her bits for her to get used to? She looks so miserable when she gags and throws up and then sometimes she doesn't trust the next spoonful I try to give her. Her 1 year checkup is in 3 weeks, so I can talk to the doctor then, but I'm hoping I can get get some advice for what to do in the meantime.

[anna*]

What do you and your partner eat? At this age, parents are faced with a choice to some degree - either let the baby start to eat the same sort of food as the parents eat, or change the way the family eats. Otherwise you're cooking good food for the kid but not the parents, and that doesn't make sense why not just cook more and let everyone eat it? Eating as a family is definitely the best way to get a baby eating well, to eat as a family so that she can watch you and see how you manage it - if that doesn't work out logistically for every meal, making it happen as often as you can, and making sure that YOU sit and eat something, even just a little snack - so that she can learn by watching.

Sometimes it is easier for little ones to manage whole pieces of proper food (like, a whole stick of cooked carrot, a hunk of chicken) and feed themselves. Big lumps in smooth liquid (like, big lumps of carrot in a smooth cereal) is pretty difficult to manage especially for your first time.

If you are really worried and think that this is more a problem than lack of exposure to textured foods, then a trip to your Dr or health visitor is in order so that they can advise you or refer to OT.

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

It could be the texture that is bothering her, my younger DD hated texture of any kind and gagged alot.  She went from purees all the time right to table food, but still gagged and choked alot.  Part of it was just her and being touchy about food, the other part was she had huge tonsils and after having them removed at 2, she no longer gags or chokes on anything. 

If she will eat purees, I would keep that up until you see the Dr. and maybe just try other textures at one meal a day.

Posting with Anna...totally agree about eating with her, we always fed the kids as much as possible at our own meal times, in fact DD2 started purees because she wanted my breakfast one day, so I gave her some of her own.

[anna*]

Heidi's post made me remember another point which is that gagging in itself is just not a problem. It's part of the process of learning how to move food around their mouth and not let it go down before it's properly chewed. It's normal, but yes most babies go through it at 7-8 months, once they move off of the totally smooth purees (or if they are weaned straight to table food). Obviously it's upsetting for mum if there is gagging and throwing up, but it's really to be expected and the best thing you can do is stay calm, clear up and continue the meal (unless baby is upset of course). If she sees you're anxious, she's likely to pick up on that too. Another reason for you to focus on eating a snack yourself instead of watching her like a hawk. As she gets better at managing the more solid food, the gagging will decrease pretty quickly (assuming no underlying issue).

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Good point Anna!

[Kerriann]

Wow, thank you for the quick replies. It does upset me when it happens, but I try not to show it. I tried to distract her when she gagged, to see if that would help, but it didn't. I guess I was just wondering if this is a stage she has to go through, just a little later than other babies since we stayed on purees. Or maybe if we stayed on purees a little longer, it'll get easier later?

Dh won't eat healthy. He ate some of the chicken today, but with dorittos and didn't touch the vegetables. I do want to eat healthier and have meals together with dd. She and I can eat the same stuff. I didn't try to eat today's meal with her because she was still napping when I cooked. I started cooking too early because I didn't know how long it would take. I'll get better as I learn, I guess.

I've been terrified to give her larger pieces of stuff. I gave her an arrowroot cookie the other day and she tried to put the whole thing in her mouth. When I gave her a few yogurt bites, she put them all in her mouth 1 by 1 and then didn't know what to do with them, so she started pulling them back out. Plus she gagged some. This is honestly the most stressful part of being a parent that I've experienced so far.

[anna*]

Hun, you have to let her try, and learn. Why not give her something smooth that you can spoonfeed for breakfast, but let her manage finger foods for lunch and dinner. She will go through the gagging phase, and it might last longer (?don't know about that just guessing) as she's coming to it later. But it won't get better unless she is exposed to lumpy/hard foods and learns how to cope with them. She doesn't need to be distracted when she's gagging, she just needs to be left alone so that she can move that food from her throat to her mouth and keep working on it.

Babies have very good self defence mechanisms. If she puts a whole cookie in her mouth, she will just spit it back out again. Or chew some and then gag and spit it out. It's OK. She's learning. You can't do this for her but you do need to let her learn. Just put like 3 yoghurt bites in front of her, that way if she eats them all it's fine.