Hi, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Our daughter has just turned 2 last week and for your own peace of mind I can honestly say that Izzy is and was exactly the same as your ds.
Izzy has always had and still does have issues with eating lumpy food and it has constantly been an uphill struggle to get her to eat anything with even the tiniest of lump in it, without throwing it straight back up as she too gags on anything remotely lumpy.
Izzy was also never never interested at all in finger foods for a very long time, even when all the other children her age were woofing down biccies, and finger food of all descriptions. The hvs would say 'oh she should be doing this, that and the other, but to be honest I have now learnt that they all do it at different ages, and it has only been in the last 4-6 months (20 months old or so) that Izzy has cottoned onto finger foods.
I used to put them on her tray and she would just fling them on the floor, not in the slightly interested. All she would finger feed was baby rice cakes, and that was a milestone with those.
One day i thought i would try her with strawberries AGAIN! and i just took 1 cut it into quarters, squashed it a bit with my fingers so she would'nt gag and simply sat in the kitchen and played a game of 'just taste a bit for mummy by licking it' and then give her big praise when she did, and then try that again and again and eventually put the tiny quarter of strawberry in her mouth and told her to chew, mimacking this myself and to my amazement and dh's she ate it. Big praise for them is very important when they do this. And I have just taken it from there very very slowly. Now Izzy eats strawberries properly till the cows come home along with all fruits bigtime, I'm not saying we are out of the woods yet or a perfect eater by any means, but we've come such a long way since January.
Izzy still eats jarred food even at 2 years old from time to time and still gags from time to time. This week, however, she has amazed us all and started eating the cold salad pasta bowls you get from Tescos etc, and just puts spoonfuls in, chews and swallows without gagging. A HUGE STEP FORWARD. What I also used to find was that izzy was not very good at chewing and just used to swallow any food I gave her, jarred etc, and henceforth if there was a lump of food in it, she would gag, so I needed to encourag her to chew food aswell.
One other thing I found with Izzy is that she eats very very slowing and mealtimes take anything up to 40 mins, but if I let her go at her own pace, don't get frustrated and try and rush her, she does not gag and eats much better. She's just a slow eater. I just take each day very slowly, we have only just started her on scrambled egg, which she gagged on at first, but is getting better with each meal.
So sorry to have gone on quiet a bit, but just wanted to let you know that I can almost promise that if Izzy can do it, your ds will do it too.
I agree with you that it is very hard with an eating issue like this, when all your friends children eat so well and they do not understand why your ds/dd does not finger feed etc etc. Its also very hard when you go out for that 'token' meal with friends and their children eat from the menu, we still have to feed izzy before hand as she would still struggle to eat anything from the menu yet, but that day will come I am sure. As long as ds is happy and well that's all that matters, they pick it up eventually, honest.
Just try tiny tiny pieces, finger fed by yourself to begin with. Oh yeah, and oddest thing, almost forgot, when I never though izzy would finger feed anything other than rice cakes, one day i was sat on the sofa eating salt and vinegar crisps and she came and took one and ate it (Mcoys aswell, very crunchy), no gagging, woofed it down and came back for more, so maybe try those.
If you want to mail me my address is
sarah@the-steeles.com if you want to chat over anything or just need to feel better about it, i don't mind.
Keep in touch
Sarah