baby gagging/coughing and vomiting with anything lumpy

[A1983]

Hi - ds is 8 months and has always gagged on anything that's not milk or pureed thinly like fruit. If I give him a rusk/toast/rice cake/lumps in food and even thick potato type mushy foods he doesn't like (obviously don't realise he doesn't like them whilst preparing them!) he will gag/cough and projectile vomit.

Any ideas? I've spoken to HV who may refer me to speech and language but also said it may be very normal and he'll get better with time?

He's been doing this for 2 months now. Sometimes ill think he's mastered it as a bit of rusk is swallowed without problems - but the next minute the following bit of rusk for example makes him gag/cough and it all comes back up.

He's not loosing weight and is a chunky and healthy otherwise

 

[wishingonastar]

Have you tried giving him whole pieces so he can experiment with textures himself? Just wondering if he'd do better to have say a piece of actual apple to nipple at his own pace or a lump of broccoli to hold and nibble?

My eldest would not tolerate pureed type food so she guided me herself to BLW and then I read about it. Maybe your LO would prefer this?

 

[wishingonastar]

Sorry read post wrong and realised you have been giving him solid stuff to eat.

As he's happy and not losing weight I'd suggest he just still has an immature reflux (it's very far forward in the mouth at this age to reduce risk around choking) so I suspect he needs to just get used to where to place food in his mouth so as not to trigger reflux action

 

[Zephram]

That sounds absolutely normal for 8 months. Some babies get to lumpy food quicker than others. My DS1 gagged on lumps at 8 months, I think it took him until 10 months before he was totally happy with them. He is 3.5 now and absolutely normal in terms of eating. This is contrasted with my DS2 who is 9 months and has happily been eating lumps since 7 months without gagging at all.

 

[A1983]

Ok thank you ladies! He managed to have blended up pasta which therefore was tiny lumps in his food! Breakthrough!

 

[SarahBear]

Babies can thrive on milk alone for over a year. I'd just give milk until he develops the ability and interest in more foods. He's probably just not ready for solids yet. Remember, 6 months is just a minimum age for when to start. It's not an average for when to start and it's not a deadline to start by. That means that some babies just won't be ready for quite a while after 6 months.

 

[A1983]

Health visitor is referring us to speech and language based on the gagging/vomiting but in the mean time ill preserve with finger foods and some lumps

 

[Zephram]

I'm actually surprised you've been referred to speech and language as that seems really premature to me. It's not unusual or abnormal for 8 month olds to gag on lumps

However no harm done by going to the appointment!

 

[SarahBear]

I'm actually surprised you've been referred to speech and language as that seems really premature to me. It's not unusual or abnormal for 8 month olds to gag on lumps

However no harm done by going to the appointment!

I agree. This is incredibly early to worry. If I were you, I'd just back off the solids and wait for the baby to show more interest and ability. That being said, it shouldn't do any harm to go.

 

[A1983]

Yes I agree - ill go along and see but who knows, by the time I get the appointment he'll be eating steak!

 

[_Meep_]

He may just have an extra sensitive gag reflex. Do you see him chewing at all? If so, he should have his mouth open - babies should not be 'chewing' with their mouths closed. If you see this, it's incredibly unlikely he is actually chewing, and instead just mashing the food against his palate with his tongue and then attempting to swallow it mostly whole. All babies do this to start with, before they start to munch, then lateralise the tongue to place food in the region of the molar sites for chewing. Eventually this becomes a mature rotary chew, though it takes several years to be as effective and effortless as it is for us as adults.

It's perfectly ok for a baby of 8 months to not have started chewing yet, if this is the case. It's still very early days, but practice makes perfect.

If it's any consolation, my daughter didn't chew a thing until she was about 14 or 15 months old. She did the tongue mashing thing for absolutely ages and winced often while swallowing, or gagged. We even saw a speech therapist, who watched her eat and deduced that she was fine, just a little bit behind.

Very soon afterwards, she started just doing it, and now you'd never know she had a slow start. Her speech has always been excellent and is now ahead for her age.

Some kids just need a little more time.

 

[A1983]

Well based on what you've said meep, ds's mouth is definitely closed - looks a bit like a camel when eating and blows through pursed lips a bit...I'll observe a bit more today. Thank you

 

[_Meep_]

You could try holding a stick of easily dissolvable food or something which won't break up on the place where his molars will come in for him to see if he'll mash away at it - but honestly, I think it'll come naturally to him in time. At 8 months he is certainly fine to still be learning and using his tongue and palate to explore the food, though too-large pieces breaking off will likely be why he gags. For now, I think what you are doing with tiny lumps and easily gummed foods is just right.

 

[A1983]

Thanks Meep - I've just given him some foods and watched!

Toast - chewed with mouth closed making clicking noises (presume this is tongue against roof of mouth), gagged after a minute then was sick - big lumps of toast came out....I only gave him a thumb sized piece to nibble.

Then dissolvable puffs and a rice cake he's managed no problem - but mouth closed with clicking noise throughout.

When do babies start to chew with mouth open and not have such a sensitive gag reflex? I don't remember any issues with my daughter. Naturally a bit worried as muscles for chewing are the same for talking and daughter was fine plus friends with babies all fine but I'm aware he is still only 8 months...

 

[_Meep_]

It depends on the baby really, but I believe the average to start is around 7-9 months, though of course there will be a margin of 'normal' either side of this. As I said before, mine didn't do it until she was past 1! And her speech has always been good (at least 10 words at 12-13 months and speaking in 3-4 word sentences now), so don't worry too much about that. He sounds very much like he is doing what my daughter did. I used to sit in front of her, chewing in a totally gross way and saying 'Chew chew chew!' - it was frustrating, but she got it in the end and is doing really well now.

I'm no expert, but I believe that the fact that he is able to keep the food in his mouth with it closed indicates there isn't a muscle weakness issue or anything scary going on. The SALT who watched our kid eat said that her lip closure was so good, she couldn't even tell what she was doing inside her mouth lol. And that, because of that, she must have decent mouth muscles.

She did have a posterior tongue tie for the first 4.5 months of her life which caused a lot of problems in the beginning, so I used to adjust her 'eating age', like they do with premies. Therefore, by my my calculation, she would have had an adjusted age of about 10 months when she started chewing properly, if that helps. It certainly made me feel better about it lol.

I hope you're not feeling too worried as I am quite sure this is all ok and normal!

 

[A1983]

Ah yes that does really help thank you Meep! I'll keep this post updated with SALT app

 

[wishingonastar]

Given what you've said, my suggestion would be to try larger pieces of food. For example, for BLW the book recommends for say broccoli you'd give the baby a piece about the size of their fist. So where you said you gave LO thumb sized toast I'd suggest giving one twice as big. My logic being that LO would then have to bite some off to get it in to eat and this would encourage a biting/chewing action. Both my eldest two were BLW'D and I never cut things like roast potatoes so they had to pick up whole piece and chew and large fingers of carrots. If they hadn't bitten some off they wouldn't have eaten at all and this taught them the eating actions.

Apologies if I've misinterpreted size of portion you're giving though

 

[A1983]

Nope that's good advice - he just had a small piece of avacardo and gagged, coughed then was sick

 

[A1983]

But is wolfing down baby porridge thick enough not to fall off spoon. Will try broccoli tomorrow and feed back!

 

[wishingonastar]

Oh definitely go for the larger pieces then as LO will bite off what they can easily fit in mouth and will encourage them to develop eating actions. Fingers crossed