Rubbish at finger foods nearly 8 months

[jkbmah]

Hi, I'm struggling with finger foods, mainly because by LG has a very sensitive gag reflex. She's always been a sicky baby and basically every time I give her finger foods she gags and vomits but not just a bit, everything in her stomach. This wouldn't be as much of an issue but she was hospitalised at 6 months with RSV/bronchialitis and lost a load of weight so we started weaning under catch up circumstances so concentrated on purees to feed her up. She then got a chest infection and has now been well for about 2 weeks. I've tried bits of toast crusts before her dinners but she still gags a lot and brings up a lot of her earlier milk feeds, she even gagged on hummus the other day! She Does does have slight textured purees now but only if the chunks are small enough not to gag on. What I need are ideas of finger foods that are easy for her eat and that she is unlikely to gag on??? Help!

 

[noon_child]

I think it needs to be something that she is expecting to have to chew before swallowing otherwise she'll try to swallow it as-is and get a shock as a lump reaches nearer the back of her throat.

All babies react differently to texture IMO. I know some people who started with toast but that was something that often made my LO gag, whereas she was fine with bread.

Maybe give her a whole banana to eat, then she is in charge of how much she bites off and it will be mushy very quickly.

Bigger items that she can hold on to while biting pieces off rather than chunks that she might try to stuff in whole.

 

[SucreK]

Aversion to textures/trouble with gagging and vomiting seems to be an issue that babies with esophogeal atresia often deal with. I know your baby doesn't have this (you'd definitely know from birth if she did!), but maybe the tricks for feeding these children would be useful to you? https://eatef.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=7&sid=6c9985b198951b7f1fd3e9fdcc8f8379. Also, it might be worth looking into a speech or occupational therapist--they can help desensitize the mouth, believe it or not!

Good luck!