I've been meaning to post these for ages, I found them a while ago and must've forgotten to put them up. Sometimes I forget how big a deal the whole choking thing seems when you're starting off because it's all such a long time ago for us. Make sure you read the FAQs if you are concerned, because there's a really interesting post where everyone says how often their babies choked and the answer, you will be delighted to hear, is 'hardly ever, if at all'.

So look, here are some links from the NHS Breastfeeding People and NHS Healthy Start that say finger food is fine from 6 months. (Look at pages 4 and 5 in the first document for information specific to self-feeding, and lord knows pay particular attention to the monumentally stupid face that the woman on the cover photo is pulling as she tries to encourage Junior to eat. That poor child is mortified, so you've been saved from that if nothing else.)

Anyway, both of those documents , in conjuction with the WHO's guideline that solids should be a complement to milk up to a year are good news for BLWers, I think. And bad news for those well-known pushers of baby rice... our much-loved mothers-in-law.

I think it might be interesting to compare experiences, as 'fear of gagging/choking' is the most oft-quoted reason not to do BLW.

Taking the first three months of BLW, let's say, because by nine months Babybear really wasn't gagging any more (or was doing it so efficiently that I didn't notice) I reckon she maybe did it once a week for the first while, maybe. And I think i may be over-exaggerating that in order not to under-estimate it, if you know what I mean..?

So that's twelve times, tops. And as for choking, I can only remember once with a damned apple but my beloved says he thinks it happened twice. In any case a slap on the back sorted her out without resort to any more complex resus techniques. I don't remember her ever looking scared while she was gagging, whereas the image of her trying and failing to get the blinking apple up will forever be etched on my memory... hence my personal 'no raw apple until she's old enough to hold the whole thing' rule. Imagine my surprise when it turned out she could do that at nine months...

This post is really more of a rant than a fact or experience or anything useful like that. My current bugbear is the use over-use of the work 'choking'. Relatives are always saying Boomer is 'choking!'.

Choking to me is a severe restriction or blockage of the airways resulting in no air getting in, NOT a slight gulp/sneeze/snivel. She can be quite happily eating bits of food, without even any gagging and people around her are convinced she’s choking. Are there subtleties to the word choking that I am unaware of?

Plus they do that annoying baby ventriloquism to express their views... "Oh she’s saying Mummy, why can’t I have a bit of strawberry tart?”. No, she’s not, she’s trying to eat a paper napkin. And nor would she like a bit of sugar on her fruit to sweeten it up, while we're about it.

A nice lady whose name escapes me has just written to me on another website to ask me if Babybear ever vomited after a gagging sesh. And of course she did, but because she hasn't done it in a while I had completely forgotten about it. How remiss of me...

So yes, she did do some puking after a big gag, but I just used to put my hand out to catch it and not make a fuss about it. A bit of 'oh, poor Babybear' and then back to her lunch.

What was peculiar about the vomit was that it seemed very mucus-y as opposed to sicky, almost as if her body had produced some sort of emergency lubricant to help clear her throat. I'd be really interested to know if anyone else had experienced this, so comment please if you can?

Okay, here goes.
I have no idea why I am largely impervious to the sight of my beloved daughter gagging... perhaps I am just cruel? Other people, such as her Grandma or her Auntie Sharron to name but two, cross the room at the speed of light the minute Babybear starts the tiniest gagging incident and it's all 'ohmygodshe'sCHOKING!' and slaps on the back.

And what does that achieve, ladies and gentlemen? One upset and confused baby, who was in the process of cleverly moving some food round to the front of her mouth with her tongue when some crazy adult swooped in and started battering her.

I do, however, understand why they react in this way - it's not nice when you see someone you love struggle to do something (and if Grandma and Auntie S take a similar approach when she is buying her first flat then all will be well).

What I can tell you is that prior to starting the baby led weaning business I attended an Infant Resuscitation Class at my local maternity hospital. I should have gone while I was pregnant, apparently, but I didn't, so there.

We got Grandma to baby sit while DH and I (and a couple of friends of ours, actually, which was pleasant cos we went for lunch afterwards) headed for the hospital. There was a heavily pregnant woman there who looked about as dazed as I would have been if I had gone at the correct time. She mostly stared at the plastic doll babies, then looked at her stomach, then back again, as if realising for the first time the enormity of what she had done. (Not to mention the enormity of the thing which would soon be emerging from her lady bits... anyway, I digress).

The class was excellent, can't recommend it too highly. I was lucky that my husband (you know the one, Babybear's father) was able to take the morning off so he could come with me because if it had fallen to me to explain how to resuscitate his child when I got home I would have wanted to smother him. Then resuscitate him, presumably.

Basically we all got to practise with the frighteningly realistic dolls, turning them upside down to pop obstructions out of their mouths and watching their little plasticky chests inflate. It really made me feel a great deal more confident about dealing with incidents, should they arise. Which I'm glad to say they haven't.

Gagging, as opposed to choking, is actually a safety response to food travelling too far back into the mouth so when we see our babies gagging they are actually handling the problem and it's best just to keep calm (or at least look calm) and wait until it passes. I give her a wee drink of water immediately afterwards which she seems to like.

I think that this is actually quite a good infant resuscitation website, but it is no substitute for a real class with a real (fake) baby.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/first_aid_action/hs_child.shtml

So sorry about the lack of info on this subject, I'm having a think about how best to write the advice 'Just chill out for god's sake. They gag. It's what they do while they are learning,' in a more supportive way...