Gagging on finger foods

My twin boys are now over 10 months old and we are working on incorporating more finger foods. F does pretty well with this and probably could advance more. However, G tends to gag on anything with more texture and frequently with finger foods. I would say, he throws up every 3 or 4 times he eats finger foods after gagging some on them. He also threw up the other day when I gave him a sippy cup and it came out faster. He always had a lot of reflux and spit up a lot which has gotten much, much better. I am just not sure what to do about trying to advance to more solid food. Should I keep trying and deal with the throwing up or hold off? Anyone else have a similar situation? I'm hoping he will grow out of it but not sure, I suppose I could always get a speech/swallow evaluation too but that seems premature to me??

Thanks

 

One of my boys wasn't able to do much with finger foods until he was more like 11.5-12 months. Now he does just fine, so it may just take some time.

 

Your son sounds very similar to my daughter Piper. She had reflux starting at birth and struggled with finger foods and anything with texture. We were very lucky to have a fantastic feeding therapist who worked with her during her 18 months. I learned while working with her that many babies aren't ready for chunky food until 15 or 18 months. She explained that it's pretty normal in other parts of the world for babies to breastfeed for several years, and there's not much push to get babies on solid food until at least a year old, when they start with gruels (like oatmeal, rice cereal, mashed up fruit or veggies) and then they start with chunky food at 18 months or later. We start really early here in the US and that causes concern for parents who have less ready kids. But... if everything else is going fine developmentally, there's no reason why a parent can't push the solid food transition back a few months. So instead of trying to get your son to take foods he's not ready for yet at 10 months, stick with really mushy stuff like purees and yogurt until he's a year old, or 14 months old, or whatever it takes. If he's still having problems by 14-15 months old, it's worth contacting EI to see if a feeding/speech therapist can come out to your house and evaluate him.

Good luck!

 

Thank you both for the responses! It makes me feel better. I wasn't sure how normal/abnormal it was to be having that response at over 10 months since my other two boys seem to have done okay with it at this age. I think we'll not push it, just see how he does for another month or two.