Oh Joy – Here’s All The Food Items Your Kids Are Most Likely To Choke On Including Delicious Candy

There’s a new list out citing all the most dangerous foods to give your kids broken down by age group. Including breast milk and formula. Which is bizarre to me, because technically how can a baby actually choke on great milk or formula? I have nursed my children and had them sort of gag on my milk when my let-down was acting all plentiful but I usually just gently burped them or rubbed their back while they sputtered and they were fine. But these things made the list, and just to increase everyone’s paranoia even more, we have this from The Boston Globe:

 For babies under a year, the top three were: (1) Formula/milk/breast milk (peak age was 4 months), (2) fruits/vegetables, (3) biscuits/cookies/crackers (beware of baby biscuits ”” it’s easy to get a big chunk off).

 

I was always super paranoid about teething biscuits, because I can remember giving my kid one and two seconds later they had a big ‘ol chunk in their mouth.

For children 1-2 years, here were the top dangers: (1) fruits/vegetables, (2) seeds/nuts/shells, (3) other candy (not hard candy ”” perhaps people usually know better than to give toddlers hard candy).

 

And for the older kids:

For the 2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds, hard candy and other candy had the top two spots, with meat or bone in third.

 

Who eats “hard candy?” I keep envisioning old lady candy, like ribbon candy or those wrapped butterscotch in yellow cellophane. No one likes those! Can we somehow blame old people for giving our kids these treats and making them choke? But considering “other candy” has one of the top spots, it looks like delicious candy may also be to blame.

When my kids were first eating real food, the things that worried me the most were whole grapes and hot dogs, which was easy to sort of work around by not giving them either of these things. Everything else I just overcooked and mashed up. I’m not sure how kids get bones unless you are feeding them fish or chicken where a splinter-y bones sneaks in.

The article also states that the majority of kids choke on food and not toys, so even though most parents spend the majority of the time taking away non-food items their kids may choke on, especially when they have an older sibling who leaves Lego guys all over the place, dinner and snack time are where most choking incidents occur. And as we all know, kids should always be seated when eating, and not running around and trying to chase the cat in order to share Cheerios with it.

I’m pretty lucky because I have (knock on wood and all that) never had one of my kids seriously choke on anything. I’m sure that’s terrifying for parents. I can remember buying those mesh sleeves you could stick food in and your kid holds it and sort of sucks on it, so you could give them larger pieces of fruit or vegetables, but I’m not sure they even make those anymore. I can also remember freezing things like banana to stick them in the sleeve when my kids were teething. That’s one of the most fun parts of parenting, introducing your kids to new food. I’m sure for all of you moms doing just that seeing these lists is going to make you even more worried than you all ready are, but keep in mind you also get to give your kid ice cream for the first time. And that’s pretty much the most fun thing to do ever.

(Photo: Vorobyeva /shutterstock)