[Ally's Fuzzies]

The thing I found most interesting about BLW was that my daughter learned to chew before she learned to swallow - we only had about two gagging instances the entire time she was learning to eat.

At first, she would just chew things/suck things and spit them out. It was about three weeks until she actually started swallowing things, and by then she was a champ. We didn't do ANY solids prior to introducing BLW, and didn't give her super mushy foods - we started with baked chicken, roasted carrots, potatoes and parsnips, sweet potato wedges, etc... cut into "french fry" sizes pieces.

I never had to take anything out of her mouth/pat her on the back. I don't know if it helps with the nerves, but it can be done!