Yikes! that's so scary. How's she doing now?

She's fine, it was a one time thing.

Glad to hear she's fine. Maybe she forgot to swallow, and her gag relex kicked in?

Oh my god! That must have been terrifying! Glad she's ok now

My god! I think I would have lost it! .I'm glad everything's okay now!

that's so scary. i'm glad she's okay but i bet she almost gave you a heart attack. that's one of my big fears, especially if i were home alone with baby. i'm thinking about signing up for a baby first aid course. i choked one time last year and i was in the middle of a cafeteria and no one noticed lol. i thought i was gonna die then all of a sudden it was gone and i could breathe again and i looked around and people were just going on with their business. scary lol. i think what you did sounds like what they say you're supposed to do, except the shaking part, that can be dangerous, but i'm sure you weren't really thinking straight. i know i'd be in a total panic, that's why i'd like to take the first aid course or at least read some books about it. luckily it was just spit and not an obstruction. hope it doesnt' happen again!!

I wasn't vigorously shaking her, it was more like a little bounce up and down.
Every once in a while when she's eating she'll cough a little and I use to panic, but I guess after a while you just react without overreacting.
Hopefully it never happens again.

that has to be scary, thats happened to me a few times with joseph, i was calm and knew what to do , just yesterday joseph was eating bacon wich hes done all the time before he is almost 2 now. but i guess he tried shoving the whole piece in his mouth and started choking soi leaned him forward and patted his back and he coughed it up and ipulled it out of his mouth, i made bacon today but i chopped is up into bite size pieces this time.

i've heard wieners and grapes are choking hazards because of their shape and the size and because they have a skin on them it's so scary cuz really, it could be anything, but my mom is always telling me to make sure i mash up or cut up grapes and wieners if i give them to baby. and i haven't even had baby yet! lol.

ive heard that too, joseph steals grapes out of the fridge though and he eats hot dogs fine now, i used to cut them up all the time. grapes i try to cut up when i give them to him not when he steals em. otherwise i watch him like a hawk. i think anything can be a choking hazard, some little kids like to shove as much as possible into there mouth at one time.

paraphrased from some guide to toddlers and table foods that they give out at the peds office where my mom works:
"round foods, such as grapes or hotdogs, must be cut into pieces before they are fed to your toddler. hot dogs should be sliced, then quartered, and grapes should be quartered."

the size of a hot dog slice is roughly the same as a toddler's trachea/esophagus. if they accidentally swallow, it's likely they'll choke.

I am such a freak when it comes to the size of my child's foods. He is four and I still make sure his pieces are cute smaller. He does sometimes eat hot dogs but I watch him like a hawk. I am constantly reminding him to take smaller bites. People have told me I am a little on the anal side. I had to give stomach thrusts on a child once when I worked at a daycare as a teenager. The daycare gave the children cut up hot dogs but they weren't cut up enough and the child choked. I also choked on a hot dog when I was around 18 months and my brother (around 15 years old at the time) hung me upside down and hit me on the back. Luckily I spit it up. I guess I turned blue. Of course I am going to be a little freakish about foods. My biggest concern is when my child(ren) are in someone elses care and they are not as careful. Even my mother in law wasn't that careful. My mom is very similar to me probably because of what happened to me when I was so young.

I have seen a lot of parents give their toddlers grapes and I about freak out. I really want to say something but don't, not even to my friends because I don't want to come across as lecturing them. What do we do in those situations?

betsy, that sounds scary! good thing you were already parked, it probably would've been scarier if you were driving and had to find somewhere to pull over immediately.

i was scared to open this, i thought she choked on food or something.

Befor Tyler left the hospital we took infant cpr classes and they went over what to do if your baby is choking as well. I am not sure if you can go to cpr classes for free at all hospitals but I think that all parents and care givers should take cpr classes.

cpr was included in our lamaze classes
I know Bridget, I don't know what I would have done. Usually when we have more than one person in the car, someone rides in the back with her, but I asked my nanny to sit in the front so Ava could sleep. Twice last night she woke herself up coughing. I don't know what's her problem. She hasn't coughed today though.