For the first 6 months of a baby’s life no solid food is supposed to pass their lips.

By the time P got to 5 months he was showing a lot of interest in solid food. And by “a lot of interest” I mean watching the food Mrs C and I were eating like a hawk and occasionally trying to grab it.

But as with so many other things in a baby’s development, you can’t just sit them down in front of a four course meal and expect them to get on with it. They have to learn to chew food.

Makers of baby foods know this so they label their food pots up with helpful information such as “Stage 1″, “Stage 2″, and you’ve guessed it, “Stage 3″.

Or at least this would be helpful information if I could remember for the life of me when each of the stages began and ended. But in essence, the stage number refers to the purée/lumpiness ratio.

P is at the age now when puréed food is a little beneath him. When it comes to a meal he wants a little more chewing action.

So we started him on finger foods. Mostly Oragnix rice cakes which all went down very well. But they’re a little on the expensive sid so we’ve been trying him more on fruit and veg.

Last night’s experiment was with mango chunks.

As I held P in my arms Mrs C offered him a piece of mango from a fork. However, instead of biting a piece off as we’d expected him to do, he put it all in his mouth and sucked it off the fork.

He sucked it so hard of the fork that it went straight to the back of his throat.

“He’s choking!” Mrs C said to me.

If you have a choking baby the advice is to lie them on their front, over your knees and slap them on the back until the blockage comes out of their windpipe.

OK, action stations! I’ve dealt with this before, I know what to do.

Three slaps in and nothing had come out of P’s mouth. And worse, I could see that his face was getting red. I managed to control my panic but I was genuinely worrying about what to do if this didn’t work.

2 more slaps and P tries to cry.

Another 2 slaps and the piece of mango fell onto the floor and P lets out a giant cry.

“Thank God,” said Mrs C “I don’t think I’m ever giving him solid food again.”

“Yep, and I won’t ever complain about hearing him cry again!”

2 minutes later when the crying hadn’t stopped I looked to Mrs C and said:

“I wish he’d stop crying”

“Rice cake, is it P?” she offered.