At what age can a child start eating hot dogs?

SixOfWands

Wed, Jul 19 2017, 12:40 pm

Fox wrote:

I have heard personally from Dr. Lauren Holinger, one of the top pediatric ENT/Otolaryngologists in the U.S. and the head of ENT at Lurie Children's Hospital, that hot dogs, grapes, and hard round candies should never be given to children under the age of 6 -- even cut up.

According to Dr. Holinger, the top reason for emergency pediatric trachotomies is choking on hot dogs, followed by grapes.

I enforced this rule strictly when my kids were little, and it did not win me any popularity contests among the other mommies. Whether or not you choose to observe this rule with your own kids, please don't offer hot dogs/grapes to guests under the age of six or provide grapes for pre-school Shabbos parties, etc. A group of pre-schoolers munching on grapes under the supervision of one or two adults is a disaster waiting to happen.

AIUI, the problem with hot dogs and grapes are that both are the right size and consistency to block a child's airway. For that reason, I don't understand why cutting them into smaller pieces isn't effective. Not rounds, but rounds, then 1/6ths or 1/8ths. But my kids are well past that, so I can't say I recall. Just curious.

amother

Pearl

Wed, Jul 19 2017, 12:40 pm

giselle wrote:

Can't see any reason you can't give them peeled and cut up. Not any more chokable than other foods. In fact challa can be very chokable if not given in tiny pieces.

this. so can a banana. and you want to tell me an adult never choked on grape?

oliveoil

Wed, Jul 19 2017, 2:52 pm

amother wrote:

A whole hotdog is good for a six year old. I would give slices the size of quarters.

Actually for all these foods - hot dogs, grapes, even baby carrots - the WORST way to cut them is in circles, because then they are still the same width. You want to cut them lengthwise into quarters.

amother

Gold

Wed, Jul 19 2017, 3:14 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

I think is a 'chumra' not to allow cut up grapes, hot dogs etc.. can't trust parents to cut the food appropriately so ban it altogether.

amother

Honeydew

Wed, Jul 19 2017, 3:37 pm

eema of 3 wrote:

We teach our kids that if they don't like something, they can say "it's not my taste." We also teach them that we don't use negative words like yuck or gross to describe food.

TBH, hot dogs don't actually qualify as 'food"

amother

Honeydew

Wed, Jul 19 2017, 3:39 pm

amother wrote:

A whole hotdog is good for a six year old. I would give slices the size of quarters.

NO!
Slices are not ok. You want to cut them up in small pieces, so small that the cannot block the airway if swallowed whole. Each slice should be cut at least in 1/4

Fox

Wed, Jul 19 2017, 5:27 pm

petiteruchy wrote:

Wait a minute... I'm supposed to withhold grapes and hotdogs from someone who can ride a bike, swim a length of a pool, read in two languages and go to the bathroom alone? I feel like that's pretty extreme.

From what I understand, it's not a matter of gross motor skills or intellectual development. It's a physiological issue based not just on the size of the food but also the texture. For example, doctors also warn about giving small-sized pieces of hard fruits, such as apples. But even though it's certainly possible to choke on a piece of apple, it's less frequent and often less serious because apples don't have the same slippery texture as hot dogs or grapes. It's not as easy for them to literally become stuck in the trachea.

The ENT I spoke to about this was very, very adamant, and I figure he's been called out to do more emergency tracheotomies than I have, so I'll take his word for it. He didn't seem to think anyone's feelings about it were relevant.

Listen, all of us do things with our kids from time to time that are not "best practice" from a medical or safety standpoint, so I don't judge people who choose not to take medical advice in this case. But I do roll my eyes internally if they simultaneously hold themselves up as super-safety-minded parents.

sequoia

Wed, Jul 19 2017, 5:36 pm

I'll never forget when I saw my cousin's two-year-old eating cherries. Just like that.

I sat down with him and took each one, pitted it, cut it in half, and gave it to him. My cousin was like, "what's the big deal, he can spit out the pits and chew properly."

Eeeek.

gp2.0

Wed, Jul 19 2017, 5:42 pm

sequoia wrote:

Well...my kids eat cherries the way you or I would eat a peach. Teeny nibbles all the way around the pit 😂

BadTichelDay

Thu, Jul 20 2017, 12:06 pm

Probably not quite safe, but my two "older" kids, age 3 and 5, eat hotdogs, no problem. Recently they raided the fridge and ate most of a kilo of grapes between the two of them. Whole, not cut. Luckily DH at least washed the grapes to get the chemicals off. No choking, buuuut it's probably better to avoid that sort of thing and not to take risks.