Gagging and choking: the difference

If your child is choking and can't breathe properly, shout for help and follow the NHS page "How to stop a child from choking", linked in the box at the top. Call 999 if the blockage doesn't come out after trying back blows and thrusts.

Gagging is loud. Choking is quiet. That's the short version from the NHS, and it's worth knowing before the first meal.

How to tell them apart

Gagging is a normal reflex while a baby learns to chew and swallow, says NHS Best Start in Life. They're working out how much food they can manage at once, and it settles as they cope with more textures.

Young children can also choke on objects, and not only at the table. The NHS says that if your child suddenly starts coughing, isn't ill, and has been eating or tends to put small things in their mouth, there's a good chance they're choking.

What the NHS says to do

We don't teach first aid on this page, as we aren't trained to and the NHS page does it properly. It has the steps, separately for babies under 1 and children over 1, and the link is in the box at the top. Please read it once now, on a calm day, and again whenever your child moves past their first birthday, since the method changes at 1 year.

NHS Best Start in Life points to British Red Cross first aid courses. A course lets you practise, which reading can't do.

If anything about your child's breathing or swallowing worries you afterwards, speak to your doctor or health visitor.

Food: cut it, watch it

Choking most often happens while children are playing or eating, says the NHS. So start with food. Its first foods page says:

• Always stay with your baby while they're eating
• Sit them upright, in a highchair with a securely fitted safety harness, so they can swallow properly
• Cut small, round foods like grapes and cherry tomatoes into quarters
• Remove hard pips and stones from fruit, and bones from meat or fish
• Avoid hard foods such as whole nuts, raw carrot and raw apple

RoSPA adds blackberries and other small soft fruits to the quarters list. NHS advice on foods to avoid is that whole nuts shouldn't be given to children under 5, because they can choke on them. Crushed or ground nuts are fine from weaning, added to food. Nut butter goes spread on something like toast, and not on its own. Raw jelly cubes are a choking hazard too.

The NHS says there's no more risk of choking when a baby feeds themselves than when they're fed with a spoon. So you can pick spoon, fingers or both on other grounds. Our NHS guide to starting solids covers those choices.

Around the house

Children aged 1 to 5 often put objects in their mouths, says the NHS, and it's a normal way of exploring. Marbles, beads and button batteries are the right size to get stuck in an airway, so the NHS advice is to keep them out of reach.

RoSPA's list has more. Pick toys suited to your child's age. Keep nappy sacks out of the reach of babies and young children, and never store them in or around the cot or pram. RoSPA says parents may not make the link between nappy sacks and plastic bags, though the risks are similar.

That cot advice fits the wider NHS sleep guidance. Your baby sleeps on their back, on a firm, flat mattress, in a clear cot, in the same room as you for at least the first 6 months.

Once your baby is on the move, the rest of the house comes into it. Our stair gate fitting guide is the next job for many families, and the 6 to 9 months page shows what else tends to come up now.

We read these NHS and RoSPA pages on 3 November 2026. The NHS choking page was last reviewed on 28 October 2024.