Mrs P, I'd just persevere with the skin, they get the hang of it eventually, otherwise you will find you might be peeling everything still for a 2 and 3 year old (like my DD1). DD2 now has stone fruits cut up, like the 4 sides cut off but the skin left on, because of my scare with her eating down to the seed I won't give the whole thing to her anymore. The same thing with it sticking to the roof happens with stuff like lettuce as well.

We tend to take fruit when we go out cause its quick and easy, and sandwiches for eating out. Usually tuna and salad or egg and salad etc (well except lettuce cause its a pet peeve for her). Otherwise if we eat anywhere that's buffet she gets whatever they have on it, I try to clean up as much as possible, but I see older children who make just as much mess, so I don't feel so bad. And most restaurants tend to expect it anyway.

Hi Eliselouise, welcome, the time to start is when you think they are ready, so when they are interested in what you are eating, want to grab at food etc. The theory behind BLS is that when they are capable of getting the food to their own mouth, they will have the ability to chew and push the food to the back of the mouth to swallow. So to begin with they won't have the ability to pick up small bits of food, meaning they can't swallow and choke on them. There is also a different between choking and just gagging, gagging comes with a heaps of awful sounds and faces, and is the body preventing the food from being swallowed. Choking is silent because it has become lodged in the wind pipe. You can start with anything that has convenient little handles, like carrot, brocolli, cauliflower. To being with we steamed it rather soft and slowly brought the texture back to how we eat it. But basically anything goes with BLS, anything they can pick up, except some people prefer to delay allergenic foods such as strawberry, egg (about 9 months+), nuts (1 year), honey (1 year). DD2 is now 1, she is still on a lactose free diet since she started (and before I was to bf), which we trial occasionally to look for improvement, she is slowly getting better. It hasn't really been an issue, we cook with lactose free milk and cream, her yogurt is lactose free, and she can tolerate cheese as its low lactose, and she doesn't get butter anyway. Gill Rapley has a great book, I just hired it from the library http://www.rapleyweaning.com/