My 15-month-old has at least a dozen teeth. Should they be able to chew and eat a tidbit of pineapple? What if they swallow it whole?

Yes, your 15-month-old should be able to eat pineapple without issues. The key is cutting the pineapple into small pieces in case they were to swallow it whole. The pieces of food should be no bigger than one-half an inch. Children should always be sitting down and supervised by an adult while eating. They should never be walking, running, climbing or laying down with food in their mouths.

What you feed your toddler now will help shape their eating habits in the future, thus it is important to give them a wide variety of foods from each food group. Toddlers love to explore and thrive on foods with different colors, textures and tastes. However, certain foods should be avoided until age 4. These foods can loosely be placed into three categories: hard, small foods (nuts, pretzels, popcorn, seeds, chips and chunks of raw vegetables), slippery foods (hot dogs, chunks of meat, whole grapes and hard candies) and sticky foods (chunks of peanut butter, gummy candies and marshmallows).

Feeding a toddler can be scary, frustrating, and difficult at times; however, it’s a great opportunity to connect with your child and have fun.