Pros: Satisfactory taste, low choking risk.
Cons: Contains wheat, messy, irritated SB's lip.
I bought these for SB to snack on when he was about 11 months old after determining that he was not allergic to wheat. The biscuits contain wheat flour, which is a potential allergen for young babies, as you're probably aware. Most sources I've read give the guideline of 9-12 months for introducing wheat for the first time to a baby. I gave SB his first morsel of bread at around 10 months, and thankfully, no reaction. I wonder why they don't make more teething biscuits/finger foods without wheat given that many babies get their first teeth before 9 months (SB cut his first teeth at 6.5 months) and it would be helpful to have some snack options that you could pick up quickly at the store. (More industrious moms would just make wheat-free finger foods/teething biscuits from scratch, I know, but I opted for an intermediate solution in Baby Mum-Mum crackers. See my blog post here.) In any case, I thought these biter biscuits would make a nice snack for SB to gnaw on at age 11 months. I read several parent reviews that said that their child loved them, so I thought they'd be a sure hit with SB.
Unfortunately, not so. The first time I gave one to him, he gnawed off a tiny bit off the end and then promptly left it on his tray and ignored it. As always, I had tested the biter biscuit before giving it to SB. It's quite a hard biscuit, so unless your little one has super strong jaws and a good set of teeth, it would be difficult to bite off a piece big enough to be a potential choking hazard, though of course it's always best to monitor to be sure. If you gnaw on it, the biscuit crumbles and dissolves easily in your mouth. The taste was satisfactory - fairly sweet and you can definitely taste the molasses in it. One thing to note about these biscuits is that they make quite a mess. As the biscuit crumbles and melts in your little one's mouth, the sticky bits and pieces get all over their hands, mouth, tray, etc. Even with the small amount that SB ate, he got pretty messy.
My main issue with these biscuits is actually not the fact that SB didn't love them or that they make a mess. It's that they made his lip bleed. Yes, bleed. The morning after I gave them to him, I noticed that his bottom lip had a crack in the skin - kind of like when you have chapped lips and you get a split in the lip skin - and it was bleeding. I thought it was strange but just attributed it to dryness. But this split in his lip lasted for several days, which was strange, because even though his lips do get a tad dry from time to time, they've never cracked and the dryness never lasts for long. After some thought, I realized that the biter biscuit could be the culprit. I tried giving him the biscuit again, and sure enough, soon after, I saw that his bottom lip was irritated again. I'm not sure what in the biscuit caused the irritation. It could just be that, being very hard biscuits, the rough edges irritated his lip skin. I also looked at the ingredients list: Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Sugar, Corn Flour, Whey (From Milk), Milk, Molasses, Ultra Low Linolenic Soybean Oil, Cornstarch, Sodium Bicarbonate, Soy Lecithin. Nothing too out of the ordinary, though I wonder if molasses could have been the irritant?
I'm not saying that your child will have the same issue with these biter biscuits, but I thought I should mention this problem for reference. SB does have sensitive skin in general, so this could just be something that is particular to him. Just an FYI!
