Wait, I see that he does fine with jar food. Ya know that I have a friend that could only get her child to eat fruit from a jar until they were pretty old toddlers. She wanted them to have fruit so she did it. But her kids were eating other solid things. I guess my concern is you say he never chews. How are his other motor skills and how is his speech?
Hi, some kids have trouble getting the hang of chewing. My son did. Talk to his pediatrician about it. Speech therapists often deal with feeding problems when a child is young before speech issues become apparent. It is amazing all of the motor control that goes into eating and speaking. His motor planning and function may be off a bit. It is worth looking into as with easy therapy this can be greatly improved. My son chews like a champ now but not when it comes to meat. He tends to avoid it as it is too much work to chew (he doesn't verbalize it this way)---- so we get creative about protein and he gets lots of cheers when he chews up meat. How does he do with soft things like apple sauce? I must say that gagging and choking on food was in retrospect the first real clue going about what was going on with my son. He's a healthy, happy 5 year old now with a challenge or two. May be nothing, but worth checking into further. What country do you live in?
He is old enough to feed himself and have finger food, let him feed himself and eat what he wants in his own time, put the food down before him then eat your own. Lots of finger foods out there, eggs, toast , chicken pieces, Banana, peas, beans, fish sticks, spaghetti, rice, you say you tried to feed him mashed up food and he threw up, that is why, so let him be in control of his eating ,