Now, cheese is a trickier prospect than it initially sounds, so here are my thoughts.
My friend, who is Annabel Karmelising her eight-month-old child, is now getting to the stage where her darling boy (and he IS a darling) is eating finger foods. Cheese-wise, she went out to the supermarket and bought the blandest, most organic-est cheddar she could get her mitts on. I think it was a 'Strength 1' cheese, on that peculiar cheese tastiness index that all supermarkets seem to have adopted recently. (Don't get me started on that – since when did 'strength' have any bearing on taste?) Naturally, the bold boy loved it and now happily feeds himself flavourless cheddar whenever the opportunity arises. However, the system does mean that their's is now a two-cheese household.
Bearing in mind that I carelessly combine both a capacity for laziness and disorganisation, I can't handle the pressure of maintaining a ready supply of both parental and infant cheeses, so we just started Babybear off on a vintage cheddar. (Size 5! Get us!) Happy to report that she enjoyed it, but the problem was that it crumbled into pieces almost immediately which was very frustrating for a hungry nipper.
We've shopped around, airily dismissing the brittle curded offerings of Somerfield, Tesco and Safeway, but finding both the Isle of Bute organic cheddar from Sainsbury's and the Canadian Mature from M&S rather tasty. The Marks one is best on points for the kiddies as it is quite greasy so doesn't fall apart but I personally like the sainsbury's one better.
All in all, my advice would be to start your child on the cheese you like and adjust upwards or downwards from there. As for working out how to cut it up, it rather depends on the crumbliness or otherwise of the cheese. That Canadian Cheddar can handle being cut up into a chip shape, and with the others sometimes a small squarish slice about 5cm x 5cm x 1cm holds together well, but there's more wastage.
(Gad, who knew there was so much to cheese? And I didn't even go near the whole dairy intolerance thing. Mostly because I don't know anything about it. As usual, if anyone has anything to add about cheese/baby led weaning etc, post away. I should go now, as my head has just exploded due to calculating the perfect Baby Led Weaning dimensions for a slice of cheese. I used to be a career woman, for god's sake.)