I don’t understand how to feed my baby

We started with purées and mashed foods at 5 months, and we did a combination of spoon feeding and letting baby feed herself with a spoon. We want to transition to more BLW style, but I’m confused. My understanding is that at this age, I shouldn’t be giving bite sized pieces of food, but more along the lines of finger length spears. I gave my baby a spear of banana, and she immediately squished it, and it broke into bite sized pieces. Am I then supposed to take it away from her? How does she actually swallow anything if it’s not bite sized? I also gave her some baby friendly pancake, and she just wanted to play with it, and again it eventually crumbled, so I took it away. I feel like she’s not actually swallowing anything? Does she just eventually learn not to squish things?