feeding therapy

[Anonymous]

Since there are a few of us who are going to feeding therapy right now, I thought I’d start this link so anyone who’s interested could share “feeding plans”.

Hailey has had 3 sessions now. We see an SLP who comes to the house from our homecare program. She said to keep up the sleep feeding because we need to get it into her somehow. As far as solids, she feels that we should work on getting Hailey to accept finger foods, and likely bypass the purees for the most part. We are working on bite and dissolve foods. She had us start with cheezies because they are easy to hold and dissolve quickly. We have also tried things I picked up at the health food store (veggie booty, pirate booty, veggie stix, rice cakes, baby mum mums). I’ve also tried biter cookies, which caused Hailey to gag and vomit on a tiny piece. She had us get rid of Hailey’s high chair, and we can’t feed her in a bib- VERY messy. She wants to break all prior negative feeding associations. We are supposed to feed her in front of the TV with distraction. We feeh her in her exersaucer right now in front of baby einstein. (That should be a fun habit to break). We offer her the puffs first by putting a few out in front of her. If she doesn’t touch them, then we try to put one in her hand. We also eat them in front of her so it’s not all about her eating. Here’s the gross part- we’re supposed to use “exaggerated eating motions”, like chewing with your mouth open and making loud “mmmmm” sounds, and licking the puffs. It’s disgusting! The idea is to get her to see what you’re doing and interested. When she eats something, we’re supposed to praise her, by clapping, cheering or whatever. We do the same thing with purees. We offer, but don’t force, and we praise her if she eats something. If she doesn’t eat anything (which is usually the case) then we don’t force it. We also started pushing the sippy cups. We leave them around in her play space and at all meals.

So far there hasn’t been any real improvement. Hailey will now hold some of the puffs, but doesn’t actually eat them. (GREAT!?) No improvement in terms of purees.

Just thought I’d share in case some of this can help someone else. I’d love to hear what everyone else is working on, and any updates.

[Anonymous]

Wow! I am so surprised (kind of pleasantly so) that the therapist recommended feeding her in front of TV. I guess it makes sense, in trying to rid feeding of negative associations. This can make it fun! Putting on Baby Einstein is the only way I can get Nate to eat anything except yogurt or crackers the past week. The teething really set us back. It upsets me that I have to do this to get him to eat, but I guess it can’t be all that bad if a “professional” is recommending it.

I’ve also heard about trying Pirate Booty, but we haven’t so far. Nate does like stuff he can pick up himself, so it’s worth a try for us.

Thanks for starting this thread. I hope Hailey continues to make progress!!

[Anonymous]

Hey Lori, well its a start, it will be interesting to see if it works. Right now we are going to a rehab center for therapy. She is out of her environment and doing better eating for the ot than me. They use something called the bumbo chair. We just bought one for our house too. You would think it would make them spit up more but it doesn’t. We sit it in the middle of the table and she watches us all eat. We also are doing the cheering, and letting her hold her food. She is encouraged to play with the food, she has been covered from head to toe in it, but exploring it will make her less afraid of it. We also give her her own spoon to hold while we are feeding her with one. So, this is all working after a couple months of therapy. Today, she actually got mad at us because we were eating in front of her. She wanted my bread so i gave it to her, she just squished it and took one lick, but i guess she made the connection that it is food and ment to be eaten.

I know it will be messy, but try to give her a bowl of baby food and let her go to town. We got some great pictures out of it!

[Anonymous]

I love the ideas that your SLP has given you. I would have never thought of taking away the bib or high chair. It makes perfect sense though. Noah starts to freak out when he sees his bib. It sounds like she has lots of great advise. I think my OT is clueless. She hasnt suggested anything that has been helpful. We are going back tomorrow for a re-evaluation from the Feeding Clinic. Hopefully they have better advise than they did last time.

Please keep us posted with any new ideas she gives you.

[Anonymous]

Lori, Those are really good ideas, and I am really pleased to hear that a pro recommended it. We feed Robbie in his highchair, often no bib (sometimes just no shirt, to save on a mess!) and always with Baby Einstein. He doesn’t have aversions or anything, but he really can’t focus because he is too curious to sit still for long. I have alos worried about breaking the TV habit. Does anyone have any ideas how we should do that?
Sarah

[Anonymous]

Lori

Thank you for this. Should be really interested to hear what everyone has to say. I don´t have any advice, unfortunately! We have to feed Matthew in his high chair, because he does not sit still in the exersaucer or the bumbo (he tries to get up) and we have tried both, so it will be the high chair for us. Also, cannot wait until he gets into TV, really, because the only way he opens his mouth is if you entertain him with toys, songs, music… he likes something for about 30 seconds and then he starts crying to get off the high chair, not even to stop eating!

About the finger foods — when do you think that I can start Matthew on those? I have no idea how to do this. When did you start with Hailey? Matthew does not have texture issues with purees for now, whether they are thin or thick and i would like to start finger foods soon because he is interested in everything i put in my mouth. I just have no idea when to start, how to do it or what to give!

Thanks

[Anonymous]

I let Robbie mess with gerber wagon wheels, which he loves, fruit puffs, zwieback toast, teether biscuits, and crackers. They are all big enough for him to pick up and he can’t choke on them. I think that you can get those stage three or toddler dishes that are like little fruit pieces, or raviolis, that are easy to pick up, too. I don’t know what they have in Spain, Thais, but we have a lot of options here. Good Luck!
Sarah

[Anonymous]

Thais, I started my other two boys on finger foods when they were about 8 months old. I only gave them the Gerber Biter Biscuits because they were large and easy to pick up and they disolved really well when they mouthed on it. Once their teeth came in, and they started to really bite on the biscuits, I had to quit giving it to them because they would break off big chunks. I then moved to smaller finger foods like tiny pieces of disolvable foods like dry bread, rice puffs, crackers etc. At this point, they could use their pincer grasp pretty well and enjoyed trying to feed themselves. Now keep in mind that both of my other children were always good eaters so it was fairly easy to transition. For Noah however, his finger foods consist of wagon wheels or tiny pieces of crackers that I put into his mouth. He still doesnt have his pincher grasp coordinated, plus he doesnt really chew, so it makes finger foods very limiting. For Matthew, I would suggest disolvable foods like the Biter Biscuits, Cheesies, Veggie Stixs etc. If he doesnt willingly put it in his mouth, you can offer it or break a tiny piece off and see if he will open his mouth. I often have to pretend I’m eating a bite and then offer it to Noah. Matthew is still pretty young, so he may not even be ready for finger foods yet. So dont get too discouraged if he doesnt take to it right away. Lots of babies dont accept finger foods or self feeding finger foods until they are 9 months or so.

Let us know how it goes when you decide to try it.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Sarah and Lisa

I think he is probably a little young but he will pick up anything i have on my plate and he wants to drink from my glass all of the time, so i was thinking of just putting some stuff in front of him and see what happens.

Sarah – there are not many things here… so i will have to wait until a trip to NY to get some of that stuff. What are fruit puffs exactly? And what crackers do you give? Can´t he choke on those? I have tried teether biscuits but Matthew has 2 tiny teeths and he just breaks off a huge chunk that i then have to get out of his mouth (vs what the ped said that he would just slowly chew on it). So i am worried he will do the same with the crackers?

LIsa – thanks… i need to find some dissolvable foods around here or get them in NY. I will speak to my ped too but as i said above, he suggested the biscuits but matthew bites big chunks off of them and it scares me. He also suggested letting him hold some bread… but he will break it off too!!

[Anonymous]

Gerber makes the fruit puffs. They look like little stars, and they come in veggie too. I give Robbie graham crackers and saltines (w/o salt) because they dissolve pretty well in his mouth. Plus he seems to really have the whole chewing thing DOWN! He really does love to eat now. I feel pretty lucky. I sort of let him break stuff off and watch him pretty closely. I have only had to pull stuff out of his mouth once. I also read (and please don’t tell anyone, because it is so out of fashion) Dr. Spock. He says that all babies choke on food when they first get it, especially finger food, and as long as they are supervised, there is not a lot of danger. I wonder if you could order some stuff online. Surely Gerber or Beechnut has an international division where you can order! I would think those companies are so big that they would have something like that. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Thais,
YOu can go to Gerber.com and Beechnut.com to see their range of finger foods. Also, try this link. http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/organic_baby_food.htm
They are organic baby food places in Europe.
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/links/online_organic_food_st ores.htm
This one too!

[Anonymous]

http://www.nestle.es/paramibebe/

[Anonymous]

Thank you thank you! I will look at what the have on those websites!

[Anonymous]

Thais, good luck with the finger foods.

Lisa, she said that we could use a booster seat, or anything else as long as it wasn’t something that already had the negative ties to it. The no bib, was because hailey freaks out now as soon as we put the bib on, b/c she knows it’s feeding time. We’ll see how things work out. Like I said, so far no improvement- no solids whatsoever.

Please keep me posted on any new developments that your therapist gives. Hopefully we can learn things off of each other.

[Anonymous]

For the older kiddos who are still have eating problems… Our ST is doing some really fun stuff lately with Emma. We haven’t seen a HUGE leap in the quantity of what she eats, BUT we are trying to make food fun.

A few weeks ago, Emma “painted” with pudding. They put down a printout paper of a snowman & dipped her NUK brush into vanilla pudding & had her ‘paint’ the snowman. They always play music for her, or let her watch a computer story while she eats. We’ve made snowmen out of marshmallows. She feeds a babydoll.

Also…her diet has expanded…to the junk food aisle! While she won’t eat much healthy fare (other than Neocate via tube!), she is now enjoying bites of Doritos, Lime & Pepper Chips, marshmallows (small ones), fruit chewies, fruit puffs, lollipops, & this sour gel & spray candy we put on her NUK brush.

The big thing is that we emphasize how much FUN eating is. The dramatic chewing (yes, lovely), & “YUMMY!!” said over & over. We cheer when she eats, especially if she tries something new (very rare!!). We’ve given up on pureed foods (just for now!), until Emma is consuming more calories of this ‘junk’ food she now likes. Then, we’ll slowly try incorporating purees. Like, offering guacomole with her chips, ranch dip, etc.

Good luck, ladies! You are all doing awesome jobs!!

[Author]

Posts