We been struggling since we got Abbie with feeding. She was so small when we got her and was still like an infant. But when she turned 12 mo old our pediatrician said lets move her off the bottle to table food. Little did we know she was not ready for table food. It was like trying to feed a 3 mo table food. Even though she was 12 mo old she was delayed and just not ready - and thus begins our road to feeding problems. She did finally start eating table foods but over time has dropped most of the foods she ate. And today she eats only a few items and drinks a high calorie shake. Thank goodness for that and whole milk! We struggle every day, every meal to get her to eat and try new things, but to no avail.
We started feeding therapy with an OT and well that didn't go well. The OT said she couldn't do anything until Abbie can mimic her movements and have more control over her tongue. That is easier said then done, if she didn't already struggle with Autism. But since she doesn't want to look at you in the first place, how is she going to mimic you! ERR. So instead of continuing and working through it she stopped the feeding therapy without letting us know. How crazy is that. When we questioned her about it, she gave us the excuse above.
So we had another feeding evaluation done, by another group of individuals and they said she needed feeding therapy. So now we do feeding therapy two times a week and its so very hard to watch her do this therapy. The OT is so good with her, and patient with her but Abbie still has a very hard time.
At home well you can only imagine the frustration. Its so very hard for me to understand why. I enjoy food and it just so different. Abbie gets so upset, cries and even throws the food off her plate. It bothers her so much to have food in front of her that she doens't want that she can't even move on to eat the foods she likes. And she sometimes gets so worked up that she will gag and throw up, all because she doesn't want to eat what we presented her.
People say - Oh don't worry she will eat if she gets hungry! THIS IS UNTRUE!!!! She won't - she doesn't understand. When we first got Abbie she never cried or asked for food, I had to be on a time line so that I wouldn't forget to feed her, because she never told me she was hungry and even today she doesn't tell me - So every three hours we give her something - her shake or we sit down for breakfest, lunch, or dinner. We never miss a meal or shake time cause she needs it. Yet she won't let us know if she hungry.
Today it was hard she didn't want to eat anything but her puffs and shake nothing else. Thank goodness for the generic brand of Boost because with out that I would be so so scared.
Now we wait and see if we need more intensive feeding therapy - which cost more money - but what can you do!
Worried Mom
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