Long story short - my LO is almost 13 months old and still has a hard time with any solids, even purees. He has low tone and does PT for that and mild gross motor delays. We've been doing both PT and feeding therapy with a speech therapist for about 2 months. We're seeing great progress in PT, but very little with feeding. He gags much less now with solids, but it still happens maybe every other meal. He also enjoys mouthing solids that he can just taste, like thicker sticks of raw carrot. But in terms of actually ingesting food, at most meals he has maybe 2 or 3 bites of food and mostly plays. I'm getting pretty stressed about it because I don't know what else to try. Has anyone had experience with this? What kind of feeding therapy helped? I just can't sit through one more meal where he plays around for 20 minutes and eats maybe 2 cheerios
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@Chuckles: my LO is 3 months old & goes to therapy for feeding. I'm at a completely different stage, but wanted to say hi! We went today and the exercises we have been doing at home seem to be making him stronger so we will keep doing it in hopes that it will help when it's time for solids, sippy cups, etc. I don't know that I have any advice to give but I'm certainly willing to be a listening ear!!!
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@jhd: thanks for saying hi! It's great that you are getting help so early. What kinds of exercises are you doing? Our therapist gave us a chew tube for LO to chew and maybe try to desensitize his gag reflex, but no actual exercises. We had one feeding therapist for the first six weeks, but didn't seem to be getting much from it. We switched to someone recommended by our PT, so I'm hoping she will have more ideas.
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@Chuckles: do you eat your meals together as a family at all? Sometimes LO's get so distracted with the social nature of family meals they forget not to eat
and fwiw my LO was probably fifteen months old before she really started eating any decent quantity of food, I know it's not the same thing but it does just take awhile with some kids. Hope you see some progress soon!
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@Chuckles: I can't find a link online but we are working to get his tongue moving like it should. One thing is a pacifier rock. Basically stroking his tongue with the paci (or sometimes a clean finger!) and his tongue should curl up around my finger. She also has me tap the inside of his cheek with my finger and he should move his tongue and cheek. And touching his gums to get him to bite down. I'm probably not explaining well! We went back today after a two week break and she said she thinks he is getting stronger already.
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@Chuckles: I hope the new person is able to help and that you are able to get more out of your sessions together. It's a lot of effort to get to all of those appointments so I understand you want to see some progress!!!
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We had very mild feeding issues, but we started with all of the meltable foods like mums. That helped LO get used to the idea of chewing and then swallowing. He never loved purées and still doesn't like mashed potatoes or retried beans which have that consistency. So possibly, chewing might help a little.
We started solids in the fall/winter so sweet potatoes were a big hit at first. Watermelon was an early fav that he still loves.
I know a lot of the advice was to keep mealtime short and positive, but that was so hard when he wasn't eating much (and in the 1st percentile). Good luck! I bet it will get better all of a sudden when LO decides it's okay, but if keep up with therapy too!
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Sorry for the delayed response!
@Kemma: It's good to hear that it can take some kids awhile to eat a larger amount of food. We are supposed to eat with him to model eating, but one thing that is getting distracting is that we were letting him feed us, and it turned into a game. So now we have the same foods as him so that there's no need to share.
@JHD: those sound like great exercises! Unfortunately, our guy is too old for stuff like that, so it's great that you are doing it now. We had another session with the new therapist, and she seems much better. S actually ate like 8 bites of black beans today! We've been using blowing bubbles after each bite as a reinforcer. It's working sometimes.
@Mrs Green Grass: Our LO sometimes will take bites of the meltable solids and sometimes completely refuses. Did you LO ever eat much pureed food or did you mostly skip that step? Maybe we should try watermelon -
@Beaker: Thought you may have some experience here
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@Chuckles: I bought pouches and he would eat a few squeezes at a time. A couple times he ate most of the packet, but he liked chewing better.
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@Ms.Badger: Sorry just seeing this!
@Chuckles: My DS2 had a brain injury at birth which resulted in him relying on a feeding tube since he aspirated liquids and purees. When he was 8 months he passed a swallow study and is now able to have purees. He's only 11 months now so who knows how "solid" food will go. Has anyone ever discussed doing a swallow study with you, since he gags? You mentioned he has low tone, do you see a neurologist? I emailed @jhd: some oral exercises our OT recommended, I''ll wall you my email and can send them to you if you'd like.
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@beaker: sorry i walled you before i saw this post, so i was missing some info. It's great that your guy is doing purees now! I'm sure it's so hard to go from a feeding tube to eating by mouth. did you do a bottle or other liquids before starting purees?
S doesn't gag as much anymore and has never seemed to aspirate food or milk, so the GI doctor didn't think he needed a swallow study. She said that she'd want him to do a few more months of feeding therapy before she would want to try anything invasive. He has low muscle tone but is typically developing in every other way, so we don't see a neurologist.
It's frustrating because some meals/days go better than others. With some cajoling, he will eat small bites of black beans, cheerios, cheese, and some other foods, but often only tastes a bit and refuses to actually ingest anything. And then randomly the other day with my husband he ate like 20 puffs in one sitting with no gagging at all.
This is going to sound crazy, but since he's been filling up on milk and/or formula for his whole life, I kind of feel like he has no idea that food is for when you are hungry. He loves tasting and playing with food, but then wants a bottle. Even when he's hungry, he will just play/taste and then once he gets formula, eat like 8 oz. The speech therapist wants us to reduce the amount of formula he is getting, but I'm not ready for that yet, just in case eating really is hard for him. I'd hate for him to feel hungry and it would be like, hey jerks, i'm starving and i would eat all this food if only i had the muscle tone to eat more than a few bites at one sitting. -
We wonders for a long time if LO ever really felt hungry and eventually it just clicked. Now we only give milk at wake up and bedtime, but I think reducing to three or four times a day makes sense. We alternates with meal times for a long time...
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@Chuckles: so, DS2's deal is that his brain had trouble knowing to swallow fast enough, and liquid moves faster than purees, so he isn't allowed liquids yet until he passes a swallow study with them. A swallow study isn't invasive (not that I'm encouraging you to get one, just for your knowledge and others that come across this), they give the LO a barium solution either in a bottle, or mixed with thickeners on a spoon or bottle, and then watch as they eat it via xray, so they can see exactly where it goes (into the lungs? Properly down the throat? Are they refluxing? Etc).
If he's a big drinker, have you thought about adding smoothies/milkshakes to the rotation?
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@Mrs Green Grass: Did you wait until he was eating a certain volume of solids before reducing milk or did he end up eating more solids after you reduced the milk?
@Beaker: We're also working on straw cups. He seems like he might be starting to get the hang of it (delayed oral motor skills), so once he's doing that, we will be all about the smoothies
and fwiw my LO was probably fifteen months old before she really started eating any decent quantity of food, I know it's not the same thing but it does just take awhile with some kids. Hope you see some progress soon!
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