Sam has made absolutely incredible strides in his eating. He tries food at almost every meal (besides his typical foods of yogurt/oatmeal/applesauce), and his current favorite, by far, is pizza.
Deciding to switch from his old therapy center was one of the best decisions we’ve made. I love PTC and his therapist. In the video below, Sam has headphones on — they use the Therapeutic Listening program for Sam, and find that using these headphones while eating really calms him down. Also, he is usually in the kitchen with just Kristi, but they were doing something in there that day so they ate in the general playroom. I think being around other kids made him focus on something else, and he just did AWESOME!!!
Check this out:
For Eli’s birthday celebration, we had pizza… Mr. Sam ate probably 1/2 a piece! He still needs to chew his bites, but he mushes them and attempts to chew. He wants to know what to do now, and asks for help when he bites off a piece that is too big.
Here’s what a typical day looks like with Sam’s eating:
8:00am– oatmeal (attempts to self-feed with spoon, does this about 20% of the time) and Pediasure
*followed by 2 syringes of a Blended Diet
10:00am– snack either at school or home. He is always given the same food as the others, and will almost always mouth the food, sometimes even taking a bite.
12:00pm– lunch- whatever J & E are having. After ~10 minutes, I give him his yogurt or applesauce (let him choose) and he will spoon feed himself. Pediasure to drink.
*followed by 2 syringes of a Blended Diet
3:45pm– snack, same as J & E. I tube all of his food during snack so he can spend most of this time exploring the food (he is tubed Pediasure and a syringe of BD)
6:15pm– lunch- whatever J & E are having. After ~10 minutes, I give him his yogurt or applesauce and he will spoon feed himself. Pediasure to drink.
*followed by 2 syringes of a Blended Diet
About 30 minutes before every snack or meal I give him 2 ounces of water. If we’re not in a hurry to get anywhere, I make him drink the 2oz out of a cup, otherwise I will just tube it. Free water like this helps with his motility, primes the stomach, and helps in digestion. I have done extensive research on this and am just slightly annoyed that no one mentioned the need for free water until I brought it up. Moving on… 😉
It is so exciting to watch Sam have fun with food. The other night while eating pizza he took too big of a bite and wanted to try and manage it on his own. After a few seconds, he started to choke and Adam had to do a mouth sweep. Sam immediately said “More pizza!” and grabbed another piece to eat. Thinking about it now just amazes me.
Who remembers this video? It makes me sick to watch it, but puts Sam’s short life into perspective!
This makes me so angry. What the crap were we thinking? Obviously at the time, it seemed like the only option to get him to eat, and now it just looks like child abuse. Being stern with him for not swallowing his food? Forcing his mouth open? Not cool.
Anyway, wanted to celebrate this milestone!! So thrilled for this little stinker 🙂 🙂 🙂
3 Misters and a Sister 