Preemie and Textures...

If you recall, I had posted earlier that Ethan was not liking foods with texture. Well, he wasn't getting any better with them and then he started to throw up his baby foods that he has had no issues with for many months. Of course, this started happening at the time our washing machine motor started on fire! Thankfully a friend borrowed us his extra washer since we only need it for 6 weeks. So I started to call therapists in Kalispell because it is closer than Billings. The Dr in Great Falls didn't have a recommendation for anyone in Kalispell so it made it tricky. Eventually I found someone that seemed to know her stuff so I set up an appointment. We headed to Kalispell yesterday and we ended up with an appointment with the occupational therapist, speech therapist, and physical therapist. They were all GREAT! So informative and knew what they were talking about.

Some tips that I thought were great that may be of interest to parents facing the same issues:

-use a specialty spoon with texture on it

-mix in crackers (which he eats plain) with something smooth like yogurt that he normally eats

-when he drinks from a cup he ends up choking because it comes out to fast so they suggested giving him milk shakes, smoothies or just water down some yogurt so he can get the practice of drinking. There is also a product called thicken it that will thicken any liquid. Not sure what this is made of yet so we are going to try the other tips first.

-He has a little car that is meant for him to walk with but it has always been too fast for him that is slips out underneath him. They suggested putting weights (even flour or canned food) under the part that snaps up so it slows the car down. This has already done wonders for him! He loves to walk with it now.

So hopefully we are on our way to eating more foods and working towards walking! Funny thing is is that they asked me if he liked to put things in his mouth. He never did really and I was thinking that was great for safety reasons. Well that may be part of the reason why he is having issues with textures now!

Ethan has been getting into EVERYTHING lately. Here he decided to crawl under the kitchen table to look out the window. That's what Dakota does shouldn't Ethan too?