Eating/Drinking

I had Addy's six month IFSP (Individual Family Service Plan) meeting on Monday. Basically things are changing. I'm okay with the changes, I think. Addy's biggest concerns are obviously her feeding and motor skills. Don't get me wrong she is way delayed in communication, but I feel it is pretty commensurate with her developmental age. Anyway, her current speech therapist feels that Addy's feeding issues are behavioral so she won't be seeing her anymore. She is having a new SLP see her to increase communication. That is okay by me, I do think she needs the communication to be addressed. Her developmental therapist will now be working with Addy's new daycare to teach them how to deal with Addy's "behaviors" when it comes to feedings and playing appropriately with toys. This is what is bothering me. I do think Addy has swallowing problems. It is obvious that Addy has extreme feeding aversion, it's pretty much a no brainer there. So I was talking to her OT about it, Delene, who is also a good friend of mine. She wanted to see Addy eat so yesterday during OT we did feeding. Needless to say, Addy showed her true feeding aversion. She clamps her mouth shut, turns her head, cries and pushes you away. We did get a couple of good swallows of applesauce, very audible swallows, but they were swallows. Addy was doing really well with a certain sippy cup, but she is on a sippy cup strike. (as a speech pathologist I will be the first to tell you to forget sippy cups and go straight to a straw, but this is a case of trying anything that works, we are also trying her Honey Bear with a straw, so far same aversion) So I am hopeful that going to daycare will help with so much of this. She is going to be in the baby room and there are babies in there that take bottles, sippy cups and baby food so she will be included in mealtime. We include her at mealtime everyday, but we know kids learn from their peers. This morning Avery came downstairs and said Jarika needed me. I told him just a minute and I'll be up. This is what I found when I got upstairs:

This last pic is a little deceiving, it looks like complete aversion, but actually an ice cube hit her lips and she was shaking because it was cold, she immediately turned to me and smiled!

This is obviously something that Addy was "choosing" to participate in. Now the bad mommy is going to confess that Jarika was giving her Dr. Pepper, but hey she took it willingly and that is progress!