Today Sophia saw her feeding specialist. Sophia doesn’t want to eat anything that has to be chewed. Actually, the only thing she will eat is yogurt and she will drink PediaSure — for the extra calories she needs. We work on trying to get a few tiny crumbs into her mouth but most of the time she will have nothing to do with that. She will turn her head and cry and fight you. Today her therapist was working on getting some crumbs into her mouth by putting them in applesauce and Sophia was doing ok. Then she decided to try to get her to actually take a small bite of the veggie stick she was using for crumbs. Sophia was not interested. She tried again and after some work she got Sophia to take a small bite — and I mean small. She worked on getting Sophia to take another small bite and after some time had success. Then Sophia’s therapist put the rest of the veggie stick on the tray and turned to get something else. I watched as Sophia took her hand and with very jerky movements tried to pick up the veggie stick off the tray. I didn’t think she could get it but she did. Then I watched with amazement as Sophia actually picked up the veggie stick, and took it up to her mouth and actually took a small bite! This was amazing! Really amazing for her. She doesn’t pick up small things and when she does pick something up she is very uncoordinated and usually ends up just tossing it or dropping it. The fact she picked it up and got it to her mouth was amazing enough, but for her to take a bite was unbelievable. If you have ever had a child with real feeding issues, I know you will understand. Sophia will not let anything into her mouth without a fight — except yogurt and sometimes that is a struggle. We work so hard to get her to eat and she fights us so hard. For her to actually put something in her mouth is beyond amazing. Now, she only took two bites and then would have nothing to do with it and refused any more bites. But, she did it so I feel like that means she will do it again one day, and maybe actually eat something besides yogurt and drink PediaSure. I have an amazing feeding specialist! She has worked so hard with Sophia.
