Feeding Clinic Possibilities

You are 18 months old today! Time is passing so quickly. You have been making a lot of progress lately, but I have decided it is time for you to start doing some more big girl things. Top of my list is holding your head all by yourself and eating.

Supporting your own head has become easier for you. You can hold it very steady, and smoothly look from side to side. However, your neck is still so tight that you hold your head very far back. If I hold your back straight you look up at the ceiling, so to compensate I have to lean your body forward. So my number one goal these days is stretching that neck out so that you can look directly in front of you and downwards.

Once we have accomplished holding your head correctly, we can begin working more intently on eating. Too be perfectly honest, I have done a terrible job making you eat. There are lots of excuses. I don’t like to make you throw up any extra by attempting an oral feed, since you allergic reaction I am hesitant to try any foods, teething makes you produce more mucus which makes you more sensitive to gagging, surgeries, procedures, new brother... But the truth is, if I wait until things slow down or get easier we will never work on it. The g-tube is just too easy, I have no great motivation to get you off it. So I was thinking if we went somewhere that would help us focus solely on feeds for awhile we might make some progress. I am considering taking you to an intensive feeding clinic. Really, I am just in the very beginning stages of research, so I am not sure when, where, or even how at this point. Usually they are 4-6 week sessions, so if we end up needing to go out of town, it will take a huge effort. Daddy will have to stay home to work, so you, Liam and I would have to go on our own. But if you have the kind of success I have read about, it would definitely be worthwhile. Even if you progress to where you eat enough during the day to feel full, we could still use the pump at night to give you the majority of your nutrition. That way we all could have so much more freedom during the day, not attached to our 6 foot “leash”.

This is just my newest thought. I am sure it will take awhile to get it covered by insurance and be accepted into the program. In the meantime, we have got to work on that neck! It is the first step towards becoming oral.