This is Miss Jodi working with Zeke at therapy. She is technically an Occupational Therapist, but she has great success working with kids that have food aversions. We've only been to therapy 3 times and we have already begun to see an improvement. I always bring Zeke a lunchbox filled with some foods he likes and some he doesn't. The Miss Jodi and have get to eat! First they pick out the type of cloth they are going to use since Zeke hates to be messy. Then they play the pat pat game where they wipe their face. Then they brush their teeth with this funny brush that has a bunch of bumps on it. This helps Zeke with his texture issues. Then Zeke gets to pick out his plate, bowl, fork, spoon and anything else that he can have control over. We've learned that he likes to be in control....wonder where he gets that from...and when he feels out of control he just wants to shut down and not participate at all. So we are giving him control in the form of choices. He still has sit at the dinner table, but he gets to pick out all the stuff he needs.
After getting all the necessary things ready then Miss Jodi gets food out of his bag and ask him if he'd like cheese or yogurt. Again giving him choices, but still getting him to take food. They play with the food by cutting it and then poking it with toothpicks to eat it or using dippers for yogurt. Anything to make it fun for him.
At home we've been doing these same things and we've been passing around the food instead of dishing up the food on his plate for him. Again this is giving him more control. The rule is he has to put one of everything that we are eating on his plate, but he doesn't have to eat. He has even asked for foods he hates just because he's excited to scoop it onto his plate. The other day I was passing around the veggie tray and I told him he could pick which one he wanted on his plate, but he had to put at least one. He chose 2 baby carrots and then took a bite! Seriously I about fell over!!! It was a teeny tiny bite, but still....HUGE success! He did grimace and said, "I no like it", but he didn't spit it out and he tried it WILLINGLY!!! I'm pretty sure that was the first bite of veggies that he's had since not being on baby food anymore. The progress in just 3 sessions has been amazing and I can't wait to see Zeke open his world up to more and more wonderful things!
With his bad eating habits and on-going potty training this has led to another issue...constipation. He is exactly like Owen was when he potty trained. He did fine for the first month and then he decided to start holding in his poo. I have no idea why this is....fear of pooing, being lazy or what, but he went almost a full week without have a really healthy movement. I started giving him Miralax which is the same stuff I gave Owen and a couple days later he finally went. Poor guy had not been feeling well at all! Now we are giving him a maintenance dose of Miralax everyday to keep him regular until his body is back in the swing of things. Oh the woes of being a toddler that doesn't eat veggies!!!
And down the hall in another room while I'm with Zeke is Ella with Miss Joanna. She is getting her second round of speech therapy. She's doing fabulously and Miss Joann is sure she'll be released before Christmas. She mainly just needed to work on her being sounds for things like 'nack' instead of snack and then her pronouns. She will say things like, "It's she turn to ride on the bike". She's doing great and I'm so proud of her!
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