Progress

J has had physical, speech, occupational and feeding therapy off and on from the time she was 8 weeks old at Mighty Oaks Children's Therapy Center. The therapists are amazing! Heather was J's feeding and speech therapist and we did get very attached. We both looked forward to seeing her each week. Deciding to end our therapy at Mighty Oaks was a very difficult decision. A decision I made in order to take a completely new direction with regard to J's eating. It was time to try something new.

Now here we are...two months later. During the height of J's eating aversion phase, she ate the following...

peanut butter (scraping it off bread to eat it)
milk
strawberries
cheese pizza
macaroni and cheese
crackers (limited to goldfish, ritz)
cookies (that melt in your mouth)
whipped cream
ice cream

I was really in a panic and started following a brand new way of dealing with severe food aversions by following suggestions in the book Just Take A Bite, by Ernsperger and Stegen-Hanson. I've not just taken some suggestions and implemented the changes, but I have been following the book religiously.

The result?  This is what J ate for breakfast this morning...

scrambled eggs
strawberries
milk
string cheese
a whole apple (minus the peel)

And she is no longer scraping the peanut butter and cream cheese off bread. She is eating whole wheat bread!

So just to illustrate the difference further than just what she has eaten today, this is currently her list of acceptable foods.

eggs
cheese (many different kinds)
pasta in a number of forms (not just Kraft Mac N Cheese)
bread
string cheese
yogurt
hot dog in a bun
chicken nuggets (Kirkland brand)
cereal (sugary, but fortified with vitamins!)
pancakes
whole wheat quesadillas
black beans
any cracker or chip
granola bar
strawberries
applesauce and apples (no peel)
mandarin oranges
bananas
grapes
carrots
jello
any cookie (without coconut or nuts)
milk
juice
water

It just excites me to know I can give her some juice or water to drink rather than having her go through huge amounts of milk which contributes to her anemia. And I have fun making jello jigglers, so for selfish reasons, I love that she is eating jello. There is nothing that makes me happier than to see her eat a new food. And it's starting to happen on a more regular basis. Not a daily occurance, but we are making progress.

For most children, feeding therapy works wonders and is absolutely necessary. As an infant, Heather and an occupational therapist at Mighty Oaks were very successful in getting J to eat her very first food, vanilla pudding. J was 15 months old when she ate her first solid food. Therapy was essential at that time. Maybe because of her unique personality or the fact that she is four, we weren't having the same successes. So now I am her therapist which makes sense because I am also the person who feeds her three meals and two snacks per day. Consistency for her is so critical.