OT: Week 2, Solids

After working on it for a week, the bottle feeding hasn’t gotten any better. We now try to feed Averi twice a day and we always present the bottle first in hopes that she’ll have lots of energy but I think she’s on to us.

However, we did make some progress presenting the smaller spoon on the side and Averi is keeping more in her mouth after each bite. Unfortunately, this girl LOVES to blow raspberries! I kid you not when I say that one night I had to have Dan take over feeding so I could flush a large chunk of rice cereal out of my eye. She’s got distance and aim!

Today, Francis decided that we should start using a NUK nipple since it is more conducive to chewing, as opposed to sucking. She also said that we could leave the nipple in Averi’s mouth while she swallows, even if it is just off to the side.

Francis was going to bring a Haberman Feeder for us to try (they don’t have many supplies at the off campus centers) but she forgot. I hope she remembers it next week because I really think it will help. It is a special nipple that is designed to work with chewing and only lets a little bit of milk out at a time.

Since the rice cereal was going well we tried presenting it in the middle of Averi’s mouth and she handled it pretty well. Then we got a little crazy and tried feeding her bananas. She was a little confused by the different texture so we had to use the small spoon on the side but she was still able to swallow them without much spill out.

I also learned a fun fact today. Averi has two lines going down her tongue instead of the customary one in the middle. This is not a side effect of DS, like I thought, it is because tongues are muscles and she works hers out a little differently, causing the definition to be a little different as well. Francis said she has even seen kids with three lines on their tongues and they were still able to learn how to eat.