OT: Week 28, Is That Snot?

I finally decided to succumb to the fact that we can no longer use cereal to thicken Averi’s milk and called my friend Vicki to find out how she uses xanthan gum to make her own thickener.  (For a while we were using Simply Thick, which Frances was supplying for us at no cost because we were using so little, but it is extremely expensive.  The main ingredient in it is xanthan gum, which you can buy at health foods stores at a cheaper price and then mix with water.)

The xanthan gum powder doesn’t mix with the water very well so I followed her instructions to mix it in the blender.  Well…apparently I mixed it a little too long because it looked like someone blew their nose in a tissue and then I ran up and scooped it into a bottle.  (I held this spoon for the picture for over a minute.)

When I showed up at OT this morning offering my newest solution, Frances laughed out loud and then gently tried to tell me that it was too thick for Averi to get through a straw until I informed her that it still had to be mixed with the formula.

I tried thickener a few weeks ago and it ended in tears so I was hoping Frances would have a great solution for getting Averi to drink it.  To everyone’s amazement, she took it with no hesitations.

Of course, in true Averi fashion, she has already lost some coordination in the last 2 weeks so it took her over 30 minutes to drink 4 ounces.  My goal for this week is to return to the 15 minute rule and see how much I can get her to drink.

It’s not the ideal situation but it is definitely better than I had anticipated.  Maybe snot is the answer to more things…