Feeding Therapy Friday

I've decided that I need to start posting a recap of Rachel's feeding therapy every week. It's such an emotional roller coaster, and I want to be able to go back and read about what her sessions are like each time. I think this will help me to see her progress more clearly. I tend to get really discouraged by the harder sessions, and I need to be able to see the bigger picture.

I could tell as soon as Rachel got into her chair that the session wasn't going to go well. She just wasn't into it at all. Well, the first indication was when she didn't want me to leave her. She goes into a room with Julie (her therapist)  alone and I go into another room where I can watch behind the two way mirror. She's usually happily goes into that room. This time, they were playing with round foods to start. Julie usually follows a theme with a color or shape of food. They talk about the texture and play with the food.

They started with one of Rachel's preferred foods, which is Gerber yogurt melts. She ate a couple of them and asked for more. Then she got frustrated that instead of getting more, she was offered a freeze dried banana. At first, I thought she might take a bite. She did eat freeze dried bananas briefly last summer. So instead of eating it, she threw it at Julie and said "no." This set the tone of how the rest of the session went. She wouldn't put anything in her mouth, and pretty much didn't even play with the food as usual. When handed any kind of food, she would crush it or tear it and toss it off of the table. Things are kept positive so she's not reprimanded for tossing the food. She is simply told "food stays on the table" and Julie puts it back on the table just out of Rachel's reach. Previously when Rachel would throw food, I would remove her from the situation. She learned that it was her escape. With this type of therapy, there is no escape. So basically, nothing really good came from this session. Julie does an amazing job handing Rachel though. She keeps her interest even when there is no cooperation.

It's okay though. It's hard to watch when she has a bad therapy day, but I've noticed lately that she tends to take two steps forward and then one step back. Last week's session went pretty well.  She ate regular bbq potato chips and has continued to eat them all week. She also licked a pretzel stick.

Here is a list of what she eats right now.

Animal crackers (but they must be the Costco crackers)
Gerber yogurt melts
BBQ Baked Lays
Gerber stage 3 Strawberry Banana baby food
Taco Bell Cinnamon Twists (I'm the crazy lady who goes to the Taco Bell drive thru and orders 5 bags of twists every few days.)

New food: regular BBQ Lays Potato chips
She is also slightly biting in to an apple. It started with red apples with the peelings still on. Now I will peel half of the apple and hand it to her. First she licked it, and now she is putting her teeth into it... not taking a bite, but thinking about it.
She also took a bite out of a Chips-Ahoy crunchy chocolate chip cookie this week. She spit it out, but at least she took a bite.

This is all progress. Sometimes I get really frustrated and feel like we're burning through one hundred dollar bills with this therapy, but she IS making progress. SOS therapy is specifically designed for kids like her. It's a slow process, but we're only about three months in. We were told this will take a year to overcome. For some reason with Rachel, I think it might take longer than that. But I am trying to keep the faith.

Until next week.......