Gabrielle Heather wrote:
How old is she now? She is such a cutie.

She just hit 19 months:



(Year 1 series here, Year 2 series here.)

She's never had much of an issue with "food" in general as long as it was pureed, but texture was a problem - no lumps! - until she got into therapy. She just wouldn't self-feed for anything, though. She's now into textures, still refuses to hold a spoon, but will pick up French-fry-shaped objects and try to bite them. Over the next month, we're supposed to shorten them more into "cube" shapes than "stick" shapes to get her to accept those.

Caradoc wrote:
She just hit 19 months:


(Year 1 series here, Year 2 series here.)

She's never had much of an issue with "food" in general as long as it was pureed, but texture was a problem - no lumps! - until she got into therapy. She just wouldn't self-feed for anything, though. She's now into textures, still refuses to hold a spoon, but will pick up French-fry-shaped objects and try to bite them. Over the next month, we're supposed to shorten them more into "cube" shapes than "stick" shapes to get her to accept those.

She is such a pumpkin!!!! loved looking through all those pictures. I saw pictures of her playing with toys and I know I have seen images of her holding various things. Is texture in general an issue? like with toys and clothes? or just with food? Maybe an edible fork or spoon also is a way to start down the line?....... Im glad you have a great therapist working with her! Good luck with the cubes. Sounds like things are going well. How proud you must be.

Gabrielle Heather wrote:
She is such a pumpkin!!!! loved looking through all those pictures. I saw pictures of her playing with toys and I know I have seen images of her holding various things. Is texture in general an issue? like with toys and clothes? or just with food? Maybe an edible fork or spoon also is a way to start down the line?....... Im glad you have a great therapist working with her! Good luck with the cubes. Sounds like things are going well. How proud you must be.

The therapist thinks that her tongue-tie stopped her from using her tongue very much, so she was having difficulty with textured/chunky foods, which led to oral defensiveness. Once we got her to start using her tongue to probe around her mouth, her teeth, and licking stuff off her lips, she was off and running.

Caradoc wrote:
The therapist thinks that her tongue-tie stopped her from using her tongue very much, so she was having difficulty with textured/chunky foods, which led to oral defensiveness. Once we got her to start using her tongue to probe around her mouth, her teeth, and licking stuff off her lips, she was off and running.

Caradoc wrote:
If you look carefully, you can see the trail of saliva-blocked squares from where she's been licking the colander.

Caradoc wrote:
We think maybe she's going to take up fencing at some point.

I think this is an EXCELLENT thing!  Everyone should learn fencing...hehehe.

And I'm so glad there's progress! 

Ronin_LLC wrote:
I would also recommend cheerios, fruit loops, puffs, any small roundish cereals tend to get good results.

No dice. No interest in anything like Cheerios, Froot Loops, or any other small roundish cereals. She spits them out regardless of flavor. According to her therapist, that's not uncommon for orally-defensive preemies.

How many kids have you raised so far?

DivaEroticus wrote:

I think this is an EXCELLENT thing!  Everyone should learn fencing...hehehe.

And I'm so glad there's progress! 

I have no doubt that she'll be learning some fencing... of one form or another.

Caradoc wrote:

No dice. No interest in anything like Cheerios, Froot Loops, or any other small roundish cereals. She spits them out regardless of flavor. According to her therapist, that's not uncommon for orally-defensive preemies.

How many kids have you raised so far?

I am on my fourth 2 year old.

Ronin_LLC wrote:
I am on my fourth 2 year old.

Were any of them orally-defensive? Feeding difficulties? Tongue-tied, no swallowing reflex at birth?

It's been weird for me, since she's been ahead of the curve on things like walking, but well behind the curve on speech, swallowing, and pretty much anything else that requires tongue dexterity.

Caradoc wrote:
Were any of them orally-defensive? Feeding difficulties? Tongue-tied, no swallowing reflex at birth?

It's been weird for me, since she's been ahead of the curve on things like walking, but well behind the curve on speech, swallowing, and pretty much anything else that requires tongue dexterity.

The third one was, and still has problems with communication.

The real problem with prematurely born children, and this comes from my own personal experience, is with the long term effects.

When factors occur that result in premature birth or development issues, the full effects are not always apparent right away. Biology is quite the crap shoot even with out upsets like these.
This forces the body to do some creative development that is not always the standard, which may of may not be effected positively or negatively during puberty or  during the early to mid 20s.


Buckle up, its gonna be a long ride.

Ronin_LLC wrote:
Buckle up, its gonna be a long ride.

Way to be encouraging! 









/sarcasm

Ronin_LLC wrote:
The third one was, and still has problems with communication.

The real problem with prematurely born children, and this comes from my own personal experience, is with the long term effects.

When factors occur that result in premature birth or development issues, the full effects are not always apparent right away. Biology is quite the crap shoot even with out upsets like these.
This forces the body to do some creative development that is not always the standard, which may of may not be effected positively or negatively during puberty or  during the early to mid 20s.


Buckle up, its gonna be a long ride.

This is exactly why she's had the tongue-snip and is in therapy, starting at just after 14 months (the snip was over a year ago, but she still didn't want to use her tongue.)

Everything we'd read and heard from pediatricians, therapists, and other parents said the earlier we work with her, the better. But since her early experience with small foods like Cheerios, she'd only gotten more defensive. As mentioned earlier, the therapist is recommending we gradually reduce the sizes of familiar foods before we even offer the smaller cereals again.

Caradoc wrote:

I have no doubt that she'll be learning some fencing... of one form or another.

Verbal, or with a foil, or a rapier wit...or all of them, if you're lucky!  LOL.

DivaEroticus wrote:

Verbal, or with a foil, or a rapier wit...or all of them, if you're lucky!  LOL.

Long sword and buckler, or anything else is also possible. I'm not hung up on the modern definition ("Olympic" or "sport" fencing.)

She's already proven to be a crafty little one, pretending to be interested in one thing while trying to grab stuff she knows she's not supposed to have - usually at the dinner table.

Caradoc wrote:
This is exactly why she's had the tongue-snip and is in therapy, starting at just after 14 months (the snip was over a year ago, but she still didn't want to use her tongue.)

Everything we'd read and heard from pediatricians, therapists, and other parents said the earlier we work with her, the better. But since her early experience with small foods like Cheerios, she'd only gotten more defensive. As mentioned earlier, the therapist is recommending we gradually reduce the sizes of familiar foods before we even offer the smaller cereals again.

invest in a set of good knives and start craving

she is doll, I swear I could dice a roasted beef in fries chunks just for her

scrymettet wrote:
invest in a set of good knives and start craving

she is doll, I swear I could dice a roasted beef in fries chunks just for her

One thing our kitchen does not lack is sharp knives. My wife typically does the desserts, baking, and what I've taken to calling "chemistry for hungry people." Meats and keeping the knives sharp fall under my duties in there.

Caradoc wrote:

Long sword and buckler, or anything else is also possible. I'm not hung up on the modern definition ("Olympic" or "sport" fencing.)

She's already proven to be a crafty little one, pretending to be interested in one thing while trying to grab stuff she knows she's not supposed to have - usually at the dinner table.

No, a long sword or buckler is fine...LOL.  I'm just in love with the more delicate blades.  Plus, it was more punny. 

And as long as she's grabbing food, eh?

DivaEroticus wrote:
And as long as she's grabbing food, eh?

'Struth. She just picked up one of her flash cards and brought it to me: "Papa." We made a custom set of 4x6 cards of her toys and things, and my picture's on that one.

Sarah Robinson-Bird wrote:
Does there exist such a thing as edible cocktail sticks? So you could spear several roundish things together so it's in her favoured stick format? It was a sudden and probably very stupid thought but it could help

grilled spaghetti

Caradoc wrote:
If you look carefully, you can see the trail of saliva-blocked squares from where she's been licking the colander.

Does that count as another shape that she'll eat? 

Caradoc wrote:
Update: Second birthday today. She ate cake. With her fingers. This is huge.

She hasn't wanted to eat anything "messy" with her fingers yet. She's been going after pineapple chunks and split grapes, but only when they're not too juicy.

Today she got frosting on her fingers (she's still "dainty" when handling food) and licked it off.

Woohoo.

(And this is what she looks like today...)

Happy Birthday to her!!!!!!!!!!!! Woo hoo about the frosting! It seems like you guys are doing a great job of working with her on things. This is going to make her life in later years WAY less difficult, AND yours as well. It is great to work on things as best as you can when the child is young. You guys are happy I am sure with the progress. She is also still a beauty.

Sarah Robinson-Bird wrote:
Does there exist such a thing as edible cocktail sticks? So you could spear several roundish things together so it's in her favoured stick format? It was a sudden and probably very stupid thought but it could help

This is a cool idea.  Maybe pretzels stuck through soft food cubes, so they'd be in "stick form" and easy to grab?

Congrats on her making so much progress- she lucked out on the parent lottery, and is absolutely gorgeous.

ArtisticPhotography wrote:
I'm glad they didn't have Smashfries around when my kids were little. I'd go broke and they'd each weight 600 lbs. Regular fries are bad enough.

Good luck with everything. She's a cutie (and that's not necessarily a good thing).

She only gets SmashFries as a special treat any more.

I'm not really worried about her as far as the "cute" goes. By the time she's ten, she'll probably know every dirty trick I know for CQB, and that's... not a small feat. I fully expect at least biannual calls from the principal over that.

(I was a "model mugger" for a summer - and she'll learn everything I know about that...)