Work on Fine Motor Skills
Greetings to everyone.
Today, Xavier took another meeting with his OT, Miss Katie. Rebecca and I have been asking why we need the OT, since she comes and writes down what she observes and what we tell her, but doesn't offer any direction different from Miss Robin, Xavier's speech therapist. Katie agreed, so now we have a new direction.
Xavier is significantly ahead in his gross motor skill development when compared to a term baby his age. However, his fine motor skill development is behind, even for his adjusted age. Katie is going to focus on developing his fine motor skills. He now has some six-month goals, which we will begin work on in his next session.
Miss Robin will push forward with Xavier's eating skills, which he is greatly improving on. Shortly, Robin thinks, she can begin working to catch Xavier up on his speech.
It does appear the light ahead is, in fact, the end of this eating-problem tunnel. Thank You, Jesus!
Stepping Up the Eating!
Greetings to everyone.
Over this past weekend, Xavier has upped his eating game as well as upping some other of his physical and motor skills. This happens from time to time, and Rebecca and I find it fascinating. It's like a switch is flipped, then poof! A new level is achieved.
Last week, Rebecca hunted YouTube for videos of babies feeding themselves. At first, she tried playing the video (on the iPad) while Xavier ate. This proved fruitless as far as him eating was concerned. He pushed off all food so he could watch the video (he really gets entranced with them). Robin, his speech therapist, told us letting him watch videos while at the table may create undesired behaviors and actually work against the progress made so far. So, she made a suggestion of having Xavier watch the videos while not at the table.
Rebecca came up with a compromise. Now, she sets Xavier in his highchair and plays a video, perhaps "Ian the Unstoppable" or "Andre Eating Cereal," while she prepares breakfast. This is genius. Xavier sits glued to the iPad and becomes unaware of the passage of time he sits in the highchair; his "clock" is off while the videos run. He is not eating during this time either as the food is still being prepped and plated.
When ready, Rebecca removes the iPad and videos and sets up for the tasks of working with Xavier on his eating of solid food skills. This has paid off nicely!
Xavier has started feeding himself with a spoon, and he is taking food from a spoon (or from his tray), chewing it and getting it back in his mouth far enough to swallow. This just began this past weekend. Also this past weekend, his intake from the bottle has shot up, going from 2.5 and 3 ounces per sitting to 4 and 5 per sitting! Glory to God!
At his therapy session this morning, Robin was amazed and excited with his progress, especially since he regressed significantly in last week's session. Though he still holds it upside down, Xavier shovels spoons of food into his mouth, placing the spoon far enough back to swallow the food. The upside-down quirk limits his success to sticky foods like his favored vanilla pudding; it's a little messy when he tries "age appropriate food textures."
Robin also thinks Xavier has low sensitivity around his mouth; quite the opposite we have been thinking and told these past months. If true, it definitely explains why he likes spicier, more solid foods: these remind him he has food in his mouth or clinging to his chin.
As a bonus, Robin weighed Xavier today. Their children's scale finally got repaired. He weighed in at 15.1 pounds! Woo-hoo! Yes, that is clothed, so a few ounces go to his clothing, but he is close to 15 pounds, up nearly three quarters of a pound in three weeks! That's a big change from the past few months.
We also learned from Robin that Dr. Abbey calls her to check on Xavier's progress every couple of weeks. She is quite impressed, telling us "Pediatricians never call or follow up like this." I think this tells us we chose well when selecting a pediatrician for Xavier.
Of course, with such great news and feeding statistics trending favorably, Xavier had to change the rules. He always does. Later in the day he began showing signs of his mouth bothering him. He is either cutting another tooth (he as six now, four up and two down) or his teeth are shifting a bit. Historically, this means his eating will be off for a while. Personally, though I am excited for the progress, I find these trend-stopping events annoying. It's like stop-n-go traffic!
Thank you all for your prayer over these past few months. They are certainly producing fruit.
Speech Therapy
Greetings to all.
Xavier met with his speech therapist, Miss Robin today. This was Xavier's fourth visit. She was ecstatic with his progress!
As in the previous sessions, she asked us, the parents, how things are going? are we feeding Xavier in his high chair? what types of foods is he eating? is he taking purees yet? The whole battery of questions (always with a heavy focus on purees. I swear; I don't know how the Human race made it this far without the Magic Bullet). After that, we fitted Xavier with his full-body bib and let him model it for Miss Robin, who has wanted to see these in action since we told her about them. We then set Xavier into the evaluation chair clamped to the evaluation table (a small, round table about one foot high)
Starting with dry foods like a cheese puff and some yogurt drops, Miss Robin worked up to Xavier's favorite: vanilla pudding (from a snack pack lunch size). She was able to feed Xavier most of the pack with a spoon. Xavier swallowed about a quarter of the pack. What he lost, he lost because the spoonful fed into his mouth had too much on it, or the spoon did not get far enough back in the mouth.
Eating a quarter of a snack pack of vanilla pudding fed by a spoon is awesome! Miss Robin has not been able to get in touch with Dr. Abbey (they've been playing phone tag). I made the comment "It's a good thing you haven't got hold of Dr. Abbey until this." Miss Robin expected to leave a glowing report for Dr. Abbey on Xavier's progress.
We still have some work with the spoon feeding, but Xavier not once pushed the spoon away or gave the clam mouth, or guarded his face. When Xavier was finished, he made it clear he was done eating and wanted his bottle. This is great progress!
That's about it. I thought today's meeting was blog-worthy. Thank you for your prayers; I've just described another one of the answers! Great is our God!