Dougie went for his feeding evaluation today. It went really well!! "Really well" being defined as poorly enough that they are going to start him on therapy. This is a huge step in the right direction!
So, basically Dougie has what is called a "pediatric feeding disorder." The therapist believes that it was caused by the reflux he had previously. It's pretty common in kids who have or had bad reflux.
A feeding disorder is characterized by difficulties with eating or drinking that affect weight or nutrition. This problem may include food or fluid refusal or selectivity. Some children may be dependent on tube feedings to grow. A feeding disorder may be accompanied by behavior problems during mealtime (e.g., tantrums). Some children also may have skill deficits such as an inability to chew or swallow foods. Finally, medical problems such as vomiting also may play a role in the feeding disorder.
Children may have feeding difficulties as a result of a complex interaction between a number of factors. For example, medical problems such as reflux may cause eating to be painful. Early experiences with pain during eating cause the child to stop eating and develop behavior problems (e.g., crying), which make it difficult if not impossible for the parent to feed the child. Even after the medical problems are resolved, some children continue to refuse to eat. If the child frequently avoids eating, he or she may fail to develop the appropriate oral motor skills (e.g., chewing and swallowing) to be a successful eater. Other children may have peculiar feeding patterns (e.g., only eating a limited number of foods), which could compromise their health or socialization.
So, now that we've established what's wrong, we have a plan to fix it. Basically, it involves a more intense feeding routine with a reward system when he eats bites of new foods (his rewards is bubbles). It looks like we'll end up going to feeding therapy twice a week for a month or two and then dial it down to once a week. We just need to get approval from the insurance company and then we can start. Hopefully, that will happen soon. In the meantime, we're going to start with the bubbles and some new foods. The therapist was kind enough to give us an instruction sheet so we wouldn't have to just wait around. She tried the method on Dougie during the evaluation and he actually took some yogurt off a spoon. He never does that! We're feeling very excited about the prospect of finally getting this behind us.
And, because Scott says that posts without pictures are boring, here's a shot of Dougie from earlier this week:
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