Bites

We have bites! 

Ellie has been attending feeding therapy for a few weeks now. Her desire to please 'Ms. Blair' has been big, and we are using it to our advantage.  

Starting with cutting and stirring, we have moved on to playing with food, and trying to actually touch things that are not dry.  We have had small successes with a bite of sour cream, some bites of muffins, and big time bribery with an occasional Funky Monkey.  She is not ready for freeze dried food, or fruit, so we use this sparingly. It took one package spread out over many days to get her moving on to bites of other things. For Ellie she needed evidence that she would not choke before she would buy into taking bites.  

Her healing still holds many components, but overall she will not progress until she starts chewing. Her lip tie is making things a bit harder, but not impossible. She has shown that when she is motivated, she will give it some good effort. I am not sure if she will have to be directly taught how to chew and swallow, or if it will just take practice and time. Either way, we plug forward, and I try to remind myself that she will not be heading off to college on a bottle!