Nathan's big boy chair

Earlier this week I met with Nathan's OT and Speech therapist to discuss what we should be doing to create a positive feeding experience. There's just so much involved around eating. Eating requires a lot of coordination and the use of all your senses. I never actually stopped to think about all the steps one has to take to get to swallowing. Nathan's therapist referred me to a great site called popsicle. This site raises awareness that feeding issues are a medically compromising problem that affects many families daily.

This said, it will be a long, long, long time before Nathan eats....I think I'm just starting to come to terms with that. The therapist have told me it could be four years or more... (sigh) Bottom line is that eating is a learned behavior and he must learn all over again. So here we are...

We have a new big boy chair, so that Nathan can be with us at the table during mealtimes (Bye bye high chair). The simple move from a high chair to this new feeding chair has been challenging for Nathan. He doesn't like it all that much. He cries and I must be within sight for him to be sort of okay with it and he still doesn't want to be in it. So we have moved to a reward program. If he sits in his feeding chair at the table, he can then play with the laptop (one of his favorite things to do) The laptop works the best but we do try with other toys and books. I usually give him a bolus feed while he sits in his chair so that he can associate a positive feeling of fullness when he sits in his chair. The goal is to have him sitting at the table with us, hearing us talk about food, smelling food and touching and experimenting and eventually trying to eat as we do by showing him how we eat.

Playing his favorite website game

with some help from his older sister

I love his new chair. It's a great way for him to be at the table with us participating in mealtime. Alyssa loves it too! She's always asking to sit in it! Doesn't Nathan look so grown up sitting there?