Feeding Therapy going Home Style

Allie continues to have feeding therapy twice a week for an hour each time.  Her therapy is going well and Allie is actually eating.  Today I took the easy way out and took Happy Meals for eating therapy.  Allie chose a cheese hamburger, french fries and chocolate milk.  She ate well during therapy today and consumed 2/3 of her cheeseburger, 2 fries with ketchup and 1/2 of her chocolate milk.  That's a huge meal for little miss Allie.  We figured she consumed a little over 200 calories or so. 

Allie continues to eat well at therapy but refuses to eat much at home.  She does eat some meals but other times, I cannot even get her to the table to sit with us.  I'm getting more and more frustrated with her eating habits because I know she can eat she is just being stubborn and choosing not to eat.  She's very comfortable getting tube feedings and most of the time just asks for a tube feeding. 

She has created an eating pattern at therapy where she sits well for 10-15 minutes and eats but after that, she is done eating.  During those 10-15 minutes, Allie is not able to consume enough food to call it a meal.  She chews & swallows real slow.  Also she starts pocketing food after 15 minutes of eating.  It seems like the longer we make her sit at the table and eat, the worse her eating habits are for the rest of the time.  15 minutes in the chair is about Allie's max, however since her eating is so slow, she needs to sit for longer to consume a good amount of calories.  Our therapist is thinking that Allie is getting full very quickly and that is why she doesn't eat much.  She noticed that Allie will try all and any foods and take a couple bites but after that, she doesn't want to eat.  That is how it's been since Allie was born.  She has always tried foods but never ate more than a couple bites.

Anyway, getting Allie to eat is proving to be a challenge for me.  I just cannot get her to eat at home much at all.  Don't get me wrong, there are times when Allie will eat pretty well but there are more times than not that she simply refuses to eat at all. 

So, our therapist has agreed to come to the house for a home feeding session.  She will be coming tomorrow at 11:30 to observe and help me feed Allie.  This is great because this is truly what I believe we need.  Of course our therapist has never done "in-home" feeding and our insurance doesn't cover it but she's going to bill it as a "clinic session".  I would eventually like her to come to the house for all feeding sessions but I'm not sure if that will ever be possible.  This is a good start though and I'm very excited about it.  Having someone come to the house to feed Allie will allow them to fully understand what we are dealing with day in and day out.  This isn't a controlled environment - this is going to be real life with real distractions.  Tomorrow's lunch will be interesting :)

I'm anxious for tomorrow's in-home feeding session - I'll let you know how it goes!

Silly Allie

Chloe showing off her necklace

web counter