Feeding News

Theres been quite alot going on in the feeding department with Ryan lately. After being in Canada and seeing little Ava picking up her chicken bites with her little fingers I decided we need to get more serious about Ryans feeding milestones. We have pincer grasp as one of his goals for his new IFSP but the OT he sees doesn't seem to want to work on that as shes more focussed on GM, so I guess its all up to us at this point, Oh and the Developmental Teacher who does a little bit of everything.

We have progressed from the munchkin sippy to the harder Playtex sippy and hes doing just as well with the harder spout and double valve so his suck must be getting stronger. When we first started the sippy cup he wasn't strong enough for the double valve so the munchkin cup was perfect but now hes eating through all the tops so I felt it was time to go to the Playtex sippy.

Hes really really trying to pick up the cheerios on his tray with his little thumb and forefinger. It must be very frustrating for him as he chases them around the tray like you can see in this video. But this progression is HUGE for him, a few weeks ago he wasn't even interested in looking at the Cheerios on the tray, would just pick up the crackers. We still need to work on eating the cracker, he will take a few bites and then isn't interested.

Stacey the DT advised us to try him with a straw cup so we are trying the honey bear cup with straw. This should help him strengthen his mouth and tongue muscles for talking. Hes doing pretty well and can suck some liquid up the straw if so inclined, its the "so inclined" part we're working on.

And finally I am starting to transition him off formula. For a few reasons. Firstly hes 1 and should really be on regular milk, I was holding off on this as he was only in the 10% weight bracket and still on alot of baby foods so I thought he needed the added vitamins from the formula but now hes eating more and more table food and getting abit chunkier Im trying to move him onto milk gradually. I started with replacing his soy formula with soy milk (which he LOVES) but as I dont want him on too much soy because of the hormone problems it can pose in boys Ive been slowly introducing the regular full fat milk as well. Of course I will be keeping an eye out for any changes in tone with this addition of milk back into his diet (his tone seemed to improved when I went from regular formula to soy / nutramigen mix). And last but not least eliminating formula will most definitely help my pocket.