Working on eating in the high chair

Jac's Occupational Therapist (OT) has really been pushing me to help Jac learn to eat - and I am finally listening. I have to admit that for quite a while now I have been convinced that Jac would learn to eat just as he has learned so many other things - with a little extra time. Rolling over took a long but then one day it just clicked - and I had been hoping that eating would be the same thing - that it would just click. But that does not seem to be happening.

So, it is time to start buckling down and doing the hard work that it is going to take to get Jac to eat. His OT has emphasized that he needs to start eating in his high chair so that he learns to associate a particular place with food. This is so that he does not become a wandering eater, or a grazer. He needs to sit down and eat. So we have started this week with the high chair. The longest he has managed to stay happy in the chair is about 10 minutes while we give him various very pureed and smooth things to eat. But 10 minutes is 10 minutes longer than before we started doing the chair so it feels like huge progress.

He has taken Strawberry and Banana baby food and Peach baby food. He has also taken more Okayu. He has done all of this without gagging. When we first put him in the chair we give him lemonade. He really likes it and it seems to help him get ready to eat. We feed him all of these things with a Nuk brush. This is a tooth brush but also a good way to feed. I use two of the Nuk's when I am feeding him so that he can play with one while I use one to get food.

So far so good. We bought some more different juices today to see if he likes them. Tonight at dinner Joseph gave him the tough ends of a couple of french fries to try. He has started to bite things which is a great sign I think - but also means we have to be rally careful that he doesn't bite off pieces of things as he doesn't know how to swallow them yet and will gag and throw up.

If he starts to gag when he is eating something that shouldn't gag him we are supposed to try to distract him out of gagging. When we are at therapy I saw this work when he started to gag and I was sure he was going to throw up.