Blog Talk Tuesday: Straw Drinking

This might be the best thing we've ever done with Will. Early on, when we knew he had passed his swallow study (11 months), we also knew that he had little desire left to suck, and was getting too old for a bottle anyway. Especially if we were going to have to retrain him.

A therapist suggested a straw, rather than a sippy cup since she felt as though it worked more of the muscles. We started with this:

and continued on with this:

and he is still drinking from it today, at age 4. The method involved squeezing the honey bear (and later, the rubbermaid cup) until he began to get it. We squeezed the cups less and less until finally, he was drinking from a straw on his own. We also used the method where we put our finger over the end of a straw with a tiny bit of liquid...we started with this before trying a cup actually.

Along the way we used thick liquids to build up his endurance and now, he is able to drink anything from a straw. This has come in handy because pretty much anywhere you go has straws, and it looks age appropriate. I'm pretty sure if we had started him on a sippy, we'd still be stuck on the sippy.

The cups were stuck on my mind tonight as I ran out to get more from the store. ;)

What's been on your mind lately? Anything new and exciting with your kiddos? Any ideas to share?

***Edited Note: I am having trouble with Mr. Linky today and have been working to try and fix it. It worked when I published this post last night...but it turns out that Mr. Linky is having system overload, so it is not working today. Thanks for being patient and sorry for the inconvenience!

WFMW: The Magic Bullet

Now, before you start giggling (You know who you are!), this is something we bought to puree foods for Will. For those who don't my four year old, he had a feeding tube placed shortly after birth due to aspiration. Just before turning a year old, he cleared his testing and was able to begin eating. Except that getting a one year old to eat who has never eaten a meal in his life is not so simple.

Anyway, a couple of years and many therapy visits later, Will was eating, but needed food pureed. I could never get things to puree smoothly in my blender or a food processor without adding TONS of liquid, which diluted our calorie content - a big issue for us.

Until we found the Magic Bullet. It will puree anything to a stage 2 consistency. And yes, even things like pizza and hot dogs. (I know. Blech.) I wish I had this little gadget when I was making baby food for my six year old. Oh how much easier that would have been!

It worked for me!

Adaptable utensils go mainstream!

Have you seen these? They are made by Boon and are sold at Target or Amazon.com.

The coolest part is...they bend! Special needs catalogs have been selling angled utensils for a while now, usually at a hefty price or with shipping added. These run about $5-6 at Target. Will has mastered eating with utensils, for the most part, but I bought Norah some. She loved them and they worked great!