I love Cereal!

We have had such a difficult time getting Celeste to gain weight I wasn't expecting to start cereal at 4 and a half months.  Dr. Bradford recommended we try cereal before we met with Pat on the 21st of September.  We tried it twice and the first night Celeste didn't care for it, but by the second time she was loving it.

At our therapy appointment Pat highly encouraged us to do cereal.  I have to follow certain techniques to feed Celeste in order to improve her feeding skills.  I have to push down on Celeste's tongue blade until her lips come down around the spoon.  This encourages Celeste to use her tongue to move the food to the back of her mouth and swallow.  I find this helps reduce the amount of cereal she spits out.  If I don't wait for her to put her lips down all the cereal will come shooting back out.

I also have to occasionally put food on the side of her cheeks to encourage tongue lateralization.  Celeste can't move her tongue side to side and will have a very difficult time eating if we don't get her to move her tongue side to side.  

Putting food on her cheeks will also encourage better cheek movement.  Her cheeks are still really tight and I have to rub the outside and inside of her cheeks on a daily basis.  

She is still not great at drinking out of her bottle.  She is still really sloppy and has to burp at least once during a bottle.  She doesn't have the suck-swallow-breath sequence down.  I am not sure we will ever get that down.  

I am so grateful for my knowledge I received in college.  I am so grateful I know what a good eater looks like and more importantly what a bad eater looks like.  I don't mean "good eater" meaning someone who likes to eat everything.  I am defining a good eater as someone who knows how to eat.  I wish I could have helped Celeste by myself and not needed to go to therapy, but I have learned so much from Pat. 

Celeste is getting better at eating and loving being up at the table with us.