Feeding My Child

I am getting very tired of feeding Stella the same ol shit every day.

Her favourite food colour seems to be yellow, or white.  You know, popcorn, cheese, yogurt, bread. frozen corn, frozen peas (oh wait, ONE green item), crackers, granola bars...

Notice what is not on there?

Fruit, veggies.

The only way I can get fruit and veggies into her is to give her baby food!  I try, Oh I try!

Steamed carrots?
Those end up thrown on the floor (immediately).

Steamed broccoli?
She ate that once. I was sooo excited!  The next night I gave them to her.... and they ended up on the floor.

Steamed potatoes, sweet potato.
Yup, all on the floor.

 She is a very choosy eater, and I am getting very frustrated and worried that she is not getting enough of the healthy, good nutrients that her body needs.  I know that kids with Down Syndrome have low tone..... everywhere, which means that eating can be affected also.  But at what point does this change?

I know that eating, and talking require fine motor skills.  So I contacted CHADS (Children's Health and Development) to ask about getting in a speech pathologist.  I was told someone would call and make an appointment to come over and assess her. I have yet to hear from anyone.  So I am going private.

Why did I wait so long to start her on speech therapy? Good question.

Here in Alberta, Canada, a lot of  services for children with special needs is provided through the government.  It is nice to have this option and to not have to worry about having the money to pay for such services. I mean, we DO pay, via paying taxes, but we don't have to pay UP FRONT to get the extra services that we need.  That being said, I feel these extra services are very basic and sometimes NOT helpful at all.  But perhaps I will save that rant for another post.

So speech isn't really offered until preschool.  I feel that I should have been on this sooner and pushed for speech therapy at 1 years old or something!  I mean there are babies with DS out there getting speech therapy!!

Which is why we are deciding to go private with speech therapy. I want to give Stella a little bit of a head start before she starts preschool in September.  Plus speech therapy will help her with her eating skills as well.  It's all connected.

On the positive side, Stella will now eat a grilled cheese sandwich when it is cut in strips!! You see, before it had to be cut in pieces or else she would throw it on the floor.  But now, now she'll eat it in strips! Oh and snow peas (another green veggie), she'll take a few bites!!  We are making progress!