To Eat or Not to Eat?

     Well Josiah stopped attempting to eat out of a haberman feeder after his lanthem device surgery. A haberman feeder is a special bottle designed for babies with eating problems such as a cleft lip. It has a long nipple. If your baby doesn't have a palate or Josiah's case a partial palate, you need the lip nipple to hit further back so they can suck. You can also get something for your breast, if you're breast feeding (Josiah wasn't physically able to).

Haberman Feeder

     After his surgeries we really wanted to work towards getting him to fully eat orally,, so we can get the feeding tube removed. Unfortunately he still has major problems with gagging and choking, especially with liquids. Here are some of the devices we used to try and get him to drink .

 They didn't work so well. :(

     Josiah's therapist gave us the juice box to work with. After giving it a try, she decided it was best to get a swallow test done with his feeding specialist! *wink* He choked his way through a few swallows. Which we had to squeeze it up, since he can't suck.

     The specialist from the plastic surgeons office said she has only known one other child (and people come from all over the country to see this surgeon, he is one of the best. We are blessed to have him do the surgeries) to have this problem and suggested the Tilty cup, which worked for this other family. We didn't even bother and I'm glad, because I now know it wouldn't have worked.

     Praise the Lord, for Judy, out feeding specialist! She came over right after Christmas to observe him eating and immediately said, yup somethings wrong and scheduled a swallow study. Once again, Praise God! There was a cancellation and we got to have the study done at the beginning of Feb instead of March. It almost got canceled, since it was during a blizzard! *smile* But we got in and out safely and before everyone was snowed in.

     Judy, Marge (nutritionist), an intern, and Melissa (therapist) came over last week and we watched the video. (For the swallow test I had to feed him different consistencies of food and liquid while the x-ray machine basically took a video.) I will share with you later the findings, what it means, and am working on getting a copy of the video to share. I do have to say that God is merciful! Josiah really enjoys trying to eat and wants to eat. Which is HUGE, I mean HUGE! Everyone kept commenting how blessed we are with that and that already gives us a "heads start" compared to other children. We just have to be careful not to push him and turn him off from enjoying food. *smile*

     Anyway...most will probably find this boring, but I want to share our struggles, problems, journey and new knowledge in case there are more mamas out there in the "same boat." *smile*

Have you had similar issues or know of anyone who has?

For His Glory,