Nom Noms

Gracie is doing amazing! 

She is meeting her milestones like a champ and blossoming every day. 

We have started, with the help of our fabulous feeding therapist, Jess, introducing Gracie to purees. 

This was not a quick jump by any means. Jess has been working with Gracie on her tongue placement and movement way before we even showed her a spoon. 

We are very lucky that Gracie doesn't show any signs of oral aversion. It is not uncommon that kids with trachs and/or oral surgeries can have some level of aversion.  Children with oral aversion strongly dislike, or are afraid of anything touching their mouths. This can lead to refusal of eating, drinking and even an increased gag reflex. 

Gracie on the other hand loves to eat. She always had and I'm so happy she hadn't lost that.

One if my hopes when we came to Blythedale was to work on Gracie's oral motor skills to hopefully go back to feeding at breast.  We tried a few times, mostly non nutritive as we didn't know if Gracie could swallow or her risk of aspiration. 

Gracie could not latch.

She sometimes enjoyed being at breast  and we never made it stressful on either of us,  but the older she got the harder it was to find feeding positions that would not frustrate her terrible latch and would keep her attention.

We made the decision to move on to purees. It was another chapter I had to come to terms with as not fully experiencing being a nicu mama, but in the end I'll always do what is best for her. 

And she loves it! 

We've introduced spoons, open cups and even straws!! 

She loves being in charge of her eating and holding her own spoon. She loves having tastes through her cup and opens wide when she sees it coming. Her face lights up!

We have been taking it very slow when it comes to quantity, but I am so incredibly proud of her and can't wait until the day she asks for bites of our food!