Drinking!

Today at e-stim therapy at CHOC, Natalie had a new breakthrough. She drank unthickened Pediasure from a sippy cup. In the past, she has taken thickened liquids, but this is the first time with unthickened. Sarah, her therapist, tried to get her to take it with the valve, but Natalie still doesn't suck the liquid out of the sippy cup, so she gets it without the valve.

In case you didn't know, we found out when she was about 4 months old that Natalie aspirates during feeds, so she's taken all her food by a stomach tube since then. In September, she started swallowing therapy to teach her to swallow without aspirating food into her lungs. We were on a waiting list for several months, so in the meantime she completely forgot how to eat by mouth, so we had to teach her that again. She's been doing the therapy for a little over 3 months and has made great progress, although every time she gets sick, she will take very little by mouth. Before she got sick in December, she was taking about 3 ounces of pureed baby food every therapy session while on the e-stim, and I was giving her about 2 ounces of food at home without the e-stim. We were planning to work up to 1 meal a day by mouth, and then she got sick. This week she is finally up and running at 100%, so I'm anxious to work with her on that one full meal a day by mouth. It's a very slow process, but we hope that working with her at this young age will be easier than waiting until she's 3-5 years old and outgrows the aspiration, and then try to teach her to eat by mouth.