This video shows progress, believe it or not. This is Ana eating some carrots after she polished off her lunch. You can see her throwing herself in her chair and making as much noise as she can muster with a mouth full of carrot. I know it may sort of sound like it, but she is not crying. Every meal and every snack-time is an adventure of sorts. Each encounter with food is an emotional experience for her. I think people hear me talk about it and they think I am exaggerating. I'm not. I have countless videos of Ana screaming (happily) for food, crying for food, and doing whatever you want to call this thing below.
When she got home Ana could not handle being near the kitchen without crumbling in hysterics. She still heads for her favorite room in the house more often than not, but she can be in there without being hysterical, she can wait patiently for me to prepare a meal (most days), she doesn't cry when the food is gone, and she signs "more," "please," and "thank you" all in the proper order for her food. Today, for the first time, she put two signs together and did them unprompted. She signed, "water please". I still cannot put a plate of food in front of her because she will choke herself by shoveling it all in. She has learned to use a fork, which I thought would slow her down. Nope. Occasionally she has a hard time using the right amount of pressure to get the food on the fork. In that case she tries to sneak and use her hand. As soon as I catch her and tell her no, she does an angry growl at me (hysterical, by the way), but then she musters all of her determination to get that food into her mouth and is usually successful.
Meal times take a lot out of me. It is hard to watch Ana get so consumed by her desire for food, not to mention keep her from nearly lunging out of her chair to reach across the table and quick as lightning snag some food from someone else's plate, and getting the 200+ things my kids seem to "need" at meal times.
Mommy's tired!!!
When she got home Ana could not handle being near the kitchen without crumbling in hysterics. She still heads for her favorite room in the house more often than not, but she can be in there without being hysterical, she can wait patiently for me to prepare a meal (most days), she doesn't cry when the food is gone, and she signs "more," "please," and "thank you" all in the proper order for her food. Today, for the first time, she put two signs together and did them unprompted. She signed, "water please". I still cannot put a plate of food in front of her because she will choke herself by shoveling it all in. She has learned to use a fork, which I thought would slow her down. Nope. Occasionally she has a hard time using the right amount of pressure to get the food on the fork. In that case she tries to sneak and use her hand. As soon as I catch her and tell her no, she does an angry growl at me (hysterical, by the way), but then she musters all of her determination to get that food into her mouth and is usually successful.
Meal times take a lot out of me. It is hard to watch Ana get so consumed by her desire for food, not to mention keep her from nearly lunging out of her chair to reach across the table and quick as lightning snag some food from someone else's plate, and getting the 200+ things my kids seem to "need" at meal times.
Mommy's tired!!!
2 comments:
Sofia is the EXACT SAME WAY...so I tried a new approach and although she stuffs her face I just place unlimited amounts of food in front of her and let her go to town...I've done this for about a week and I'm not kidding the behavior has gone away almost entirely. I think she needed to know that there was food...and lots of it...available to her and in her control. Now she can eat more reasonable and without such desperation. If she goes too long between meals she still gets over excited about the food but it's not the craziness that we had before. Have you tried this? And yes, she did choke/gag many times but again I just watched closely and helped her out if needed...but then again it was all pretty safe food. I'm SUPER impressed that Ana is eating raw carrots. Joaquin my 3 year old won't even eat those!!!!! SO great!
Jen,
Ana has never turned any food down! Does not matter what it is. She eats foods that no other child will eat (all raw veggies - celery, spinach, carrots, peppers, all of it!). We recently had a long conversation on our AL RR FB group about the approach you are talking about. Lots have tried it, some with success and some without. Some think it's an orphanage behavior and some think it is a Ds thing. To be honest, I'm just scared to try it. Not for fear of choking, but for fear that Ana will actually regress. I know we need to check her thyroid (she has all the symptoms of hypothyroidism). I worry about her weight, because I want her to be healthy. And I worry that the fits will get worse and the attachment to food will be more than it is (has happened to people). She really has made progress. And she seems to do well with proper portion sizes now. She is just very attached to food.
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