Conquering Oral Aversions

May 4, 2017 attachment activities, cleft lip, cleft palate, feeding/swallowing therapy, March 2017 Feature - Feeding Challenges, oral aversion, oral-motor delays, refusing food, Sensory Processing Issues, speech therapy 0 Comments

Originally posted on Under the Sycamore

When we arrived in China (almost 5 years ago), I thought she would try new foods pretty quickly. She didn’t.

I thought once she was settled in at home, she’d be ready. She wasn’t.

After several months of no progress, I joked that I was sure she’d eat a hamburger by the time she was 16.

And then years passed. Smoothies and mashed food for nearly 4 years. I stopped joking she would eat pizza one day and came to terms that it was just fine if she never did.

And then things changed. In some ways I look over at her now – eating a turkey sandwich – and I think, “Wow, all the sudden she is eating food with us!”



The thing is – she isn’t all the sudden eating with us. It has been years of therapy. Years of getting my hands on anything and everything related to oral aversions. It has been years of second guessing ourselves and wondering when to push and when to back off. She didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to eat a turkey sandwich – it was a long process.

I know there are other parents out there wrestling with similar issues and they are searching for any help. Any answers. Today, I want to share a few tidbits that helped us..hopefully it will help someone else – someone, who like me stays up late scouring the internet for ways to help her child.



1. Progress was slow. A counselor, who works with kids who have gone through trauma, told us early on that often when a child is making progress in one area, that child will seem to stop making progress or even take steps back in another area. This has been so true for our girl. She made HUGE leaps forward related to physical development soon after coming home. Next, she made some steps forward related to eating. Then eating progress seemed to revert as she tackled speech.

Over the last three years, she has made mind blowing progress related to communication. It seemed like as soon as she was right where she needed to be with communication, she was able to start making big strides forward with eating. In the moment, I often did not recognize the different areas where she was making progress. It is much easier to see the big picture of it all now.



2. Progression. The progression that worked best for her was:

  • Getting comfortable looking at food
  • Being okay with food just on a plate in front of her
  • Touching the food on her plate with a spoon
  • Touching the food on her plate with her hands
  • Touching the food to her lips
  • Placing the food in her mouth and then spitting it out
  • Chewing the food, then spitting it out
  • Chewing and swallowing the food
  • Once she was comfortable chewing and swallowing, each day we had her try one bite of something new.
  • Once she could take one new bite a day, we kept increasing the amount until she could eat a meal with us.

I would say each phase took several months. A couple of the phases took an entire year.



3. Never ‘forcing’ her to eat or try things. I lost count of how many people suggested she was just being stubborn and we were being too easy. Unless you are in the field of oral aversions and childhood trauma (as a parent, counselor, therapist, doctor), I don’t think you can truly understand how traumatic eating can be for a child with very deep fears.

It is easy to pass judgment and a lot harder to sit down and really listen to a parent who is walking through difficult stuff with a kid. My girl could only drink smoothies from a special bottle for a few years. I got all kinds of not-so-nice looks from other adults, who saw her drinking from a bottle. Enter Taylor Swift and a constant Shake It Off in my head.



4. We tried a few different methods and read several books, but none were a deciding factor of change. A few that we gleaned wisdom from were Love Me, Feed Me, The Connected Child, Chewy Tubes (these did help her build jaw strength, we tried the Jaw Rehabilitation Program – great suggestion by her speech therapist).

All in all – it took time. It took patience. It took being very intentional and not just giving up. She still struggles. She still doesn’t like to try new food. It still takes patience, being intentional and not giving up. However, she has come incredibly far. I am so proud of her. She is pretty proud of herself too. And she should be!



For more posts related to her food journey, visit my Instagram hashtag #mylittlefoodwarrior

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4.14fam-8

In the midst of raising five young kids, who create wonderful (but messy) chaos, Ashley Campbell uses photography as a tool to delight in the seemingly not so glamorous moments of life. On her blog Under the Sycamore, and through her SnapShops photography workshops, she hopes to help others find and celebrate the marvelous in the mundane.

The Campbells spend the majority of their days on a couple acres in Oklahoma where their roots run deep. You can also find her on Instagram here.



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