Oral Motor/food Texture Issues.

Has your ped ever mentioned a "swallow study?" I would ask about that. My son had a swallow study done at 1 month because he was aspirating. They had me thicken his food (breast milk or formula). He's now 7 and out grew that, but it could have been BIG PROBLEM. Ask your doctor for a swallow study.

Also, yes Occupational Therapy can help him if this is truly a texture problem.

Another question for you, do you feed him baby food, table food, a combination of both? Both of my boys are quite independent (I can do it myself) and did not at all like me feeding them. By the time they were 9 or 10 months, they were eating cut up table food with their fingers.

Talk to your doctor and INSIST on a swallow study and OT!

My friend is any OT and works for EI ( Early Intervention)
and handles a lot of food texture issues.

I don't know if you have that out by you but it might be worth a try. It is funded by the state so you don't have to go through insurance.

She was just explaining to me about helping a child with an aversion to noodles. She would place them in plastic bags ( to hold noodles without touching them), colored then his favorite colors, and (success) he just plucked a marshmallow (his favorite goody) out of a pile of noodles!

I say to contact an OT.

Does your school district do evaluations? Ours does, and it's free.
They are screened by a PT, ST, and OT.

Good luck!

Our boy choked quite a bit when he was younger. I am overly cautious in that area now and freak out when I see parents letting their little ones cram food in where their mouths won't even close.

I know how awful it is to see your child choking.

I would definitely go to see a doc about this. I'd start with an ENT/ORL doc. So they could check his mouth and throat to make sure it's formed correctly and working right. Then you could go with the gastro stuff if there isn't a finding yet.

A pediatric dentist can tell you if there are any issues with the tongue or mouth area. Ours diagnosed our girl's Geographic Tongue. It made a world of difference to me and how I treated her at meal time.

Pediatricians are good docs, don't get me wrong. We use a nurse practitioner in our pediatric clinic and she is amazing. She works hard! But they are just general small child docs. I trust them for childhood illnesses, infant checks, etc...but when it comes to something specialized I skip them and go to that field that I need. Your child needs more in depth testing to make sure their throat and esophagus are formed correctly and working right.

I have a relative who is a registered dietitian on the pediatrics team at the hospital. She also has a private clinic. This is what she does.

Often times this kind of thing happens when parents don't introduce solids around the time they are supposed to. There's an actual stage in development where kids stop thrusting their tongues out (think of what a newborn does) and they can swallow. It's actually quite common - if you miss this stage, some babies/toddlers/kids have a hard time picking it up later.

A pediatric dietitian can come up with foods to try and in what order. My relative does charts and programs and sees the family back every couple of weeks to assess and reevaluate. She has been able to help almost every baby/child she's seen.

I had a neighbor who breastfed her baby until she was over 2 years old. No judgement - but the child never really adapted to table food. So she could only eat applesauce and yogurt. She was tiny because she was failure to thrive. They sent her to a psychologist for young children, and another specialist - and it was simply a matter of starting with milk soaked cheerios (to the point where they were almost falling apart) so she could get used to the feeling of swallowing something. Then they worked up slowly from there.

So that's what i would suggest. Usually there's a team that handles this kind of thing - OT is often a part of it - even just to consult. But really, it's the foods you need to try and in what order - a dietitian deals in food.

Good luck :)

Hello,

My son has spent his life with texture sensitivities. He hates anything "saucy." Child is 14 years old and he's never had a slice of pizza, any sort of condiment, mac n cheese, yogurt...nothing that is "slippery" in his mouth. I tried to get him to taste ketchup on a french fry when he was 4 and you would swear he wanted to call social services and turn me in....

Our solution was to simply accommodate his preferences while making sure he gets plenty of fruits and veggies throughout the day. One saving grace is that he'll eat raw veggies with no complaint. My mother used to fuss and fume at me when I would pull out the cooked ground beef and plain pasta for him before adding the spaghetti sauce for myself any DH. I know I only have the one so such accommodations have always been pretty easy and straight forward. My goal is a well-fed, thriving child. He'll either grow out of this saucy aversion to an extent, or completely, or he won't. As long as he's got a nutritious diet....I don't make an issue of it. This is so completely age appropriate for your DS at 15 months. And there are so many alternatives. One trick too is to mix some baby food into the pancake mix....you get all those great nutrients and he'll never taste it or be the wiser.

I've never heard of therapy for such a thing but you know him better than anyone else on the planet so if you think a professional intervention is in order, by all means provide him with one. It can't hurt to at least get a professional evaluation. Having said that....he's not even 1 1/2 years old....I say take it slow and do your best to accommodate this preference with nutrient rich alternatives to address his texture preference.

with a mom as tuned in as you appear to be....I'm sure he'll be just fine. :-) S.

ask your doctor to refer you to an eating specialist who works with texture issues, they have lots of gadgets and techniques
you can see some on pinterest if you use child texture eating issues

check out a speech therapist...there are some that specialize in feeding/swallowing issues....Call your local early intervention

I have 2 unrelated thoughts.
1) There is absolutely occupational therapy focused on feeding/texture issues. Not to scare you, but for a good friend of mine, these types of early food/texture issues were the first sign of what ended up to be a sensory processing disorder diagnosis. Even if it doesn't end up being that, it doesn't hurt to get a professional opinion on this. You could call your local Children's hospital. They should be able to tell you who in their system works with young kids on feeding issues.
2) It's also possible you are rushing this, and he's just not ready yet. One of my kids was slow to eat solid foods. He screamed when someone tried to get him to eat frosting off of his birthday cake at his first birthday (they were convinced if they could get the icing in his mouth, once he tasted it, he'd love it, so they tried to shove a fingerful of it in his mouth. It backfired terribly.) He choked on puffs and cheerios until he was at least 14 months old, maybe a bit longer. Developmentally, he just wasn't ready. We stuck with breastmilk and formula to make sure his nutrition was good until he was about 15-16 months old. Then, one day, he started eating solid food. He was just ready and the issue solved itself.

I'm also inclined to think you might be pushing him, because you talk about him choking on water from an open cup, sippy cup, and a straw already. My slower-to-eat-solids kid for sure couldn't use anything but a sippy cup at that age, and I know I didn't give him water. Like your son, he was a small child, so I definitely didn't give him anything that would fill him up without nutritious calories. Since you are worried about your son's weight, stay away from water and juice, take a few steps back. Give him formula/breastmilk, and you can even give a bottle once or twice a day if that will help him stay healthy.

Feeding Therapy is what you're looking for an evaluation and referral for. You don't necessarily need your pediatrician's approval, although a referral from one certainly helps move things along. This kind of evaluation and service, if needed, would be covered under Early Intervention and you can request an evaluation on your own. The therapy, if needed, would be conducted by either a speech and language pathologist or an OT. This link has a good overview of what this entails:

http://www.friendshipcircle.org/blog/2014/01/22/10-things...

Hope that helps!

Definitely contact a gastro person to check his motor control for swallowing. I recently heard from a parent in my church that her child had what she called a "floppy esophagus" - basically weak muscle tone in the swallowing muscles.

It's possible that an occupational therapist could help. My dad worked with OT after he had a surgery that affected his ability to swallow. He basically had to relearn how to swallow. I would be most concerned about the choking issues. Have you mentioned that to your doctor?

If you truly think your doctor is being dismissive of your concerns then by all means see another doc and get a second opinion.
But really he's only 15 months old. When my son was that age he was still mostly breastfeeding. He pretty much refused most solids until he was in the 18 to 20 month range. Looking back now I realize he was very picky, and only liked very bland foods, and I think he was texture sensitive as well. My doctor at the time was never concerned, I mean sure he was small but he was growing (be it slowly) and he was healthy.
He's now a strong, healthy and happy twenty two year old and he loves to eat, almost anything!
I think as long as your kid is healthy, and your doctor is not concerned, then what is there really to worry about?