Early Intervention

My little guy is 2 and a half and still not eating ANY table food. No Cheerios, no banana chunks, no cheese, no chicken, NOTHING. He only eats Yobaby and stage 2 pureed baby food. Nothing with chunks and no meats. I've let it go for a while as he is getting plenty of vitamins and protein and his diet is probably healthier than the beige diet his sisters ate at the same age - breads, chicken nuggets, Mac & cheese and occasionally applesauce or bananas. The only thing he is not getting is iron. He's on track with the growth charts and is otherwise hitting all the developmental milestones at the appropriate age ranges. I sent him to camp this summer thinking that seeing other kids his age eat, he would want to try too. No luck. He just sat and waited during snack time.

The few times he has tried something like Cheerios he gagged pretty violently and threw up. I think that's why he hasn't tried again. I'm not sure if he has a strong gag reflex or if he's just stubborn.

Well, I know for a fact that he is stubborn and will usually do things on his own timetable. At 1 1/2 I decided it was time to switch from bottle to Sippys. When he didn't make the switch we went cold turkey, in the summer. He went 43 days without drinking anything. I would give him a Sippy with milk with every meal, and he would just ignore it. He just ate more food to get his fluid.

It took him ages to feed himself. He always insisted I do it. I would give him a spoon with the food and walk away and again he would just wait. Then one night this summer he just picked up the spoon and did it himself. We made a big deal of it, he got all excited and now he always feeds himself. The funny thing is as this all was happening, the song "At Last" started playing on the iPod :)

Tomorrow I have people coming from Early Intervention to try to figure out what we can do. It's paid for by insurance and the state, and they're sending out a speech therapist and somebody else to evaluate him. I really do think he's just stubborn, but if the stubbornness stems from remembering those times he gagged and threw up then I'm hoping they can teach me and him some tricks to move past that. At least that's what I'm hoping cause the cost of baby food adds up pretty fast when he eats 6-10 a day.