Food...Fantastic Fun?

Food...it's such a natural and delightful
part of life. It's good, it's healthy
and it's fun to eat our favorite foods.


For some babies and kids with Agenesis
of the Corpus Callosum food is a
subject that comes with many issues
and feeding is not always easily
tolerated.

My child, Matthew, is one of those
kids with complete Agenesis of the
Corpus Callosum who has feeding issues.

Table foods or chunky, lumpy foods with
textures are not fantastic fun and he
still has feeding issues with table foods
today.

For my own child, Matthew, he could
drink from a bottle but when he learned
to sit up by himself, he wasn't able
to sit up while drinking his bottle.
He could not coordinate sitting up,
putting the bottle in his mouth,
tipping his head back AND swallowing
all at the same time. It was just
too difficult for him.

Matthew drank from a bottle until he
was five years old and was not able
to drink any other way.

Then one day *poof* he just gave up
the bottle and I thought OH NO!
Now how will I get him to drink enough
fluids?

He wasn't drinking from a cup
yet and struggled with being able to get
enough to drink even from a sippy
cup/with lid.

We tried many different cups and ways
and I even tried a few times to get him
to take a bottle again when he was sick
and had fevers just to get enough fluids
in him but he wouldn't go back to the bottle.

Even today, Matthew does NOT like
drinking. It can be a chore to get
fluids in him.

In fact, he pushes a picture button
on his communication device (of a little
boy holding a cup to his mouth) that says:

"I do not like water!"

And he really does NOT like water
or juice or anything to drink.

We did find it somewhat helpful if
we gave him thickened liquids such
as smoothie drinks.

When he was in public school they
discovered a wonderful cup to help
him be able to drink from an open
cup without a lid and still allow
him to be sitting up but not have to
tip his head back to drink and swallow.



They are called nosey cups or cut-out cups.
Matthew uses the 2 oz size (color-blue) and
we still use this cup today. He used it
much better while in school though and still
doesn't like to drink for Mom. He is able to
drink from this cup easily and will hold
it with both hands, bring it to his mouth
by himself, take a drink, swallow and replace
the cup back down on the table.

More information about nosey cups can
be found at the Achievement Products
catalog below:

blue nosey cut-out cups

Another product we found useful to help with
self-feeding is the maroon spoons.



Once Matthew outgrew the baby spoons and
began to learn to self-feed he was
able to get a good grip on this spoon.

His therapist told me to be sure, when
I was feeding him with this spoon, to
put the spoon to Matthew's mouth but
to allow him to do the lip closure
around the spoon and then pull the
spoon out. This spoon is designed to
help promote lip closure.

We used both the small size and then
as he got older the large size of
maroon spoons and they were our favorite
spoons. In fact, I still have one of
each in my kitchen drawer...hmmm...guess
I couldn't part with them. :)

More information about the maroon
spoons can be found at the Achievement
Products catalog below:

Maroon Spoons

One last product that I was thrilled to
find is a bib that worked for Matthew
when he was in grade school, had outgrown
the toddler/kid-size bibs but still
needed a bib while feeding himself.

These are a couple styles of bibs I like
and used for Matthew:



Adult Plaid Green Bib @ Assisted Living


Adult Plaid Plaid Green Bib @ Personal Touch Health Care Apparel




blue adult-bib terrycloth with vinyl backing

For my child, Matthew, I prefer to use
the Velcro closure style bibs.

You can find many different styles of
bibs in the catalogs below:

Assisted Living Store-Bibs

Personal Touch Health Care Apparel-Bibs

Got any feeding issues/solutions with your
baby or child and want to share them with
us?