Oral aversion is a wily foe you never want to meet. The only way to vanquish it is through years of hard work to desensitize food, or surrender to it by employing serious stomach surgery for a mickey plug feeding tube.
I have wrestled with this foe for two years now. I have told medical professionals twice that I do not yet want to surrender to surgery. (If and when I do, it will be the end of the line for me. I won’t keep working on teaching Cayden to eat food).
It’s hard to imagine that oral aversion at its worst means children shriek and scream just being in the same room as food. That is the beginning of the spectrum of the term. There are approximately 30 steps to getting a child to engage with food, from being in the presence of food, to touching food with utensils, to picking food up with their fingers, to putting food in their mouth themselves – to finally, all of the mechanical steps of learning how to chew and swallow. For most children, they learn this over a six month period between 6 months to 1 year old. Our brains are programmed to move through these steps instinctively at this age.
For others, like my son, it can take years… if it ever happens.
I know wayyy more about this than I ever wished to. (And yet somehow, not enough).
Spending hours spoon feeding Cayden puree for years is not sustainable. I am throwing *everything I’ve got* at this issue now. (Medical specialists either hate me or love me – I come up with ideas they’ve never thought to suggest, but I also inherently put pressure on because I’m not willing to accept the status quo and I’m constantly trying to fix our situation. Desperation breeds solutions (at best), or ideas (at worst). When you’re the parent and this is your only hope – you’ll try whatever it takes.
Sleep and I parted ways unfortunately after Cayden was born. My mind now churns day and night for how to help Cayden and improve things.
My latest idea involves harnessing what Cayden loves (containers, opening and shutting doors) to create a kitchen kitset full of real food in clip-shut containers hidden behind cupboards. I’m buying sensory board books all about food and sticker decals of playful fruit and vegetables to stick all over his bedroom wall. I’m hoping to employ a similar tactic to what I learned in psychology – subliminal messaging. The idea was if you saw a glimpse of something briefly – like an ice cream – it would brand itself into your brain and suddenly, inexplicably, you would want to eat an ice cream. It was so effective I believe it was outlawed in advertising. This idea that showing such quick clips – so quick your brain barely registers it consciously – can alter your behaviour and make you go consume an ice cream is a tool I want to harness! It’s not quite the same to plaster my son’s bedroom wall in pictures of food, but I am hoping it be a little bit similar.
My hope is he can’t help but be enticed by containers and cupboards – and in the process of playing, he tips out food and handles it (win). A mega win will be when he brings that food to his mouth for a quick taste. My older son is allowed to treat this as his new “kids pantry” and help himself to the dry foods stored there. I am also dehydrating bananas and apples today as more sweet dry food to place there. Cayden struggles with sticky sensory sensations – a must when engaging with food – so I am starting with dry foods he can tolerate touching. It’s play based learning, right? 
His new speech and language therapist who just met us said Cayden is progressing through oral aversion faster than your average. I’m thrilled. It’s great to know our improvement at glacial speed… is great.
I’m really praying and hoping that this latest idea helps desensitize Cayden to food and makes him want to engage with it… here’s praying for a child that can feed himself within a year.
Yep. I am praying for a miracle.
Navigating Life's Curveballs 