As many of you know Greyson has had eating challenges for a very long time. As an infant he would eat everything we gave him. Then, once he got a little older he started to refuse certain foods and slowly but surely that grew and expanded and evolved into a real challenge for him. Up until now he really only eats puffs, yogurt and Gerber food. We have taken him to feeding evaluation and gotten him on the waiting list for CHOP’s (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia) intensive eating program. The waiting list was a year long and we are still waiting more then a year later.
We have been working on desensitizing him to food with a plan we worked on with our BCBA and it has helped him. At one point he couldn’t even sit next to us while we were eating. He was that disgusted by watching us eat. He wouldn’t even watch from a crossed the room. His reactions looked like pure fear. I still do not think we have an idea how, or why that happened. Maybe, he had a bad experience and we never realized it.
So the plan has been to slowly introduce him to foods, by simply having him touch it, and then hold it, then touch it to his lips and then finally putting it in his mouth. We limit it to just 2-3 different foods. Well we finally had a huge advancement in his eating just the other day. I was eating corn chips and he was next to me waiting to get in the bath. His iPad was already taken away from him at this point so he was just hanging out. I decide why not offer him a chip. So I had him watch me take a small nibble, and then I offered it to him. To my surprise he didn’t touch it and push it away. He actually took it and put it in his mouth, licked it and handed it back. So we took turns after that, sharing many chips in the process and he never once had a problem. He even bit and chewed on some of it.
Then I had Alex try and do it with him and it worked. The next morning I did it again with him and again he had no issues. Finally, we finally got to the point where he tried a new food and had no issues with it and even kept trying more. This was the happiest I have felt as a father in a while. It was literally the highlight of the year so far for me. Yes you heard that correct, not the highlight of my day, my week or my month, but the highlight of my year so far. That is how challenging eating has been for him and for us. This was such a simple accomplishment for most people, but for us this means so so mu
