One thing that we have been struggling with for a long time is eating. You can read here to see where we were at about this time last year (and how big she’s gotten– she’s wearing the same dress!)
Scarlette has really overcome a lot of her sensory and oral aversions. We spent a long time doing really intense therapy and I think that was incredibly worthwhile. Now we’re at the point where it’s hard to differentiate between Preemie Oral Aversion and Picky Two Year Old Toddler.
(Click READ MORE to continuing reading + enter a special giveaway for the DVD we’ve been using & a Whole Foods gift card!)
For the most part, Scarlette can handle a lot of different foods now. She still needs her food to be cut into pretty small pieces and has to avoid some foods altogether to avoid gagging. She typically only gags once or twice a week now but when she does it’s a) very scary and b) very gross. She full on vomited in my face last week, y’all. IN. MY. FACE. So there’s that. She has difficulty taking bites off of things, like chicken nuggets for example, and still has a lot of trouble using utensils because of her stiff wrists.
The difficulty is in getting her to touch certain foods or keeping her from spitting them out. Often when I take her places people remark on what a good eater she is but in truth that’s just because if we’re not at home I pack things that I know she can eat easily. She likes her food to be very cold. I mean, I cut up her peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then I stick it in the freezer for a few minutes. And she does NOT like her food to be wet. Or squishy. We’re slowly overcoming this as we learn to use our fork to stab our food and not our friends. She’s feisty, that one.
When I was at a blogging conference in June I roomed with April and we were discussing Scarlette’s issues with food over dinner one night, because that’s what an awesome dinner date I am now. I totally force people to look at cute pictures of my kid and bemoan the fact that she doesn’t eat. April told me about a dvd called Copy-Kids and how it helped her kids try new foods. When I came home from the conference, I had an email from Copy-Kids saying they’d like to send me a dvd to try out because April had sent them my information. Because April is totally winning at being organized. I still haven’t even fully unpacked from that trip and it’s August, y’all. I am not even joking.
Anyhow, one night at dinner Jeff and I were feeling really frustrated at Scarlette’s refusal to touch the carrots on her plate because ROP! AND MOMMY’S TERRIBLE VISION! AND OHMYGOSHJUSTTOUCHONECARROT! We were feeling a bit overwhelmed at her “NO! NO DA CAWWOTSH!”
And then I was all “Oh, we have that dvd, let’s try it” but to be totally honest neither one of us thought it would really work.
The premise is that the video is made up of chapters and each one is a different fruit or vegetable and they film different kids very enthusiastically eating them. And when I say enthusiastically, I mean y’all. These kids are going to grow up and be the next generation of QVC hosts because they are selling this healthy eating thing. You’re supposed to put a plate of the same food in front of your child and the idea is that they will eat because kids copy other kids. So we did this and pushed play on the carrot chapter:
Y’all. I promise that within about two minutes of watching Levi eat a carrot (while acting like a bunny rabbit, he’s a wascally wabbit that Levi) we saw Scarlette pick up a carrot stick, take a bite, turn to us and say “MMMM I WIKE DESE CAWWOTSH.”
Jeff and I were like “You have GOT to be kidding me.”
Mind you, we’ve been through some intense food training with this kid. And I realize that our therapists might be throwing their hands up in exasperation at me right now as I admit that she eats one meal a day in front of this video but I don’t even care because THE FOOD, SHE IS PUTTING IT IN HER MOUTH. She asks me every day at lunch if she can watch “Da appuhs and da bwoccowi” and then SHE EATS THE BROCCOLI.
She asks for the carrots chapter often now, and I have to watch her pretty closely because carrots are hard for her but good for practicing taking bites off of foods so I’m really happy that it’s helping.
I’d love to see more food choices on the dvd, although I know they are coming out with a second in the series soon. But overall, I love it and I’ve been recommending it to ALL my mommy friends since we got it because, well, toddlers are weird about food y’all.
Copy Kids offered to give away a copy of the dvd + a $25 Whole Foods gift card to one of my readers so that you can grab the produce that you need to prepare the snacks to watch along with the dvd chapters! (If you don’t have a Whole Foods near you no worries, you can still enter and they’ll work with you on a store)
To enter, just leave a comment or “like” one of the pages included in the rafflecopter box! (Be sure to check I DID THIS afterwards- and if you can’t see the rafflecopter box, you may need to install Java! I use rafflecopter because it makes the process transparent and random)
