We think of eating very simplistically, but seeing as Rowan has never eaten anything using his mouth – you can’t start with a bottle. You have to start very slowly.
So Speech Therapy came by. That’s right, Speech Paths and Speech Therapists do way more than I realized. We were told to start getting Rowan interested in taste and to work on getting him to suck on a pacifier.
Seems instinctive that a baby would suck on a pacifier, but when you’ve had a tube down your throat forever, it’s a little more difficult. So here is what we do several times a day now.
Step 1: Pour breastmilk into a cup and dip the pacifier in it.
Step 2: Rub the pacifier along Rowan’s bottom lip. Wait for him to open his mouth.
Step 3: Allow taste of breastmilk to sit on Rowan’s tongue so he gets used to have some sort of taste in his mouth. If he tries to suck on the pacifier, let him. If not, keep pacifier at a comfortable place in his mouth and let him feel it.
The first time we did this, we had about ten minutes of wide open mouth and NO real attempt at sucking. The second time, we noticed that he was centering the pacifier in his mouth and clamping down a few times. The last time we got a good 5 solid seconds of sucking out of him before he accidently pushed the pacifier out.
So today we are going to do at least 4 ten minute sessions while he is awake and see what happens. Tomorrow they are going to likely start giving him food through the NJ (that yellow tube you see on his face right now) to get his digestive system working again and ready to eventually receive food from his mouth instead of a tube.
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