"Self-Feeding"

I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted.  Brett has changed so much over the last few months.  He is learning new things everyday.  He is sitting like a champ and can now transition from sitting to his stomach.  My guess is he will learn to go from laying to sitting in a matter of days.  He's trying his hardest to crawl, but isn't getting very far.  He's can get on his knees and on his hands, but hasn't figured out how to coordinate the two.  It won't be long though, his buddy Isaac is a pretty good teacher.  

We have really been working on Brett's oral skills lately.  The "experts" don't recommend sippy cups for children with Down syndrome, so Cody and I brought home a cup to teach Brett to drink from.  A month later, Brett was still chewing on the rim of the cup.  We have now transitioned to a straw.  Brett had it figured out in a matter of hours.

We've also been working on self feeding.  We've worked with biter biscuits, yogurt melts and puffs.  The yogurt melts got stuck in the roof of Brett's mouth and he was breaking off chunks of the biscuits in a matter of days.  After some choking on large pieces we eliminated the biscuits from his diet.  

Brett has done fine with the puffs, but his OT suggested we work more on using his fingers to eat instead of fisting his food.  Day 1 we tried cottage cheese.  After 10 minutes of "self-feeding" Brett had a lap full of cottage cheese and his belly was still empty. 

Day 2 was mashed bananas (notice that we removed his highchair cover after the cottage cheese incident and have not put it back).  I'm not sure Brett was much of a fan.  He preferred the veggies and cheese he was getting from his grandpa. 

Tonight we decided to try another approach.  Pudding!  I thought the cottage cheese was bad, but I didn't know what messy was until today. 

I felt as though Brett did a good job picking up the pudding and getting it in his mouth.  That was until I took off the highchair tray and found this. 

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope to get some newer videos of Brett up, so check back soon!