Cheyanne has recently been putting up a fight with us when it comes around to eating. We started noticing it during breakfast, before school. She use to have a bowl of cereal right before school and now she does not even bother eating. At first, I thought it was because she was just not hungry, but then she started doing it at dinner time. She would put up a fight with me because she does not want to sit at the dinner table. It was starting to really bother us. Is this to be expected? Was this going to happen soon? I havent read alot about this occurence, so just like any other mom- I turned to the internet to do a little research on my own.
Did you know that 35% of Children with Cerebral Palsy are Malnourished?
But before this, I needed to try a couple of things. With everything the Cheyanne does, there needs to be a plan. Sometimes , I need to reach her a different way.
After two weeks of trying everything from cereal bars to just plain giving you something different to eat- my last straw was to have her make dinner with me.
I knew that I needed to be really careful with what I have her do in the kitchen, but I realized that this could be the perfect one on one time with my daughter. With 5 kids in the family, it is very hard to have some individualized time with one of them alone, let alone with my own husband.
So we started with something simple, hot dogs.
First, I asked her if she wanted to help, giving her that choice. Then I rolled up my sleeves and washed both our hands and away we went!
I made her do everything that she could step by step, of course helping her. She also served everyones plate and placed everything on the table, and called everyone to eat. I made it feel like it was all her own doing- hoping that this would work.
We sat at the dinner table and she exclaimed to everyone that she made dinner and that she was a big girl.
Then she ate her whole plate. We were all very happy- because we were very concerned about this.
So we did the same thing for breakfast. She poured her own bowl and she ate!
This was a big break for us- she wanted to eat her own food because she was proud of it and that because she did make it, she felt that it shouldnt go to waste.
Big Breakthrough day for us!
Places that I looked up were:
Even though we got this far, we still made an appt with the Doctor on Thursday to make sure she is not sick and that she is doing fine on weight. Until then.....
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