Drinking cups
This is an interesting subject, not a huge subject but still
it’s a learning curve about DS. Babies with DS find it hard to suck due to their
hypertonia so being Brest fed is quite unusual, as you may know from last year’s
blog Lani was tube fed in hospital for the first 8 days – I did try and Brest
feed but after 2 weeks it just wasn’t working so she was put on a bottle. The
bottles had special teats and cost a fortune but that was all she could use,
even as Lani grew up she could not co-ordinate her hands properly on how to
hold a bottle she has always needed two handles so for a long long time I had
to hold the bottle for her but now Lani has moved onto drinking from big girl
bottles and we have struggled so much trying to find ones that work for her.
They up until a few months ago needed the handles (which if you look at the
selection available is very limited) she needed and still does need one which
has to be non-drip but is not too hard to suck as Lani just doesn’t have the
power to get the drink out. We now have a selection of 4 cups that we rotate
We have a two handled green beaker with a normal teat (it does drip everywhere
and we need to keep an eye on that one as Lani likes to press down on it and
then splash the drink everywhere!!) this one is very easy to suck from, this
beaker teaches Lani to put her tong at the front of her mouth and so gives
specific muscles in her mouth a good work out which will in turn help her speech.
We also have a beaker with a straw which is non-drip and this is brilliant for
Lanis mouth to learn a sucking movement which again is another mouth work out,
this beaker has no handles and so she used to struggle quite a bit, she will
quite often forget to hold it with the palms of her hand and she will hold it
with the backs of her wrists, I have to place her hands correctly every time to
show her and remind her, also another consideration for her when she uses this
beaker is that you don’t tip it up to get more juice, in fact if you tip it up
the juice can’t get into the straw so she had a big learning curve on that one
but what a great skill to have achieved.
Her third cup is called a 360’ it’s
worth googling a picture of one, they are brilliant and a good way to introduce
her to drinking from an adult cup. This one uses her lips more and an sipping
motion keeping her toung down and back in her mouth again another skill and
work out for her mouth.
Lastly my lovely friend Louise brought her a cup just
the same as her sons and it’s a beaker with no handles (yes she can struggle a
bit, mostly when she is tired and I have to re-place her hands, but not often
now) and a solid mouth piece which is non-drip, again a whole different set of
mouth muscles to get a drink from but she does it and is successful. Every
single thing I do with Lani is thinking about how I can get the best out of
her, get her to work even when it’s a normal activity, all of these mouth
skills can only bode well for her future speech, its got to be worth a go.
Diary
Firstly I would like to apologies for not having blogged
since last Thursday, late Thursday evening my husband’s step mum passed away
and so we have been trying as a family to cope with such sad news. Over the
next week or so I cannot say how often I will blog it will all depend on how I
feel, at the moment I have lost my mojo.
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