Jacob's Eating Progress

A while back I posted this and if you would have asked me then, where I thought we would be by November I would have thought/hoped to have Jacob eating every meal with us.

Unfortunately not quite, BUT we are making progress. We have been to Primary Children's Rehab for the past few months and went through a bunch of failures. Finally we found the magic process that works. It is very similar to Pavlov's dogs. You take a bite you get an M&M. On top of the candy, the key to the success is in the sticker chart. We make 6-12 circles, depending on how new the food is and if he accepts the bite he gets the sticker if he refuses he gets an X. He is very adamant that he does NOT want an X. The other key is he gets 2 chances. If he refuses the first time he gets another chance, the second he get the X no matter what. In the following video he gags the first one, but then he is just fine. Some of the ticks (like patting his mouth, shuttering, rocking and gagging) that he started with are slowly diminishing. He does shutter towards the end.


I try to incorporate other foods as well and slowly try to remove the candy aspect. So here he is eating applesauce (another non preferred food) with out using the candy. It is interesting to watch him start with touching, licking, little taste, closing his eyes, and then big bites. Which proves it is all behavior and he is overcoming it. s..l..o..w..l..y...



We are slowly phasing out the candy and he ate a peanut butter and jam sandwich the other day without candy and then while at Olive Garden he ate a large serving (size of his fist) of shells and alfredo. And he even ate a 4 piece chicken nugget happy meal. (I had to peel off the breading/crunchy stuff) but he ate it. Mostly gagged on it but ate it nonetheless. He still prefers and asks for oatmeal, granola bar or pop tart every meal but there is progress....