Eating and OT Tips

November 19, 2004

Hello to all,

One of the things we've done for both of our girls ( was and

still is a very picky eater!) that has made mealtimes a slight bit

easier was buying her very own " Special Plate " and made a big

deal out of it when she was around 2.5-3 years old. It's not really

a plate but a muffin tin, half size so it's for 6 muffins. It

wasn't as daunting as a plate of food and I found I had to keep 2 to

3 of them empty so that she could move her food around (and save one

for dessert) and also it wasn't so overwhelming for her. It was a

big hit and Olivia loves her " Special Plate " also.

I like cooking one dish meals but I always make sure that there

are at least 3 other things on the table (bread, fruit, fresh

veggies) and both girls are allowed one " No Thankyou " serving even

if it's the main course. Neither of them really like one dish meals

so I don't cook them often but they love having the choice to say no

to it and it's a very firm rule that there is only ONE " no thankyou "

per meal. It's made a huge difference in the amount that they eat

because they're not worrying about the one " yucky " thing on the

table.

Olivia has a whole new OT/PT/ST team with her new school and they

have great ideas! The new one this week is Olivia's Death Grip on

her pencils. They'd given her a Fuzzy band to grasp around the

pencil to cushion her fingers and it wasn't helping at all so they

really looked to see what was happening... The problem was that the

pencil was so long and very heavy. Her hand by the index knuckle

was supporting the pencil only at the 1 " mark from the tip and the

weight of the pencil (her hands are extremely small) causing her to

need the Death Grip just to keep the pencil upright. All of her

pencils are now cut in half and the problem was immediatly solved.

Seems like such an insignificant thing but with such huge results!

Hope this might help some of you with younger kids!

Leah, mom to 9 years and Olivia 4 years (5 next Tuesday!),

19lbs, 33 " , RSS, OI, lots of meds

Recommended Posts