Food and Your Blind Child

Most of our blind children have challenges when it comes to eating, and as I did my research, I learned how common this is for blind children. This is so common as these kids have no visual cues to be able to see the food they are eating, are not able to watch others feed themselves and imitate the behaviour, and are often nervous to explore new textures, so eating new foods can be scary. For kids like mine, who spent time in institutions, their motor skills are delayed as well, which makes learning to feed themselves more difficult.

Here are some good blogs and articles on the topic: Food Glorious Food and Family Voices At Mealtime.

 

Charlotte really struggled during mealtime when she first came to our home and I remember we had to give her a banana after many meals because we weren't getting enough calories in her as she would cry and spit the food out, and a few times made herself gag to try to spit it up. We would also need to water everything down to a mush-like substance. We are working hard at exposing her to foods with different textures now, in the hopes that she will get used to them and become less adverse to eating crunchy foods, hard foods, etc.

I have shared in previous blog posts some of the foods she has tried since joining our home; quiche, ham, pancakes, Popsicles, chocolate, and various fruits, among other things. She is a big fan of Popsicles! At this point, the only foods she eats willingly outside of her usual rice/curries/tiffins, are bananas and Popsicles. Oh, and she loved chocolate raspberry cake at Starbucks. In 2015 I would love to see her expand the foods she will eat and also learn how to feed herself finger foods! She likes bananas, and because it is one of the only foods she is motivated by, that is the food we are using to teach her to feed herself. We put the banana in her hand and prompt her to bring it to her mouth. We have tried other foods like crackers, cookies, and watermelon, but she cried and refused. Now that Chloe is feeding herself, we are moving our efforts onto Charlotte and sitting with her every meal doing hand over hand feeding. So far... it is interesting! She hates it and likes to make that clear. One way we are working on helping her become more comfortable with trying new foods and feeding herself is by feeding her the new foods while she wears her headphones, listening to music. This has definitely helped and with the headphones on, she doesn't cry at all!

An unhappy Brianna the first time we tired to feed her semi-solids

Brianna is new to our home and we are still figuring out how we can best feed her. Even though she is 17 months old and has teeth, at her old orphanage we only ever saw her being given a bottle. On her first dinner with us, we took the rice and curry that all the other kids eat, added some water to make the consistency softer, and tried to feed her that. It was clear she had never eaten solid food before as she had no idea what to do with it. We then blended it and tried to spoon feed that to her, and, as you can see from the photo, more went out than in! She is drinking bottles of Pediasure right now and we are blending up her meals and putting them in her bottle as well. At the same time, trying to introduce solid food, but she hates that and tries to make herself gag, so it has been challenging. We haven't had her very long, and so far it has been a big struggle to get enough calories into her. I think some of this is related to having a rough transition and not understanding where she is and who we are. Today she hardly drank anything and we have spent a lot of time rocking her and trying to get her to drink. Please pray for progress with this! We want our baby to have a full tummy!

Jasmine and Cedar both learned how to feed themselves in 2013 after joining our home. Following the Indian way of eating, our children don't use utensils but use their hands to feed themselves. We actually tried teaching some of them with cutlery as we thought with their sensory challenges that touching the food with their hands may cause problems, but after so many years of being hand fed by an ayah, they didn't like the feel of the cutlery in their mouths and would chuck it across the room when placed in their hand. Jasmine and Cedar all learned quickly how to feed themselves and now feed themselves all meals. All three are also very hesitant to eat anything outside of what they eat every day. Cedar will eat cake and drink smoothies, but that is it, and Jasmine won't even do that. In order to get fruit into their bodies, we have to mix the fruit up and pour it on their rice. They will eat it that way, and some of the kids show preference when their rice has fruit juice mixed in, even though they won't eat their fruit unless it is mixed. 

Chloe is our newest self-feeder, and I am so proud of her! As soon as she moved in with us, back in September, Tori and I began trading off meals, sitting with her and feeding her hand over hand. At first she didn't seem to grasp the concept at all. She would scream and cry because she wanted the food so badly, but if we paused, waiting to see if she would take the initiative to scoop the food and bring it to her mouth, she would instead just reach for our hands, wanting us to help her scoop. Slowly she learned how to put the food to her mouth on her own. We would help her scoop, then tap her hand and she would feed herself. For four months we did this three times a day between Tori, myself, and any volunteers that were able to help out, and slowly we were able to fade the prompts.  I got a message from Tori on January 20th, a few days before I arrived back, saying that after switching Chloe's food into a larger bowl which gave her more space to scoop the food, Chloe had fed herself breakfast for the very first time! She is now feeding herself all meals. Go Chloe!!

So those are some of our experiences on our blind children and their reactions to food and feeding themselves. We are going to continue working at exposing them to new foods, and we hope that one day soon Charlotte will be feeding herself, like Jasmine, Cedar, and Chloe have learned to do! And most importantly, that all the kids will try new foods and not be scared or anxious during eating times.