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Pigeon Weaning Spoon Bottle |
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Monday, 09 March 2009 17:29 |
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 One thing that we have found useful with Beth is a weaning spoon bottle. Once we thickened up Beth's formula and all her liquids (as she was aspirating thin liquids), she found it very hard to suck out of a bottle, even with a "slit" teat. We tried using a cup, but found this to be messy and difficult to co-ordinate. We have heard of other folks that have cut the teat to make a bigger hole etc, but this provides poor control over the rate of flow. Hence we looked for other options and found the weaning spoon bottle.
It is not available anywhere we know of that stocks Pigeon - it's only available from the distributor - Havenhall (1609 Botany Rd, Botany NSW 2019, 02 9316-9810, www.havenhall.com.au). It comes in a 120 or 240ml size. You can prepare the bottle as normal, thickened, and just squeeze out a portion into the spoon and tip into the mouth. Beth took to it without a problem. When feeding we usually fill the spoon and also squeeze a little extra into her mouth for good measure. |
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Speech Theraist Third Visit |
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Monday, 21 April 2008 17:50 |
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Beth has shown a decrease in vomiting and is also eating more since the last visit. We have upped her bottles to 180ml from 150ml and she is still having around 5 per day, leaving 10-40ml in the bottle or so. We have continued pacing her and the speech therapist was happy with how Beth is progressing at the moment, and is happy to leave things as they are. The next month or two will bring some changes as Beth starts to consider solids. We will try out some different flavours and highly mushed up foods with her. We should sit her upright to eat solids, and reclined a little for the formula. There is still some concern over the sounds Beth is making while eating, she gets noisy towards the end, and still does cough a little, especially at the ends where she is tired and not concentrating as much. |
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Speech Therapist Second Visit |
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Tuesday, 01 April 2008 17:50 |
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The speech therapist was happy with Beth's progress, but still a little concerned around her coughing during feeding etc, which is a sign of potential aspiration. As Beth is now getting older, she needs to develop and mature her swallowing more. To assist her, we are going to move back to a slow flow teat (Avent 1 hole) from the medium flow (2 holes) she is presently on. She also showed us how to pace with Beth's feeding, and to pull the bottle out/to the side after three sucks, thus ensuring not too much milk is in her mouth to swallow. We are also now inclining Beth more upright as well to assist her swallowing. A question we had last time around Beth seemingly bringing up something but then swallowing it back down is normal behaviour. We were also provided some information on activities/games etc which will assist in preparing Beth for speech - things that are required for speech to develop. I will summarise this shortly and put it up here. |
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Speech Therapist First Visit |
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Monday, 10 March 2008 17:48 |
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The speech therapist arrived at the right time - Beth was hungry and the observed her feeding. They were overall quite happy with how things were going, they said that we were pretty much already doing all that they would suggest, and that they can't see any gagging or aspiration at the moment, suggestions they stated included: - Using a slow flow teat on her bottle
- Watching her during feeding to note her queues and if she coughs or gags, or looks sleepy to sit her up, remove the bottle etc.
- Watching around her lips and eyes to ensure they don't turn white/blueish which could indicate that Beth is sucking too much and forgetting to swallow/breathe enough between sucking. A normal sucking pattern is two or three sucks, then a swallow and breathe etc. Beth seems to take a lot more smaller sucks, then a swallow etc. A strategy to assist here is to move the bottle over to one side of the mouth if not taking enough of a break.
Holding/supporting Beth in a more upright position while feeding, and maintaining an upright position after feeding for a period to reduce any reflux
If Beth did have any issues with aspiration or swallowing, the next step would be to thicken up her milk, however, this can also have the result that it is harder for Beth to suck out of the bottle, which would mean perhaps she wouldn't eat as much and this may then lead to poorer weight gain and other issues. So we just continue to pray Beth will continue to feed and swallow well. We also discussed going onto solids, and basically the advise was just to go very slow and see how Beth responds at the time. They were a little worried as Beth was just getting over a cold, and had a bit of a gurgle on her chest. They did recommend going to the GP to get the once over and we did, and all was ok. No chest infection that they could hear. They are going to come back in a couple of weeks and check again, and then perhaps as Beth goes onto solids, continue to provide us assistance and guidance. |
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Speech and Feeding