Bolus Tube Feeding
Whether using commercial enteral formula or a homemade food blend, bolusing is an efficient method for administering enteral feeds. Bolus feeding requires the use of a syringe to deliver formula or food blends through the feeding tube. The rate of infusion is controlled by how fast the plunger is pushed or by removing the plunger and holding the syringe up, letting gravity take control and allowing formula to flow down through the tube.
Kids Learn to Eat by Eating
There is a common misperception when it comes to determining whether or not your child is ready to begin weaning from his or her feeding tube, and it is this: “Your child must be able to show that he or she can eat substantively before we begin to wean him or her from the feeding tube.”
Please, Just Swallow!
Over the years, I’ve talked with hundreds of parents who have spent hundreds of hours coaching their child to take hundreds of bites, only to watch those bites swirl around in the mouth and be spit right back out. And when all you want is for your sweet, tube-fed kiddo to take, enjoy, and actually swallow something, that experience can be endlessly – and I mean, ENDLESSLY – frustrating! After all, how hard can it be to swallow?
Division of Responsibility: Childhood through Adolescence
One of my favorite Ellyn Satter quotes is “when parents do their jobs with feeding, children do their jobs with eating”. It is certainly apparent that infants and toddlers need their parents to play an active role in helping them to form happy relationships with food. But it’s important to remember that older children (even adolescents) still need their parental involvement.
Division of Responsibility: Toddler Feeding
The most predictable thing about toddler eating is that it is unpredictable. Variations in appetite will occur and while there will be days when your toddler only wants to lick, taste, or nibble, there will be other days when the volume of food consumed is unfathomable. Trust that your toddler knows how much to consume at each eating opportunity.
Division of Responsibility: Infant Feeding
Growing Independent Eaters embraces and utilizes the feeding principles developed by Ellyn Satter. We use them because these principles have been validated through research to improve mealtime experiences in the long-term. And that’s what we want for your child: a life-long, happy, trusting, healthy relationship with food. And that kind of long-term success starts by implementing some really important principles, starting in infancy.
Questions to Ask a Potential Weaning Program
Regardless of where you are in the process of thinking about weaning, and what your personal family goals are, we thought it might be helpful to look at some of the questions that we think should be asked of every weaning program -- and share our answers.
Should I Switch My Child to a Blended Diet before We Wean?
The do’s and don’ts of pre-weaning can be difficult to assess and navigate. In particular, many families wonder about their child’s tolerance of tube feeds and how they might adjust in order to make the experience more comfortable and conducive to oral intake. Blended diets, in particular, spark curiosity, so let’s take a look at how they might factor into your child’s pre-weaning stage.
Tubie Siblings – And How NOT to Overlook Them
When one of your kids is tube-fed or recently weaned, it’s easy to overlook the other kids at your dinner table, or forget that safe and joyful meals are just as important for non-tubies as for tube fed kids. I learned this the hard way – that there are a few things to be aware of when your tubie is not an only child.
Pre-Weaning Strategies for Toddlers
Being the parent of a toddler is exceptionally fun and rewarding. It can also be exhausting. Developmentally, toddlers are learning to be independent people. Having a toddler with a feeding tube brings its own set of challenges. How do we, as loving caregivers, help the toddlers in our lives with tubes get ready to participate in a wean during this sometimes challenging developmental stage?
What Weaning Looks Like Over the Holidays
I learned how to let go of my anxiety-ridden control tactics, and my daughter found her appetite and learned to eat happily and independently. But that took time, patience, and a lot of help. And looking back, there is one thing that I would tell that tired, frustrated mom who skipped Thanksgiving dessert to cry in the bathroom.
Tricks and Treats: How Halloween Candy Can Foster Food Play!
There are so many ways to explore foods – to learn about them and to increase your sensory understanding of them (eventually leading to the sensory experience of eating them). And Halloween provides the perfect opportunity for some messy, candy-filled playtime!
What We Learned During the Weaning Process
Our son is free from the NG tube after only 3 weeks, thanks to the incredible team at Growing Independent Eaters! And now that we’re at the end of our weaning journey, we have to share some of the things we learned in the hopes that it will help some of you to believe that weaning is impossible.
Why It’s Time to Put the Sticker Chart Away
Children are not “good” for eating, and “naughty” for not – and this is especially true for those who have been tube fed for all or most of their lives. For this population, “not eating” is a strangely appropriate response to being tube fed.
Bonding with Your Tube-Fed Baby
Losing the ability to feed your baby, whether you had planned nursing or snuggling with a bottle, is heartbreakingly hard. However, we can still bond and share togetherness around feeding – by broadening the definition of “feeding” to “proving nutrition so our baby can thrive.”
Working with Your Medical Team
Lead Parent Coach Olga shares some ideas for working with your medical team before and during a wean.
Hunger and Satiety Regulation: Part Two
Hunger and satiety regulation not only impacts feeding behaviors, but it can tell us if a child is getting enough nourishment to sustain sufficient growth.
Hunger and Satiety Regulation: Part One
Hunger and satiety regulation play a pivotal role in successfully weaning off tube feeds. At Growing Independent Eaters, we often divide a child’s weaning plan into four phases to establish hunger and satiety regulation.
“But what if it doesn’t work?” Coping with the Fear of a Failed Wean
When starting a wean, there are so many questions. One of the recurring fears that I discuss with parents is: What if this doesn’t work, where do we go from here? When tackling this answer, it’s really important to back up a step and to start with another question: How do we define success and “working”?
All Words Matter
So often I hear loving and well-intended caregivers using phrases like 'I was able to,' or how do I 'get it into them' (referring to food, utensils, or oral motor therapy tools getting into children). How do I 'get them to open their mouths' so I can 'do x to them.' I hear meals described as feeds, sessions, therapy, or exercises. Lots of words that describe doing things TO our kids.