I was thinking about my life in general today. And I came to the conclusion that my life isn't all that bad.
Yep, that's it. Nothing more to say about the subject :)
But, here's some great news. We're going to hit the 70's today in Northern Cali!
Yay!
No rain, just a nice sunny beautiful day!
OH, I'm working on using a sippy cup with Lillian. Not just any type, but the ones with the straws. Specifically, the Munchkin sippy cup that I bought at Target. At my last Ds Support Group Meeting, we had a guest speaker, a Speech Therapist who specializes in the Sarah R. Johnson approach. She has a website, http://www.talktools.net.
Not all speech therapist use her approach and not all think it's effective, but I think it's worth giving it a try if it can't harm her! Anything, that I can do to help improve Lillian's quality of life, is worth looking into! The idea of her methods is to work the muscles in their mouths to help with the quality of their speech when they are older. So, the sounds are more clear and precise.
Back to the cup...I choose this particular cup because the entire top is made of soft plastic. Which you can prime the straw and give your child a little taste of the liquid in hopes they will close their mouths and start sucking.
Most people would say, "Why does it matter?"
Well, it matters because people with Down Syndrome sometimes have a harder time speaking/making the sounds that come so easy for the majority of us folks. We're talking about Muscle tone. In general, most kiddos with Ds have low muscle tone, and that includes the muscles in the face and mouth area. So, by using her methods, we improve the tone and thus improve their speech!
I wish I would have tried sooner with Lil. The therapist said sometimes it's easier to transition to a straw cup when they are babies because they still have that sucking motion, which Lil has lost now. Anyways, there is so much more. Although, Lil isn't receiving Speech Therapy for now, I've kind of taken on that role.
SO....she wants nothing to do with this cup! Figures!
It's nearing my 100th post and I'm hoping to write something fantastic. So, I'm opening up the floor to you all!
I would love to be an question and answer type of post. So, your job is to comment me some questions or email them to me directly! The more the better. The questions can be about Down Syndrome, me, family, military/navy wife and/or living, traveling overseas, my views on parenting. Whatever, be free to ask!
The weather has been amazing here too. I don't know if it's reached 70 yet, but it's supposed to this week! And I am LOVING it!!!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love the idea of that cup. We've tried a few different sippy cups, but Chloe isn't too interested in them, but she loves straws, so I think she might really take to the Munchkin. I'm totally going to try it! Thanks for the tip. =)
My question for you is: What do you do to maintain a healthy relationship with your husband with everything else that is going on in your life? I've just been thinking about this a lot lately not because I'm having problems in my marriage, but because I read some discouraging statistics about marriages and kids with SN. So I'd like to compile some positive feedback from people who really know. Congrats on nearing 100!
Question!
ReplyDeleteHow'd you meet your husband?
Your children are all adorable! We live in Sacramento - thanks for passing on the nice weather :-) We use straws and the disposal no valve sippy cups for John Michael. We found out he could suck up Jamba Juice through a straw and the taste and excitement of the smoothie has kept him sucking... He didn't like the Munchkin straws because they're hard to suck out of. We found the Playtex brand to work better since there's no valve in the straw slowing the sipping. Don't know if that would help your little darling.
ReplyDeletetransitioning to cups can be so difficult! I know for us we tried so many different cups with Kennedy it was frustrating...She finally drank from the avent type(at that time there were not tons with the soft spouts)...then she moved to the playtex ones...but with the hard ones she pretty much just stuck with the playtex...I know for Kennedy it was so difficult just to transition from the differences in the mouthpieces. The straws were difficult, but eventually managed them...for her it was being able to suck long enough to get something out of the straw.
ReplyDeleteA year ago she had a huge setback and now we cant even get her to close her mouth around anything.
Thanks Tara and Chrystal for the questions...be ready for the answers on Friday!
ReplyDeleteMonica and Colleen, thanks for the advise. I know we'll get there, but just didn't think getting there would be so difficult! I'll have to play around with the different cups. Well, I checked the munchkin cup that I have and there isn't a valve. I think she just needs to get used to it. We shall see.
I am so sorry that I am getting here so late with my question. I know that you are a Navy family. Have you ever had to move around a lot and if so, how do you prepare your children for such a change?
ReplyDeleteAre there any great tips or products that have helped with raising a child with Down's Syndrome?
ReplyDeleteVery cool about the cup idea- I would never have thought of that! I also wouldn't have thought that a baby could do one of those sippi cups with a straw, but it makes sense.