So the chicken went down well initially and then all of a sudden, Mike stopped swallowing. He completely disengaged from me. No sound, no attempt at eye contact, no crying. He just stared and stared and stared in to space. I had to sit and wait initially in line with the technique, for as long as it took for the food to go down. Clarissa explained the correct term for this was ‘packing.’
Mike sat for long periods, rubbing his forehead and looking rather sad. To witness this was upsetting it really brought home to me how fearful Mike is of feeding and the power of his biology, fighting against him following our technique. Clarissa reminded me to move away from feeling sad “remember he’s a child and he will do these things”, so once again I found saviour in the form of music, through my headphones!
So Mike went on for days and days like this. Eventually swallowing nothing for us and it was pretty frustrating as the whole day turned in to a constant feeding cycle. Of course because we are feeding Michael more food than ever, his little tummy is being pushed to capacity and with less time between meals, we’ve ended up with lots of vomits. With vomit, comes washing and more work, so it had been a miserable time all round and I couldn’t help but feel exhausted.
Needless to say we kept on with the technique and after a week or so, Clarissa suggested we use language and touch, to reaffirm our point i.e. I’m not going away with the food! Like magic, he got the message and the tears and tantrums returned. Hooray (never thought I’d be saying that to a tantrum!)
Well the change in strategy worked, and in no time (well a few days, but in the grand scheme of things nothing) he was swallowing once again. Packing seems to be one of his tricks but getting him swallowing again, because I was consistent with the technique, speaks volumes for the progress we are making.
