my son keeps thrusting his tongue OUT instead of IN when he swallows so he can't drink anything from a spoon, bottle, sippy, cup, straw, etc. and even with food, when he goes to swallow he pushes it out.

speech is stumped. wondering if anyone had the same experience and knew of a solution.

Hi there,

Christopher is just 2 months older than your littlun and he had the same problem for ages. I kept trying to spoonfeed him but he was not interested. In the end I pushed breadcrumbs into the sides of his mouth and he soon got interested in solids.

How are you feeding Phoenix now? I am still nursing Christopher, and he's only started eating from the spoon the last 3 weeks or so. It's partly a developmental issue. If you can, try not to worry and just tell yourself he's not ready yet. If he has low muscle tone, this affects all his muscles, including his tongue, and it's a very, very common problem for our kids.

I caused us both lots of stress trying to get him to eat from a spoon. In fact, I needn't have worried, because many typical infants who are exclusively breastfed sometimes refuse anything else until they're a year old or even older, and it does them no harm at all. Sometimes it's because of food sensitivities.

I never tried to give Christopher a bottle because I didn't want to confuse him. The sucking technique is so different. He was in intensive care the first 10 weeks because of a bowel problem, and had to learn to nurse after that with the help of an oral therapist. Is that an option for you maybe? Here in Germany we have something called Castillo-Morales orofacial stimulation, but there are probably other kinds of treatments to get that tongue working. Here's what our therapist told me to do: push the spoon in horizontally and wait until the upper lip comes to take the food off. If it doesn't, then depress the tongue with the spoon where it arches up. This will encourage the tongue to come up. Then remove the spoon horizontally. Don't wipe his face during the meal, just pat off any mess. What helped us is holding him really securely on my lap facing away from me with a small mirror on the table so I can see what his mouth is doing.

Sending you lots of patience and a million best wishes,

Anja

Alexis keeps her tongue out alot but not all the time and is getting better with it espec. since the speech therapist gave me excersises to do with her. I have some info on it if you want I can copy it and mail it to you. It has really helped alot and I can see a difference and I have only been doing this for a week.