Hello!
I am sending this out to see if anyone out there has dealt with dysphagia in young children?
I am visiting the paediatrician on the 15th of this month after a referral from my GP due to my daughter not gaining much weight and not growing along the centile charts in length and inability to try foods or swallow foods with lumps (e.g. spag bol, casserole, potato and beans etc). My sister in law is an occupational therapist and recommended we see a speech and language therapist as my daughter has issues with textured food. This issue has been going on since she was weaned at 6 months and has gone beyond a phase. Looking in to it further we found a condition called dysphagia and my LO meets some of the signs and symptoms including difficulty with textures (she pushes food out with her tongue and refuses to try foods, even foods she has had before in puree form), fussiness at mealtimes (length of mealtimes and aggression at mealtimes), reflux (has had this since birth and when breastfed) and low/slow weight gain and growth.
Some stats:
Current age - 15 and a half months old
Birth weight - 6,11
Current weight - 17lbs 6oz
Current length - 69.7cm
Breastfed until nearly 10 months old
Dairy intolerant - drinking oat milk at the moment
Baby led weaning adopted at 6 months
Feeds self with a spoon - only purees or whole pieces of soft fruit
Has cut 16 teeth (back 4 molars still to come)
Walking and playing happily
We know that this could be a 'phase' but my motherly gut instinct tells me it is something more and this coupled with her use of tongue to push foods out (as opposed to spitting it out), slow weight gain and slow length growth. I've met fussy children, I look after children as a day job (I'm a childminder) and there are some fussy eaters who come to me and I really don't think she is simply 'fussy'. We treat meal times as calmly as we can and we give her what she will eat (puree food and soft fruits typically).
Has anyone had any experience dealing with such issues or dealing with dysphagia? If so, what did you do? How did you get through it?
Thank you 
