October 23, 2014 - 8 months old
We had a meeting with Meghan's occupational therapist/feeding therapist to go over her sensory profile. She has variance in three senses (vestibular, proprioceptive, and auditory) and a "super strength" in one (visual).
She needs much more proprioceptive and vestibular input than most kiddos. This was what we suspected and we have been working on putting interventions in place for her - a swing in her room, her jumperoo, swinging outside, her weighted blanket, chewy jewelry (I wear, not her), etc.
She needs much less auditory input/help organizing auditory input than most kiddos. This is also something we have noticed about her. She likes music and noise that she expects and is organized - that's even calming for her! But random noises or a variety of noises are very overwhelming for her. So, keeping background noise down while she's eating is a big deal - not working in the kitchen while she's eating, working to keep noise from eating (clanking forks, etc.) quiet or helping her understand those noises as parts of meals, keeping conversation volume quiet, etc. This seems to be helping her eat her solids much better. She startles at unexpected noises easily and so we try to help her calm after those experiences. She also easily become overwhelmed in loud environments that aren't organized; so church service with loud music is fine, but a room with tv/music, conversation, other kids playing, etc. is very, very overwhelming for her which we have noticed on several occasions before this. Our therapist gave us several ideas for helping her function in her environment and how to help her develop her tolerance/calming skills in the next few years.
Meghan LOVES visual input - it's something we can use to help her calm her body!
Meghan's therapist helped us to think through daily routines as well as upcoming changes and how to help Meghan's sensory system through them - holidays, family time, wedding, first birthday, etc. We have a lot of ideas of things that we can do to help her when we notice her becoming overwhelmed and to help her calm her body through changes.
Meghan takes her bottles while watching a movie - and we were kind of concerned about this. But her therapist says it is just fine - the music helps give her something auditory to focus on so that other noises in the environment are not a distraction and the visual helps to calm her as she takes the bottle. Bottles were so hard for so long and so anything that helps her work through them is a great tool - and since bottles are a short term thing at this point and solids are completely functional, this is completely acceptable :) So we watch Baby Signing Time when we give her bottles. Teaching sign in important for her - so it's a double win with our time!
