Julia

I love having a blog. It's such a great medium for soliciting different ideas, viewpoints, and suggestions, especially when you have something potentially wrong and you are looking for possible solutions or thoughts as to what it could be.

Julia has been "off" for for the past month or so. By off I mean, wetting the bed every night (after previously having been dry for months), yawning periodically throughout the day and even falling asleep on the bus a couple of times, suddenly refusing to eat most times (even with the old tried and true yogurt as a backup), complaining that her mouth hurts (which as been anywhere from her throat which looks normal and healthy to her teeth, which also look normal and healthy, and also only when she eats or brushes her teeth), been unusually uncooperative and just generally not herself. With an exception of the bed wetting which has been every night, none of this has been every day, just enough to be noticeably not her usual demeanor and behavior.

A couple of thoughts had crossed my mind regarding what could be going on, especially since she doesn't appear to be sick per se (no fever, rash or other outward signs of illness). The first possibility which seems most likely to me is that she is adjusting to going back to school, starting dance, having her sisters gone from her for most of the day, and just the "summer is over and it's back to real life now" mentality. It seems like kind of a long adjustment period, given that this has been going on for a month now, but, it's not unusual for Julia to be a little slower to come around than one might expect.

The biggest concern for me right now is the eating. Besides the part about it being annoying that I cook food and she refuses to eat it (even if it is her favorite things ever like corn and rice)I am worried about the nutrition little, and the fact that she is now even refusing yogurt. Even back when she was having OT for her oral sensory issues, yogurt (and other softer type foods like jello and apple sauce) always worked well, just to get her to eat something. I am planning on re introducing her to mouth brushing (which is a technique in which you use a special oral brush that you rub on the inside of her cheeks, her tongue and the roof of her mouth). I am also going to go back to "waking her mouth up" by starting her off before a meal eating something really cold like a Popsicle or really spicy food like salsa. Both of these things are meant to "alert" her mouth to the fact that there is food in it, and reduce oral sensitivity in general. So, we'll see how it goes.

Other than that, I am not sure what to think about what is going on. A period of adjustment seems like the most likely culprit, but I am open to any thoughts any one might want to share.