Saw the OT today. She definitely saw improvement in her lips, and some in her tongue, but she was still using her tongue inconsistently. Between the humped tongue in the middle and cupping at the tip, she suspects she likely has a very slight posterior tongue tie. It might not even be worth treating surgically, but may be one little piece of the puzzle. She also confirmed my suspicions that the shoulder tension I see in Daphne when she’s eating (shoulders sometimes scrunched up around her neck) may be contributing to the poor tongue use since that posture pulls on the hyoid bone, which needs to move freely to operate the tongue.

She gave us one other exercise to do, helping to stretch out and release the muscles and tendons on either side of the base of the tongue. We are also going to have Jason do the exercises, since I have been unable to successfully do anything but the lip stretches. Turns out that baby girl is smart, and picky. Mom doesn’t get to put things in her mouth that aren’t a human nipple.

She was certainly pleased that Daphne showed some signs of improvement, but noted that we are getting close, developmentally, to the stage where her patterns are starting to set and getting improvement is going to be difficult. She suggested that we see a local physical therapist who also specializes in newborn feeding issues, and who may be able to help work on the head/neck/shoulder issue from another angle. She was also very supportive of my thought of seeing an osteopath who was recommended to me for cranial osteopathy work. (I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it could help with her reflux as well.)

I was even able to get ahold of the PT, who seemed to have an idea of where to go with this just based off of the description I gave her.  Unfortunately, she doesn’t have an appointment for another three weeks.  I’m feeling a bit time-pressured by the whole thing, but we scheduled an appointment for early July and are on her wait list.  It’s a good thing I’ve got pretty much all my days wide open!  Wednesday, when they’re open again, I’ll be calling the DO and seeing if they can get her in soon as well.