Belle is now 20 months old and is continuing to do well. She has started walking so she has been focusing a lot on mastering that skill. Her talking has slowed down a little bit but she has picked a few new signs and words this month. I am pleased with the tone that I see around her mouth. I am even starting to see some dimples appear!

You can see Belle drinking out of her purple Recessed Lid Cup from TalkTools above. She absolutely loves this cup. She thinks she is a really big kid when she gets to use it as she sees other kids get to drink out of their cups on their own.

There is also a picture of Belle sleeping. Even though she has open mouth posture during some of her day, she typically sleeps with her mouth closed and breaths out her nose. She absolutely hates breathing out of her mouth at night time. I know this is a good thing!  

Belle Using Her Purple Cup & Chewing Very Chewy Fruit Snacks

Belle Working with Her Horn Before Bed Time

We haven't made it to 25 blows on Horn #1, which is our goal, but she is consistently getting more than 10 so we are getting there!

-Lanie Beetsma

Annabelle has Down Syndrome and has been using TalkTools Therapy since she was born. Her story is a great inspiration for parents seeking help for a child with Down Syndrome. Follow Miss Annabelle’s journey from the beginning here.

Belle is starting to imitate words more which I am excited about. To date, she has approximately 18 words and 18 signs. She is very animated and quite dramatic at times :) Annabelle continues to eat well and is doing great with her new Straw #4. She has improved tremendously with her "chomping" exercises in the past few months. I can tell that her jaw has gotten a lot stronger. When it comes to our horn exercises, however, it's a power struggle of who gets to hold the horn. Her pouty face typically wins or at least initiates a compromise. She has no problem making a noise with it, but we have a long way to go until we can track 25 breaths through it in a row. Overall, I think Belle is making great progress. I am really proud of that joyful little gal!

Above is Annabelle doing her "chomping" exercises right before bed. I know that her sitting on my bed isn't the ideal place to practice these but it is a part of her bedtime routine and she is really used to it. It's also our little time to hang out together and giggle a little bit too. Her jaw strength has really improved over the past few months. Prior to this time, it was a struggle for her to "chomp" even one or two times, and as you can see in the video, she has come a long way.

This video is of the very first day Belle tried to blow bubbles. She did great! This is one of her favorite activities (and one of her brother's too as you will hear in the background). I am amazed by all the things that she can do. She is capable of so much at 19 months!

-Lanie Beetsma

Annabelle has Down Syndrome and has been using TalkTools Therapy since she was born. Her story is a great inspiration for parents seeking help for a child with Down Syndrome. Follow Miss Annabelle’s journey from the beginning here.

Annabelle is continuing to do well with her straws and eating. Several of her teeth are coming in all at the same time so she is getting to eat a bigger variety of foods, which she enjoys. We continue to do her OPT exercises twice a day. She doesn't love them, but I try to make it somewhat enjoyable by singing songs and being goofy with her.

Belle loves to brush her teeth like her older brother and sister. Her other favorite thing is to read books. If I haven't heard from her in a little while, I always know that I can find her in her room looking through all her books! She has learned 10 words now and lots of signs. She is cruising on everything and will hopefully be walking soon!

Here is a video of Belle eating a very chewy chocolate chip granola bar. It was her first day to eat one of these, and I thought she did well. Isn’t her progress amazing?

Here she is working with her horn. Her last blow really shows her improvements with her exercises.

-Lanie Beetsma

Annabelle has Down Syndrome and has been using TalkTools Therapy since she was born. Her story is a great inspiration for parents seeking help for a child with Down Syndrome. Follow Miss Annabelle’s journey from the beginning here.

I recently attended the “Three-Part Treatment Plan for Oral Placement Therapy” and it was great. Monica was the presenter and I really learned a lot. It helped to show me what exercises and goals we will continue to progress towards. I know that Belle has a long way to go, but being in a routine of daily exercises for the past 13 months has been a great way to improve.

Belle is doing well and loves to feed herself, as you will notice in the video. She eats all kinds of foods but still has open mouth posture most of the time. We have gotten better with our exercises and her tongue continues to stay in her mouth 99% of the time while feeding. I know I need to continue to work on strengthening her jaw which is what our oral placement exercises target each day.

-Lanie Beetsma

Annabelle has Down Syndrome and has been using TalkTools Therapy since she was born. Her story is a great inspiration for parents seeking help for a child with Down Syndrome. Follow Miss Annabelle’s journey from the beginning here.

Earlier this month Annabelle was spitting out almost all of her food. It was extremely frustrating, to say the least. We knew that she needed all the calories that she could get because she is still a pretty tiny little thing.  In addition, we knew that she had created a horrible eating pattern of pushing food out with her tongue. I tried to stay optimistic, but after about a week I called Whitney for some much needed help. Whitney got us all straightened out, and Annabelle has been eating great since then. She worked with us on better food placement for Annabelle and also encouraged us to let her self-feed at the end of the meal, instead of the beginning so we could start off meal time correctly.

I am so very thankful to have Whitney as a partner in this journey. My husband agrees and asked, "what do families do when problems like this arise and they don't have anyone to turn to?" Who knows how like Annabelle would have continued her pattern of spitting out every bite if we wouldn't have gotten some much needed assistance.

In other news, Annabelle is quite chatty and active. She says, "dada, momma, Lyla, hi, no no, and yay" quite regularly. She also has several signs including more, all done, eat, drink, baby, and book.  We are very proud of her progress!

-Lanie Beetsma

Annabelle has Down Syndrome and has been using TalkTools Therapy since she was born. Her story is a great inspiration for parents seeking help for a child with Down Syndrome. Follow Miss Annabelle’s journey from the beginning here.