Things I Wish We Would've Known Sooner

As with almost anything when you look back in life, there are things you wish you could go back and redo. Just like the saying "Hindsight's always 20/20." There are things that we wish we would've known about sooner or done when Osiyyah was much younger.

That is why we put the book together that we did. Because we found a resource similar to it when Osiyyah was around a year old and that book was a lifesaver! We had never read so much encouraging, knowledgeable and helpful research before!

So, some of those things we wish we would've known about sooner are .  .  .

1 ~ Targeted Nutritional Intervention
2 ~ Oral Motor Therapy
3 ~ Early Reading

1~ Targeted Nutritional Intervention made such a drastic change in Osiyyah. It was like night and day. This little tiny, skinny boy transformed before our eyes into a healthy, chunky little baby. I've written about it in full already on the blog and you can read it here.

But, why do I wish we would've known about it sooner? Osiyyah was 8 months old before we heard anything about Nutrivene-D. How nuts is that?! While some may think, 8 months isn't that long, for Osiyyah it was. He needed the help of Nutrivene and he totally would've benefited from it when he was born. But, because of the contrariness towards Nutrivene that is very common in many online forums, it was *never* suggested to us as something that may benefit his major problems that he had when he was little.

Seeing how Osiyyah responded to Nutrivene-D when we started him on it, I know it would have benefited him greatly if he could've been given it at 2 weeks old (or sooner!). We could've saved countless hours in the doctor's office (and a doctor's office that knew absolutely nothing about DS) and Osiyyah would've been doing much better off. Of course though, God is the one who led us to find Nutrivene-D when we did, so it was all in His good will.

One of the first things that I would recommend for a new family would be Nutrivene-D. It. is. so. important.

2 ~ Seeing that speech (especially lack of oral muscles) is Osiyyah's biggest struggle, I am convinced that he would've been greatly helped had we started SRJ's oral motor therapy when he was a baby.

But, again, we did not find out about it until he was around a year old. And even then, at that time, everything seemed overwhelming. All the research I was doing about nutrition and genes still hadn't fully cleared and become easy to understand, so put on top of that OMT  . . . what exactly did we need to do?

We did the straws, and some NUK brush work. But, that was about it. We tried the horns, but he couldn't do them because he didn't know how to blow.

Had we known that jaw strength was so fundamental to being able to talk well, we could've started OMT for his jaw way sooner. We didn't start working hard on his jaw until about a year ago. And the difference that has made for him has been incredible!

Oral motor therapy is one of the first things I would recommend to new families also!

3 ~ Osiyyah knows a few sight words, but not that many. There are many families who do early reading (flash card work) with their kids from the time they are a few months and their children are reading VERY early.

We did not do too much of this, since we didn't know much about it. We did (and do) a bit of Doman's program with the big flash cards, but since Osiyyah is older, we'll have to work more on reading. Speech has been our biggest focus in the last year for Osiyyah anyways. But, I think Osiyyah could pick up reading very easily, knowing him.

Doing a flash card program every day is another thing I would recommend to new families.