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Semi new with some questions

Hi All,

 My name is Jackie.  My husband and I have an 8 month old daughter who is Blind.  We are from Western Michigan.  Both my husband and I have the same eye condition as our daughter ( low vision with some limited sight) so I know that I probably have more experience than a lot of parents who have never dealt with a disability, still, as I am sure you all know, it is much different when you are a parent.

Emilia has 5 therapist and she is getting PT,OT,vision therapy,Orientation and Mobility and also just general early stim.  I am very happy with our services, they come to our home and they are endlessly helpful. 

I just have a couple of questions for other parents.  I really try hard not to allow Emilia's delays to bother me but I must admit that when I see a baby born the same week on facebook who is crawling I feel a little discouraged.  Emilia is not even rolling over yet.  how do you cope with watching other babies make fast progress?  I know I am probably overreacting but it hurts sometimes.  I love Emilia so so much and I just want her to have everything in life.

 Second, she is sitting up but VERY wabbly and I was thinking about trying to switch her over to a bath chair where she has to sit up to encourage her to keep developing stronger trunk muscles.  Obviously we would only do this VERY carefully with constant supervision as i know the bathtub is very dangerous.  i was just wondering if any of you have any suggestions for chairs for the bathtub that you have used.

Third, she is a picky eater. Sometimes she won't eat, sometimes we can get six or seven bites of peaches or baby oatmeal down her.  She does like to feed herself small things like those cereal puffs for babies but she has a very hard time coordinating the process.  Did any of you find any tools of special kinds of food thata were good for development in this area.

 Thanks so much for all of your help!

Re: Semi new with some questions

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    I can't speak to the motor/eating issues, but can certainly relate to the difficulty with comparisons with other children. DS is on the autism spectrum. When I'm confronted with his differences from other children, it sends me into a real funk. There's no easy way to avoid that; it's natural. But when I focus on his progress, what he's doing now that he hasn't done before, I feel a lot better. I also try to think of DS as different, but not worse. I feel a little sheepish saying this, but I also do some downward comparisons with other children. Like- so what that kid is 4 months younger than DS and can talk circles around him? He's whiny and my kid is easygoing, and that kid has a funny-looking smile and DS looks like an angel. I'm not saying I'm a good person for doing this, but it can make me feel better:)
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