Mealtime with a toddler can be a crazy—and fun!—time for any family. Everything's new. It's fun and social. There's an endless parade of new shapes and flavors to discover.

...and an endless need for patience and paper towels!

Our 15-month old is deaf. Most days, we feel like her hearing loss touches every single aspect of our parenting in some way. It's often for the better! LSL strategies are a great toolkit during challenging parts of parenting. They help us slow down and enjoy life with our daughter.

LSL strategies are a great toolkit during challenging parts of parenting. They help us slow down and enjoy life with our daughter.

And what better time to slow down and enjoy things than dinner time?

From narrating our cooking to cleaning up smushed-up avocado on hearing aids, having a deaf baby changes mealtime in some unexpected ways.

#1 - Cooking Time is Narration Time!

Narration is a BIG part of our LSL life.

It's the biggest point of advice we got from our daughter's doctors and speech therapists.

"Keep talking to her!"

We call our cooking narration The Cooking Show. Our deaf baby is our biggest—and only!—fan.

At this age, we do everything we can to expose our daughter to language—from wearing a mini microphone on walks to the park to building LSL strategies into bottle feeding to maximizing her hearing aid wear time.

Cooking is the perfect narration opportunity for our family. It's already built into our daily routine!

We use an Auditory First strategy and talk about every part of cooking. From washing potatoes to shucking oysters to julienning garlic to setting the table—LSL narration at mealtime is an endless buffet of language. (And yeah, it can be exhausting!)

We call our cooking narration The Cooking Show. Our deaf baby is our biggest—and only!—fan.

From washing potatoes to shucking oysters to julienning garlic to setting the table—LSL narration at mealtime is an endless buffet of language.

#2 - Is That Avocado on Her Hearing Aids?

Yeah, this happens.

And worse...

(We've taken to calling purees "squoon"—a made-up word combining "squash" and "prune.")

Since our toddler wears pilot caps all day, her hearing aids get some protection from stray food at mealtime. An added benefit: her hair is covered too.

Since our toddler wears pilot caps all day, her hearing aids get some protection from stray food at mealtime. An added benefit: her hair is covered too.

But sometimes food makes its way through the mesh.

We have to pay attention to the hearing aids' microphones. If they get blocked, it will affect her hearing.

So we keep plenty of hearing aid cleaning wipes available for cleanups.

#3 - Extra Attention to Spoons and Straws

We spend an unusual amount of time thinking about spoons and straws.

It comes up in sessions with our child's speech therapist, where we've discussed how use of mouth muscles relates to speech development.

(Don't ask us for guidance on this stuff... it's way over our heads!)

We're also in touch with our speech team about bottle feeding and our toddler's upcoming switch from bottles to straws/cups for her milk.

It's... a work in progress. As many parents know, weaning a baby off a bottle is no easy task!

#4 - Second Helpings of Meal Conversation, Please!

Meal conversation is wonderful for any family. For an LSL family it's another way to pay forward a hearty diet of Early Intervention and speech therapy.

Much like our narration of cooking, mealtime conversation exposes our daughter to more language. We eat as many meals together as possible, partly for this reason.

We're not speech pathologists, but we act as their eyes and ears—reporting back to the pros what our daughter says about her French fries.

When we're dining out, we break out our wireless Partner Mic and sit it on the restaurant table.

We can't help but pay attention to our daughter's efforts to vocalize at the table. "Was that an mmmmm or a hmmmm?" We're not speech pathologists, but we act as their eyes and ears—reporting back to the pros what our daughter says about her French fries.

#5 - The Vacuum Steals the Show

Early on, our daughter's hearing loss team advised us to make our home a good listening environment.

(In other words, remove as much noise as we can.)

Since our daughter wears hearing aids, quiet rooms help her better access speech during the critical early years.

Finding a quiet space in New York City is hard enough! But every home has its share of noise—pets, dishwashers, kitchen appliances, music, television, the list goes on and on.

We playfully announce to our deaf toddler when the vacuum goes on. It's a celebrity in our house, rather than background noise our voices compete against.

Our tiny handheld vacuum is plenty noisy, but it's essential post-mealtime! We playfully announce to our deaf toddler when the vacuum goes on. It's a celebrity in our house, rather than background noise our voices compete against.

We also learned that some deaf children are bothered by the sound of the vacuum. We worried about that a few months ago. So to try and get ahead of the unpleasantness, we started "bookending" our vacuuming with an announcement:

"It's time for the vacuum to go on! Hi vacuum!"

And then once we're done...

"Thank you vacuum! See you later vacuum—all done!"

So far, so good. Next on our list: get our daughter to do the vacuuming. We may be in for a wait there!