Tantrums have hit - HELP!

[silverfrog]

Dd1 is 3.5, and has ASD. She has, for the most part, been an incredibly easy child, even taking into account her ASD. She has had her moments, for sure, but has always given me an easy ride with respect to the huge parenting issues (has always eaten very well, sleeps brilliantly, etc).

Over the last month, however, I have noticed that she has become more controlling with her food. initially, I took it as a good sign - indicating choice and preference (both things we are working on with her generally).

BUT, now we are at a situation where she will eat two mouthfuls of her meal (which is something she likes - I'm not interested at this point in widening her tastes, justgetting her to eat fairly well) and then ask for berries (she loves blueberries and has them as pudding after lunch and tea), or a biscuit, or, currently, a mince pie.

This, I feel, is typical 3 year old behaviour of wanting all the treats and not her meal. My problem lies with not knowing up to what point she is understanding the situation - I have been trying to get her to at least try her meal, then she can have other stuff, and the amount of other stuff is relative to whether she is playing up or not.

If I refuse her the treat, she has a huge tantrum (she is still going at the moment, having got down from the table a good 20 mins ago)

I know she is still hungry, as she is chattering on and on (in between the screams) about food - 'would you like some raisins?' 'more cereal tomorrow' and, more worryingly 'hug after rice' (have NEVER witheld hugs in this way - so not sure if she is manipulating me, or generaliasing from my 'berries after rice')

This is turning into a huge essay, but I'm not sure what to do. Dd has always been a good eater, so am reluctant to give in to her whims, on the basis that if I give her what she wants I might end up creating a very limited eater. However the reverse is of course, also possible - by trying to stand firm I might equally create food battles.

She is, needless to say, not very nice if she's over-hungry...

Any ideas?

[aquariusmum]

I have this every night with my ASD 3 year old DS - if I let him, he would live off marmite toast and cornettos. I have no real advice, except that all I am doing is keeping on making him eat a bit of his dinner before he gets the ice cream, plus keeping on offering him different dinners. Tonight he was absolutely starving and had a tantrum when I said no to toast and gave him spag bol. Actually he ate it because he was so hungry, but most nights I have to force a bit down him (which is no good, as then I feel I'm going backwards on him feeding himself!). Oh I don't know, I just operate under one principle and that is that I won't let him narrow down his food range too much (I have a friend whose ASD son eats nothing but chocolate and water and I don't want to get to that stage). You are very lucky that DD eats blueberries though, they are a superfood! My DD loves apples and peaches, but peaches aren't in season now and nectarines he will not touch! I'm rambling, but I suppose what I'm saying is you sound like you are doing all the right things and don't give up!

[silverfrog]

Oh it is so good to know I'm not the only one going through this! I'm with you on not wanting dd to limit her foods too much, that's why I didn't want to get her porridge for tea.

I know I shouldn't grumble about the blueberries, but have oyu seen the price of them? Dd won't touch the frozen ones (can't blame her - she likes to "crunch" them, and the frozen ones end up too soggy!)

I wish I could still feed her bits and pieces myself - I longed for her to start feeding herself (even though she would eat absolutely anything off a spoon from me) and she finally did the week before dd2 was born. Now she will not take a thing off a spoon from me - she is Little Miss Independence, right down to not taking medicine the other week when she was really poorly. Obviously now I wish she would take stuff from me, even if it meant helping her feeding too.

I am very well acquainted with the saying "be careful what you wish for"

[sphil]

We have this too - have to be very careful not to open the fridge door for ANY reason while DS2 is eating his meal or he will immediately ask for icecream, over and over again. I just keep repeating 'first sausages, then ice cream' ad nauseam, the same as you.

I would definitely agree that you should work on keeping the food choices as wide as possible - I didn't do this with DS2 and his diet became much more limited as a result. For example, I didn't give him rice for a fortnight and he then refused to eat it for a year!

Could you give her a tiny portion of main course at first, then the berries if she eats it all? Then very gradually increase the amount?

[bullet123]

Does she like smoothies? You can get a good amount of things like fruit, oats, silken tofu and even some veg in them.

[silverfrog]

Oh, she doesn't have to eat all her meal, even if it's just a tiny portion - just try it, then she can have other stuff.

I think some of it stems from the making choices thing - we are working very hard on geting her to make active choices, rather than passively go along with what is suggested, and I think she may be wanting a choice. I do not give her free choice on what she eats (PMSL - she'd live on berries and biscuits!) but I htink she is objecting to just being served up whatever I feel like cooking.

Am also familiar with keeping foods "current" - dd1 used to have a banana after lunch and after tea, then I didn't give her them for a weekend (part of trying to widen her food choices - again PMSL) so that she had room for other (nice) things to eat after her meal - she hasn't touched on since...

The smoothie thing is a tricky one with dd - she has only in the last month or so started drinking voluntarily. She will sometimes accept a smoothie, but I am very much following her lead on this one (although am beginning to suspect that she roots through the cupboards taking note of stock levels - she has, without fail, only ever asked for a particular drink herself once we have run out of it )

If only I knew how much of her behaviour was "just" a 3 year old, and nothing to do with ASD...

Thanks for all your suggestions - it's good to know that I may not be barking up the wrong tree entirely!

[aquariusmum]

I had not thought of that silverfrog and sphil, but now I realise that if I don't give him something for ages (eg fish goujons) he simply won't eat it. It is so complicated !! I am not a cook, but there is one receipe I did get off Jamie which is mince with hidden vegetables in it (squash, courgette, carrot, onion, red pepper). Sometimes, though of course not all the time, he is very sporadic about everything, he will eat my mince with rice and those nights I feel really happy that he has had a balanced meal. We use ABA for my DS, adn his tutors helped me get him to eat veg by using the principle of making him eat a little before he gets anything nice. This worked well, with some force-feeding at the start, and he now actively likes carrots which is one veg at least. I do give him the carton Innocent smoothies BULLET, but then they give him real bowel trouble as I think the passion fruit is very fibrous and that's the only one he'll eat (as it's the one I introduced when his food doors were still open, so to speak). God, isn't it complicated! Don't you love it when people offer you "useful " advice - my dear in laws suggested I try coco-pops for his breakfast, and I almost laughed out loud at the thought of my DS sitting down calmly with a spoon to eat his cereal and milk from a lovely bowl!! Pate on toast was the other suggestion I got the other day - AS IF [FSMILE]

[silverfrog]

Yep, love other people's "helpful" suggestions - have got PIL staying for Christmas (arriving tomorrow - really need to tidy the house!) and my BIL was a really picky eater so I know MIL will be giving useful advice... When I last moaned to her about dd's eating, she suggested I should try giving her sandwiches, as they are easy to prepare and can vary them quite a lot - which would have been an ok suggestion if it were not for the fact that I was moaning about dd not eating bread. At all. Ever. Nor toast. (was wishing that I could just bung her a sandwich!). She still won't. we had a brief breakthrough with raisin bread jsut before we put her on GF/CF diet. Ho hum.

have discovered that she quite likes mince pies - think she'll be eating quite a few of them over the next few days!

[aquariusmum]

Yes the sandwich advice is up there with a piece of wisdom my PIL gave me when my DS wasn't speaking at age 2: "oh just don't feed the bairn for a day or two, he'll soon enough ask for food!". Fabulous!