Fussy eating and Occupational Therapy

[mebeforeyou]

Has anyone tried this for their child who is a severe fussy eater? If so did you find it helpful?

DC is 3 and has been very fussy since 14 months old. As time has gone on the range of food he will eat has narrowed until, this past week, it’s nothing but milk and bread with butter.

Went to the GP a few months ago with a long list of strategies we have tried and she said as his weight/height are normal there is nothing she can offer. If he loses weight then come back. Mentioned to the paediatrician a year ago when he was there for something unrelated and he was not interested either.

Behaviour at mealtimes can be dreadful and the fussier he gets the worse the behaviour is getting.

I have reached the end of the road and desperately want professional help for DC.

Note - all the usual tips for fussy eaters are of no use whatsoever, hence I want a professional who takes this seriously.

Thank you

Here, you need a HCP to refer you to OT.

Some OTs do specialise in sensory differences. It depends if that is what the issue is.

Do you have other concerns about behaviour / language (Receptive and/or/ expressive) / social skills / independence / or other sensory differences?

IME it is unusual for eating to be that restrictive in isolation.

@backforgood

DC speech is fine, nursery key worker said it is “superb compared to other 3 year olds.” No other behaviour concerns etc.

Nursery are organising an Educational Psychologist to observe him due to concerns over his spatial awareness and clumsiness next month. I have hypermobility so it’s possible he has inherited this from me as these are symptoms of this condition, however this is the only concern overall. When I had the initial meeting with the EP I mentioned the worsening fussy eating and she said she would send me an info sheet in tactics used by OT, hence my query if anyone has gone down this route as it’s not one I’ve ever heard mentioned. We’re getting increasingly concerned that his eating is continuing to deteriorate and no one wants to know unless he becomes under or overweight ☹️

OT here won’t touch anything sensory. We had advice from ours but only off the record.

We are now under two different dietician teams as the restricted diet led to weight loss but even then there is little they can do other than suggest the same old things.

We have drinks prescribed (when he will drink them) but in terms of widening food choices often it is a case of “you can lead a horse to water”

Ds has a very restricted diet. We saw an OT once who also gave me some off the record advice (none if which was actually very helpful), as OT doesn't deal with anything sensory here and now they are such a restricted service ds has been discharged altogether (despite not being able to get dressed properly on his own or hold cutlery effectively at 8).

D's is underweight and not growing height wise so is under the specialist dietician service, but they concentrate on getting nutrition into him (prescribed drinks mainly) and monitoring. When I went through all the things we do she said we were doing all we could.

Are there any physical problems like reflux or constipation? Ds's is a very mixed bag of reasons because he has had severe reflux from an early age, swallowing difficulties, autistic tendencies and sensory issues.

Nursery are organising an Educational Psychologist to observe him due to concerns over his spatial awareness and clumsiness next month. Have nursery not suggested any other concetns or professional referrals? It is pretty unusual to have ed psych in without any other concerns.

Have a look at The House Of Tiny Tearaways series on youtube, first shown on BBC, I think, a good many years ago, the Tanya Byron ones. She is amazing, and you might get a lot of useful pointers. Good luck!

I think with regards advice given a lot depends on the type of restricted/fussy diet and the reasons behind it. A lot if the Tanya Byron stuff would have been fine for my dd2 who went through picky phases....but her advice would be completely useless for my ds, I wouldnt even desvribe his eating as fussy....it is disordered eating, and not a phase.

Reading with interest because we have a similar DS, now 4.5.
I got a referral to dietetics for him which had honestly been fairly useless save for monitoring his height and weight.
The advice is all the same you’d get on here, and as you know, it just won’t work for this kind of eating behaviour, which goes beyond what people understand as ‘fussy’.
I think an OT referral might have been useful.
We plug away with the foods he will eat, let school introduce new ones, and try to expand his repertoire VERY gradually. Very.

But I know how you must feel. I got the referral when I told the gp I had been crying over the pictures in a toddler cook book.

Oh, some of the stellar advice we got from a dietitian was to strap him into a chair for a minimum of 20 mins whilst he screamed.

Thanks for everyone's responses. It seems there is no easy answer to help young children with fussy eating unfortunately. DC has now lost 1.2kg in a week with his eating now restricted to bread & butter, and milk. I am really starting to get so worried, and yet as his BMI is still in the healthy range there is no point going back to the GP just yet.

What I find so frustrating is that there is so little help for those whose children do not respond to the usual fussy eating advice, and yet if they become under or overweight the GP/NHS/school etc will jump on you. Yet, when you ask for help to try and prevent very poor eating habits becoming entrenched while they are young you just hear phrases like 'you can't force them to eat' etc. No, of course you can't, but surely in the 21st century the area of child psychology and neophobia should have evolved sufficiently to have eating programmes for those who are severely fussy. Helping parents to help their children now surely makes more sense than just the 'ambulance at the bottom of the cliff' approach when they are much older?

Anyway, rant over. Just feeling so upset at this severe deterioration to only eating bread and butter and fearing where this is going to lead

@mebeforeyou I know some time has passed but I was just wondering if your still on this if your little guy has become a better eater? Thank you!

@FinnsMammy Hi, he’s now 7 and his eating has improved a lot however only with certain things. He still won’t eat any vegetables whatsoever and with fruit he will only eat strawberries, apples, pears and grapes - but again, he is very fussy about if he will eat them. He won’t eat so many meals like spag Bol where you could hide vegetables either.

We ended up seeing a dietician three times over 18 months when he was 4yo but that wasn’t much use at all. She just lectured him about listening to your parents and to eat what you are given- he of course ignored her. She gave me some leaflets on healthy foods for kids- which I already knew.

I found out that you could do a self-referral to an Occupational Therapist and she did an initial 30-minute phone appointment with me. She asked me countless questions and her take is that he is choosing to be fussy rather than there be a sensory issue etc.

So, it was back to square one. Both the dietician and OT said he will
likely grow out of the fussiness and all you can do is keep offering a wide selection of foods, always include one food he will eat at meals, don’t pander and do a second meal if he won’t eat the first one etc. Got to say it’s pushed my patience to the limit over the years and I’m heartily fed up.