Eat God Damn You Son! (age 9) Any advice?!

[piechipsandbeans]

Has anyone got any advice? My nine year old has spent his life falling down the growth charts. He was discharged from Paediatrics as a toddler as he stabilised, but as he has got older it has become clear that he is not growing as his peers are. GP has been monitoring him and he has now slipped off the growth chart altogether.

I think part of the problem is that he has lost connection with feeling hungry. He had terrible reflux as a child and developed a terror of eating, he never took to weaning and has always had a small appetite and would happily not eat at all rather than eat food he does not like. Due to poverty when I was younger, I underate for a prolonged period and I did just get used to being a bit hungry all the time and so I did lose that normal connection with hunger and eating. I think my son may have this.

It is very noticeable that his younger brother (six) asks for food more often and eats more. Also when DS1's friends come around after school they always ask for a snack but DS never wants one.

He is very active but this does not seem to increase his appetite.

Anyone else experienced this and is there any advice as to what I can do to encourage his appetite?

It's easiest to start from what he likes, and then add to it. So if he likes a ham sandwich make him one, cut a corner off it and add a slither of cheese spread.
If he likes plain pasta, add a bowl/spoonful of pizza sauce next to it for him to dip in.

DS liked pizza, so all foods were variations of pizza for a while. Chips with pizza sauce, chicken with pizza sauce, toast with... etc.
After a while we added some meat to the pizza sauce (Bolognese), added beans to the meaty pizza sauce (chilli) etc. He eats pretty much everything now except mushrooms/courgette/aubergine.

my son is the same. he is asd though. at the moment he will only eat chocolate. at least there is calories in that. i can sometimes get a smoothie in him. i add oats to that but some people add nut butters which have good fats in them. just keep letting him eat what he likes and take the pressure off. he eats a good range of foods so i wouldnt worry too much.

The 'eat that' or 'eat nothing' approach will be massively contributing to your sons low weight anyway, not 'possibly' like I said on my last post.

If I was starving and somebody put seafood on my plate (an example of something I don't like) I would rather starve. Same goes for other stuff I don't like.

OP take control over your sons food and you'll find his weight starts to increase.

Serve him things you know he'll eat, for instance Sunday dinner, (I'm just guessing and it's just an example) and say he doesn't like or won't try broccoli, put it with the Sunday dinner you know he will eat, even if it's in a separate bowl / plate & encourage him to try the broccoli and if he doesn't eat it, no big deal, he'll eat the rest and you've tried to introduce something else. Maybe if you know he really really doesn't like it (like me with seafood) don't serve it (I wouldn't eat seafood for a million quid) just start with foods he hasn't tried before (that he doesn't know if he likes or not yet)

Ds has autism and he's lived off plain pasta for years. If I suddenly decided I wasn't going to serve him pasta and make him eat something else, he wouldn't eat at all.

How many times a day do you offer food?

Maybe try breakfast, lunch, tea, a snack after school and something before getting ready for bed? So he's got more opportunity to get calories into him.

And at the end of the day, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. You can only try!

I had a very poor appetite as I child. I genuinely just never felt hungry but my parents were so worried they constantly spoke about food making me feel anxious and sick resulting in me eating even less. I used to skip breakfast and lunch as most of the focus was on dinner so I'd try just force that down. Now my son is exactly the same as I was. I just make the food and leave him to it. He was very bad for a few months but has started eating himself and is slowly gaining weight although he's still very slim. One thing I always do is put a small amount of something he really likes on his plate like chocolate or biscuits even for breakfast as it seems to kick start his appetite.

I can't do the smoothie/ milkshake thing as he doesn't like those things.

He does get bored from having the same food after a while, which is also a problem. But then he'll be proud of himself for adding chicken dippers to his repertoire, alongside crispy chicken

DH only cooks at weekends. But like I say, I am going to put a stop to him choosing what he makes and telling him.

These problems DS has he has always had. The Paed. said he was unusual as reflux babies usually really take to weaning as they are hungry, but DS just didn't.

I think this is one of the rare cases of your child not being a picky eater, he's a non-eater. The strategies people are used to hearing (which is what your husband is doing) for picky eaters don't apply here. Like others have said, it's not what he's eating at this point, it's quantity and getting nutrients into him. Will he gummy vitamins so theres a baseline of nutrients going in? Does he have a list of foods he will happily eat?

One of mine went through a phase of refusing to eat at school and wouldn't eat breakfast either, he was very skinny but didn't seem to stop him growing taller. Think it was more of an anxiety symptom, went on through most of secondary school. I found I could get him to drink a little bottle actimel kind of drink, found the ones with most calories and instant ovaltine hot chocolate which is loaded with multi vitamins. I also made him milkshakes with full cream milk and high quality ice cream loaded with calories. I'd say try giving him high calorie drinks that he likes. He did grow out of it eventually developing an interest in healthy eating and is now a 6'2" adult.

He doesn’t like milkshake stuff? Neither do I but I manage to tolerate the fresubin as it isn’t thick like a milkshake. More like strawberry flavoured milk.

Just let him what he likes. Even if it means he has chicken nuggets for the 5th day in a row. Some food is better than no food

Feed him snacks in front of the TV. Leave bowls of food out with things you know he likes. Say nothing except pointing out when they first arrive. Every time they watch a film or tv after school hand him a snack. Don't ask just hand it to him. If he doesn't eat it or half eats don't comment just remove it when they're done watching.

Also I'd get him cooking so he can control what's being made. Cook with him and encourage him to explore tasting the ingredients as he goes. We got the Usborne first cookbook for my 9 year old.

Surely at 9 you can have a 2 way conversation with him and explain that to grow/ be healthy he needs to consume more. Ask him to try to eat just a little more everytime or to eat a half a snack when his friends do. If the issue is simply he's jot hungry rather than he is fearful or food, he should be able to work with you.

Will he eat junk?
It's easier to get him eating little but often of tasty junk and then adjusting the recipes to better nutrition rather than changing the amount he eats and the foods he prefers simultaneously.

If he will eat mashed potatoes, pasta, or custard or anything similar, then add butter and cream to them. These are high in calories so a small amount goes a long way.

I totally feel your pain but want to encourage you. Our youngest was exactly the same. Skinny as a rake. Extremely picky and extremely stubborn about it.

In the end, I am a bit ashamed to say, we just gave him what he would eat. Raw instead of cooked carrots, chocolate milk, desserts with lots of fruit, carrot cakes etc. lots of macaroni cheese. Plain spaghetti. Oatmeal cookies. Nothing with even a microscopic piece of fat. Ice cream.

He stayed that way until he went traveling during a gap year. He came back and told us it was too much work to be picky traveling in India.

He is now a healthy accomplished grown man who works very hard at feeding his children good healthy food.

Truly a miracle. I'm willing to bet yours will come around.

We had an slightly older child at a dietitian due to similar concerns. It was really useful, as well as the usual healthy options we were told to ramp up the calories, more than we would have expected : a bowl of coco pops as a snack, ice cream after dinner etc, basically offering regular snack options in between the usual meal times. It definitely helped to increase her weight (she's still relatively slight) and it kick-started her appetite for regular meals too. Her appetite is very good now. Also worth considering if a vitamin/mineral supplement would be useful. I also wonder if just the fact the dietician was encouraging her to eat more was part of the success.

OP I think you're on the right track, eating should just be a joy for him. Make what you and DH will eat and then make some stuff your son is guaranteed to eat, pizza rolls, Buffalo chicken dip, tator tots, whatever! If he wants to try the other things he can. I took care of a little girl with failure to thrive and she had a button, which was fine! But you want to avoid that if you can. What about a milkshake with every meal? You could add peanut butter, fruit, anything! What about a bedtime snack too? Cinnamon toast or fairy toast or cereal or a hotdog or something? Something fun and caloric.

@Deisogn

Feed him snacks in front of the TV. Leave bowls of food out with things you know he likes. Say nothing except pointing out when they first arrive. Every time they watch a film or tv after school hand him a snack. Don't ask just hand it to him. If he doesn't eat it or half eats don't comment just remove it when they're done watching.

I think this is a great idea too! You could also make a fun dessert together every week, like brownies with whatever mixins he wants and then just offer them to him all the time, he might be more excited to eat them if he helps make them!

Has anyone checked for lactose intolerance?

At 9 I thought it was normal to have tummy ache all the time. I knew I didn't like milk but not that it made me ill.

I can have small amounts of dairy in other foods, just not too much eg I can manage a couple of Yorkshire puddings with a roast but on their own I suffer.

Do you sit round the table as a family?

If you don't I would start but introduce rules.

Everyone sits at the table for 15-20 mins.
No TV or electronics.
Conversation to not be about food.
Try to make it a fun experience, funny story or a joke.
It doesn't matter if someone doesn't eat or only eats a bit.

My carer has lots of food issues OP as a child his mother did not have much money and on occasion resorted to force feeding.

He will occasionally try something new, but it often doesn't work eg he likes chicken nuggets and popcorn chicken. He likes garlic bread. So he tried a cheap chicken Kiev and no, it wasn't any good.

I know this isn't the same as a child, it's just that I understand something you think they will like can totally backfire.

What food stuff does he like?

We might be able to come up with ways to increase the calorific content of them.

I think I'd also be moving to offering many more opportunities to eat (and these can then offer more foods that he does like so an individual meal not being to his taste is less of an issue).

For example if it's that he has breakfast first thing, then a morning snack, then lunch, then an after school snack, then dinner/tea and then a "supper" before bed you have a lot more opportunities to get food into him.

It also means that say it's the weekend, if he had e.g. a crumpet or two as his afternoon snack, then a slice of toast and a hot chocolate before bed then if he won't eat dinner because his dad's producing something he doesn't like it wouldn't be a catastrophe. Or if you know it's something he loves for dinner, you could provide a snack that's similar to one he already likes but not the same (e.g. an English muffin with his preferred topping instead of a crumpet) - I think it's called food chaining and it's always worked quite well in our house.

The other thing to consider is Coeliacs. Has he been tested?

There are some vitamin/mineral deficiencies that can affect hunger, relish and taste. I’m not confident enough of that information to risk spreading misinformation but it is something to discuss with a nutritionist (and could be worth paying privately if that’s an option)

I assumed he needed more protein, and would add whey powder to baking and yogurt but actually he was already getting enough, but he did need more iron. It’s worthwhile getting nutritional assessment as you can be focusing on the wrong thing.

We were turned down for support because ds ate 2 more foods than the cut off, despite most of them being variations (eg different pasta shapes).

Every attempt I’ve made to bulk up ds’ diet just meant he ate less overall. Not in a control battle - it’s been like this since he was a toddler. I think that I have to accept that this is the way he’s made.

Frustratingly dd tends towards obesity and we have a weird family food dynamic, trying to encourage one to eat high calorie snacks and the other to recognise when she’s had enough.

Can you list the food or recipes he likes? Then maybe we can suggest some ways of getting extra calories in. I had a dd with a feeding tube and severe food phobia so have quite a bit of experience with this. The most important thing is to remove all pressure, food is a pleasure, not a battle, so remove any negative comments, expessions and so on. Comment positively on what he has eaten without going over the top. Make sure it is a in a realistic time limit, say no more than 20 mins so it’s not an endless process to be endured. Try to end each meal on a positive in whatever way you can, either a comment, or something he has enjoyed a bit.