5 year old with autism barely eating

[Adhdmum2]

I don't know what to do so I'm in need of advice please.
My DD is 5 and is diagnosed with autism. We cannot get her to eat meals at all!
At school she takes a packed lunch, we've tried sandwiches, bagels and now pasta but it comes home slightly nibbled.
Evening meal times are a real struggle too, only eating the "safe foods".
Her safe foods consist of mini jammies dodgers, apples but only at snack time, chocolate crepes but only Aldi ones, pepperami, crisps (blue or pink only), the occasional hot cross bun, chicken poppers and that's about it. Oh and biscuits and milk
We are really struggling to get actual nutrients into her. It's pretty much limited to the apple, milk and maybe sweetcorn and broccoli.
What can I do? There's nothing to her! She's very very tall but so slim.
She will occasionally go on a ravenous hunt and surprise us but it's rare.
I'm looking for some steps I can take over the summer holidays to help the situation please

Are you familiar with ARFID? You can try food chaining, so introducing something very similar to a safe food (like potato waffle to a chip, one type of pasta to another etc) although I haven't found it successful personally. It needs to be done over a long time, so just on the table or plate every meal time but no pressure to eat it. Otherwise just feed her as much of what she eats as you can to keep calories up. I found my dc was more inclined to try something new in a completely new environment with no prior food associations.

How much milk is she drinking? Will she take a multi vitamin?

I’m following this as my 5 year old DD has such a restricted diet, she has ASD and is non verbal and her safe foods are yogurt, crisps, pouches of baby food and biscuits, she won’t touch anything else.

We keep trying with different foods but she won’t even try anything. I just give her multivitamins and hope that things will change at some point, no help I know!

Firstly if she is slim and tall ( so meaning she grows ) she doesn’t sound unhealthy and unless she is lacking in energy try not to worry

milk and apples corn and Brocilli is all good stuff and will be ok for nutrition. Protein , minerals and vitamins. Hot cross buns would be better than the biscuits if you can steer her that way

if she sometimes gets ravenous - that’s daily floor sounds quite ordinary too - these phases are incredibly difficult to manage - but it sounds like she is driven to eat when her body wants it.

just give her the best you can manage even if it’s the same thing every meal

Thank you for your replies.
She's just eaten a hot cross bun after only eating a few chicken bites for tea. She does take a multivitamin daily which is really good and I need my own personal cow to keep up with her milk intake!
I'll try a few new foods with safe foods presented at the same time over the summer and see if I can get any interest.
She's definitely growing. When she was measured at school the nursing team rang me to ask if I "realised she's very tall" to which I responded "would you like me to tumble dry her to shrink?" 🤣 There's always something to worry about with these kids!

I was going to suggest food chaining from safe food as per pp. Does she have enough energy to live life fully? If so, she’s doing ok. I do wonder if she is having a lot of milk if she isn’t hungry for other things. I know milk is great but particular with ASD you want to keep their limited range as much as possible.

You say she will eat biscuits, would she eat breakfast biscuits? My son has a very restricted diet as well but will eat belvita breakfast biscuits because he thinks they’re cookies and can’t tell the difference. They’re probably not the healthiest things in the world but do seem a bit more nutritious than regular biscuits. My son likes the soft baked ones.

I’m definitely going to try these thanks, she loves cookies so hopefully the breakfast biscuits might work. I’ve tried her with the soft baked ones before but the chocolate one has a runnyish centre and she didn’t like the texture but will try normal Belvita, thanks so much!

Belvita are a great shout! Thank you I'll give them a go.
I have wondered if she's filling up on milk but she only has it morning and evening.
Shes got more than enough energy for everyone in this house 🤣 so that's good sign I guess

Sounds like ARFID. You feed her whatever she will eat, whenever she will eat it. Don’t try and trick her or swap her safe foods, it’ll ruin her trust in you. If she’ll take a multivitamin gummy great, or a fortified milk will also work. I had the same with my son from around 5 to 13 years, then he got more adventurous and intersected in the gym and everything changed. Good luck

I’m not particularly knowledgeable about ARFID but op please try not to worry too much. Get calories into her it doesn’t matter how. Offer plenty of safe food. It’s great she drinks milk - would she drink flavoured milk? Just thinking you could supplement full fat milk with flavoured protein powder for extra calories

My child has autism and food issues. A small thing that helps is presentation. Eg she likes ice cream..she’s more likely to try food on a stick, I freeze baby food pouches into ice cream moulds.

she likes making food but won’t eat it, but might try it, eg we make a pizza with different toppings, she might try them as we go but will never eat a slice of pizza.

she also has a snack area for no pressure eating she can help herself where I leave bananas as she eats those or in your case apples or another snack that had had success before.

I don’t have a lot of success but I plate her a small bit of what we have for dinner, which she refuses and will have toast before bed.

I would try and see a nutritionist if your health board has one. We saw one for my DS and she was really helpful. But the main thing I wanted to say was she was supremely unconcerned about filling up on milk. She recommended not giving milk for an hour before meals, because it does make them feel full, but apart from that - have at it and make it full fat too. Having it with food is fine too if it encourages being at the table/another safe food there.

DS is now 21 and I still have shares in Big Dairy.

I'm autistic and have a strong need to eat on my own and in a comfortable position with my legs up, even better if I can watch something while I eat. Could you give her this option?

Is she motivated by any kind of reward system. Could you reward her if she has a mouthful of something new?

The milk will be filling her up, we had an issue with a resident years ago who drank too much milk then wouldn’t touch her meals.

if she’s growing, isn’t under weight etc then I would just leave her to eat what she wants. IMO with my son it was more hassle than it was worth getting him to try new foods, he ended up with meal time anxiety etc.

I highly recommend this book by two brilliant Clinical Psychologists. Dr Gillian Harris and Dr Liz Shea.
Any advice from either will really help.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Avoidant-Children-including-Spectrum-Conditions/dp/1785923188

She has got a basic coverage of all food groups, so if she's also growing and has energy, don't stress it too hard.

The worst bit about the looming summer holiday will be keeping my long, lean autustic teen fed. He'll fill up on biscuits and has a limited range of what he'll eat for breakfast and lunch. I do not recommend bread-hating ravenous teens, and he gets hangry when he's under-fed. He does eat enough range of food groups, just not easy options and he has zero inititative to sort his own food out. This means that he'll spend the first week of the holiday being woken for 7am breakfast in order to get something that isn't biscuits into him before I get home from work. Necessity has not been the mother of invention yet...

This was not in the What To Expect... parenting manuals!

My nearly 4 year old who's awaiting assessment has an extremely limited diet and I had the exact same thought about the belvita breakfast biscuits because I figured they'd be more nutritious than normal biscuits. The look on his face when I tried to give him one 😬 hopefully OP has better luck 😅

She'll be exhausted by this stage of term and all the change of end of term "special, fun treat" stuff plus transitioning to holidays is a lot to cope with. I would reel back and just give her plenty of what she can easily manage for at least a couple of weeks. Let her stabilise and decompress before you start pushing her in any way.

I know it doesn't feel like it but I've seen far worse safe lists including my husband's. There's protein, carb, veg, fruit. I think you are doing better than you think. Safety before challenge.

That diet doesn’t sound too bad tbh, I’d just let her eat what she likes 🤷‍♀️

Does she like things like milkshakes or smoothies ?

Your replies have made me feel so much better thank you!
She does have a smoothie everyday as part of breakfast which I'd forgotten so that's some goodness there.
Thank you all, you've given me the confidence to just let her be her in terms of food for a bit because she is struggling with the end of term hype and that's probably why it seems worse at the moment.
She does like to try foods we make so I'll do a bit of that through the summer holidays.
She'll also eat a marmite and cheese toasted bun from Starbucks so if all else fails at least I've got the time to whip her down there through the summer - and a coffee for me too!
Thank you all so much

What a lovely update, thank you OP.

If she will eat a Starbucks marmite and cheese bun can you work towards a homemade one? Will she eat melted cheese at home at all?

If she eats smoothies, what about adding vitamixin to the smoothies? Holland and Barrett sell it online. It's genuinely taste free.

Alternatively there is something you can get in pharmacies called paediatric seravit. Same thing, its a vitamin and mineral powder. However this does have a slight metallic taste to it.