to think this food advice for 3 yo from paediatrician is ridiculous?

[JustCleo]

3 yo DD is going through the assessment process for autism at the moment. One of the many things she struggles with is food. She has never eaten hot food and will not touch it. She has a very limited range of foods which is reducing weekly because she gets fed up of the same things repeatedly. The only things she will eat are:

Cucumber
Peppers
Grapes
Pepperoni
Cheese
Crackers
Crisps
Cake

At her last paediatrician appointment I mentioned how her diet has become more restricted than previously (she used to have 4-5 more foods she'd eat) and the paediatrician didn't seem to think her diet was that bad. She said to give her cake and crisps more often to keep her weight and energy levels up Currently she has them 2-3 times per week maximum.

Aibu to think this is crap advice?

Cleo, it's very hard right now, and I'm wary of saying that things will improve - but they might. Age 3 is quite possibly the peak age for food refusal anyway, even without the extreme version you can get with ASD.

Age 3, I only ate tomatoes, cheese and crisps.

My son (with ASD) at one point only ate plain pasta, rice crispies, bacon and peas.

We've both improved.

justcleo If it's any consolation, I had a DS who was severely restricted and for SIX FUCKING ENTIRE MONTHS ate only one type of fucking doughnut. And they had to be fresh too.

I too was given the advice "Doughnuts everywhere, let him eat doughnuts all the time." Because the alternative of tube feeding is such a vicious cycle and we'd been there previously. I stopped mealtimes and just left doughnuts (and other hopeful foods) around for him to pick up when he wanted.

I lived and died by the doughnut stock. There were days when I could not get the exact doughnuts, the only ones that he would eat and so, he did not eat that day. They were ASDA Homer Simpson D'OH Nuts. They had pink frosting and sprinkles. They were disgusting. FFS.

I would sometimes have to go to various ASDAs and/or phone them up to see if they had them and I got to know the lovely folks in the local ASDA bakery who tried to keep me in stock. (My "doughnut dealers", they must have thought I was completely bonkers but they were nice to me anyway.)

If I froze them he wouldn't eat them. If they were stale he wouldn't eat them. If they were slightly different, he wouldn't eat them. It was a
nightmare and we were so worried.

The moral of the story is, he survived, there was no long term damage, he grew, he's in the 95% now for height. He is advanced in academics so the malnutrition didn't kill too many brain cells.

In hindsight, many years later, I wish I'd been a little more relaxed about it all but at the time I could not quash the visions I had of him as a 25 year old only eating Homer Simpson D'OH Nuts.

It's better to eat something than nothing at all in this situation. If you can get some vitamins in her it won't matter as much re: the nutritional content whilst she gets assessed.

This might be a bad suggestion but maybe try her on those protein weight gain bars??

I'm just wondering if she has recently tried any of the things on DS's list - i.e. bits of crispy bacon, plain boiled (maybe buttered) pasta, one or two frozen peas? All easy to keep separate, and different enough from her other list that it might not interfere with the things she will currently eat.

Many people do badly on carbs. The standard western diet states around 50% carbs as an rda. As a previous poster said, your daughter needs to be checked out to see if she has a problem with metabolising them. Will she eat more pepperoni? It's calorie dense. I know it's not seen as healthy because it has nitrates, saturated fat and salt. A lot of research now says saturated fat is fine and my DD recently saw a cardiologist, who told me to up her salt intake, I need loads of salt as well. Not saying this is the case with your DD. My DD has a pepperami sausage every day - these also have carb in them.
Regarding cake, there are a lot of things possible to do with cake - courgette cake with lots of cocoa powder as it goes green. Beetroot chocolate cake is great as well. I also add some ground flax seeds to the cake mix in place of flour. 1/4 flax seeds 3/4 self raising flour and add best part of Level tsp baking powder to compensate for the flour loss. Flax seeds are a great source of protein. Another poster said about pancakes - don't know if they will go down. I do one egg per pancake and if I add flax seeds, I add cocoa powder to disguse them and make them chocolate pancakes. For a treat, I melt a chunk of dark chocolate on top whilst in the pan, roll it up and drizzle maple syrup on top. That's less carb than normal and calorie dense. You could even try using grain free flour instead I've been told I need to get some to try myself to try chick pea flour.

And now the thread is repeating itself.

Her child will only eat one type of cake and only if it is fresh. /headdesk

I know what you mean, Invictus, but I think it's a better plan to suggest new things rather than try 'contaminating' the current very few items she'll eat.

She's so small still, Cleo. Any or all of the various strategies might be worth a shot later, when she's a bit older.

for OP and others navigating these food issues. It gets to the heart of our urge to nurture our children, so is incredibly emotionally difficult.

It amazes me how sensitive our kids can be to particular flavours, smells or textures. DS2 seems to have come through his really restrictive phase, now - we had weks on end of nothing but peanut butter toast and oven chips when he was little. He still doesn't eat vegetables, though (apart from the onions in onions rings - a new and surprising one for us) and baked beans. Baked beans have to be freshly opened, though. And they have to be cooked in a pan, not the microwave. If they've been kept in the fridge or if they're microwaved, he won't touch them.

An he won't eat them more than about once a week!

It feels wasteful, but I tend to stock up on the tiny 150g tins from poundland for those weeks when I can't face beans on toast for lunch.

Has the op come back to the thread ?

I see I have already been dissed. Perhaps judgy pants would have remained off it I had first said my DD has sensory processing problems, would only eat Greek yoghurt for months at a time, then it was toast, then it was cottage pie. I resorted to squashing up vegetables on toast and mixing small amounts of other food groups into the yoghurt to give more of a varied diet - this worked some of the time at the time. She's 7 and the issues have resolved to a point. I'm not saying what I've said will work. I'm suggesting to op perhaps ways of giving DD a nutrient rich diet. And I'm coming at it from a background of knowing far more than the average person about nutrition.

Non, Janecc no one needs qualify themselves to comment on the thread. Your opinion is valid. I did not diss you.

Nor did I fucking judge you. You did not RTFT. Someone already made the same suggestions that you made.

And likewise nutritionists have already been on the thread and made suggestions.

It matters not how much knowledge you have in nutrition, if a child won't eat, they won't eat. Knowledge avails nothing.

Ds is 21 he has a severely restricted diet,he eats just four food items and one of them is Cadbury's dairy milk. He will occasionally add dry white toast (the "right" shape and shade only) and dry Kellogs cornflakes (brands are very important to him) to the repertoire but their inclusion is always brief.
He has never eaten more than six different food stuffs at any one time since he was three years old each time something is added something else is dropped.
He was at one time admitted to hospital to try and increase his food intake and range,it failed miserably not least because ds never feels hungry and so just didn't eat and ended up losing weight that he could ill afford to lose as he ranges from being thin to very underweight.
He has had input repeatedly over the years from dieticians, psychologists, speech therapists and a specialist school none of it has made any improvement.The only real improvement is that he can now take vitamins and supplements whereas he couldn't for years.
Speaking as someone who has to buy a Macdonalds quite regularly to ensure he has enough calories in him I'd say listen to the paed's advice it's most likely not something that will alter quickly or easily or without support and you don't want her to starve.

Is there a "food aversion" thread in SN already? I have never noticed one but maybe it would be a good idea so that people living with the issues can share experiences and rant in a "safe" place!

I agree, Sirzy - might be worth starting an ongoing thread in SN chat?

Ds has autism and his diet was very limited at the age of three so I took him to a private dietician who also specialises in autism and was surprised when she said that actually it wasn't too bad as there was something from all the food groups in his rather limited range. His tastes have expanded gradually over the years we're a far cry from jam sandwiches and crisps everyday!

Even now though I find it best to offer very simple meals. cheese, ham and bread on a plate? Yes. Cheese and ham sandwich? Meltdown!

"ouryve" ds can't have food bought from our local co op because there must be a smell that he detects that no one else can. Back in the day when he'd eat Jaffa Cakes (before they changed the writing on the box which is the reason he won't eat them now) I sneaked a couple of packets in whilst he was at school and hid them among the Sainsbury's stash. He walked in, went straight to the cupboard picked out the two boxes and put them in the bin.
It's not just the taste,thelook and the smell of food here it's the packaging and where it's bought from that also plays a part too.

Sirzy I'm not sure this is an exclusively SN issue (AFAIK DS has no SN, he is an ordinary teenager with some sensory hypersensibilities).

There seem to be a number of things in common with "very restricted" eaters as opposed to just "fussy eaters" (my DD went through a brief period of fussy eating as a toddler). A lot of their issues seem to be to do with texture and smell, there seems to be a common theme of rejecting wet and "mixed together" foods, preferring dry foods served separately, being very sensitive to slight changes in smell/texture/taste (making it hard to conceal ingredients in a favourite recipe), and often not really feeling the sensation of hunger in the way that normal people do (hunger makes DS grumpy rather than making him want to eat, although the teen growth spurt seems to have improved his hunger-recognition).

Mushing up veg and spreading it on toast and stirring stuff into yoghurt is something that might have working with my dds when they went through a fussy phase, but to ds it would be like serving himnba cup of cold vomit.

Ds is very freaked out by smells, I wonder if this might be the reason for the freshness thing. Even I can smell the difference between fresh grapes and been in the fridge grapes, or a pork pie fresh from the packet (I have got frewaky sense of smell thing though!)

Food aversion/issues thread would be good idea.

Yes Mistigri, I think it can be a stand alone issue. I have two adult relatives who can only eat 4 things, they have no other SN.