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?

DD1 has severe food allergies and at a similar age her daily diet consisted of 4 corn flakes and a couple of pints of milk. She was 4 1/2 before she overcame her fear of eating, and that was when DD2 was weaned. I found the dietitians a waste of time. The consultant at the hospital wanted to force feed her about the time DD2 was due, "just to see if her allergies are real". (This was after numerous admittances for treatment for allergies) She had had patch tests etc that should the horrendous number of things she was allergic to.

So feed your DD what she will eat. Try and keep her as healthy as you can and I do hope that things settle down for you. It is such a worry.

I know of other people who have had similar advise, at least short term, as not great food is a lot better than no food for a growing child.

Your doctor should be able to refer you to a dietitian - these are experts who are qualified to give specific advise regarding specific diets for medical conditions. A nutritionist is different. It is a dietitian you need really for dealing with specific medication conditions, including ASD.

www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/find-a-registered-dietitian-or-nutritionist.aspx?CategoryID=51&SubCategoryID=168

I would focus on keeping her eating, in any way she will. And I don't say that lightly! But I've had enough to do with young children on the spectrum to understand how difficult and fixated they can be about what they will and won't do.

Does she take any supplements? I would encourage you to leave all sorts of food out and available, I read a book once (George and Sam) written by their Mother and George went through a phase where he would only eat food he believed was for someone else. There's often no way of telling the best approach and it can be found simply be accident. All you can do is your best but I would listen to the doctor, if she needs calories, she needs calories. I'm surprised they didn't recommend more cheese though, perhaps too much salt.

OP FWIW we cut gluten and dairy and my boys appetite did a 180 turn! He wouldn't eat anything before other than chicken nuggets chips and oatmeal after stopping gluten dairy we now have to actually hide food from him!
It's common knowledge that many asd children have intolerances (not true allergies), and gut issues that are worse by gluten/diary. Their gut is irritated hence they can't tolerate food don't want to try new textures etc
We also added zinc, again asd kiddies have mostly zinc deficiencies which cause appetite issues

Good luck

It's a pity this thread wasn't moved to the SN boards early on ...

another

How sensible do you reckon it is to suggest further restriction to an already restricted diet?

Well when you are not a doctor who is talking about their actual patient.

Needs FFS I said what WE did for us!!!! WTF we never gonna say anything we did cause we are not doctors ??
Don't come to MN if you can't stand peoples' suggestions

I would search out a good nutritionist with experience of working with autism.

A nutritionist can buy their "qualification" on the Internet.

It's a dietitian that the OP would be looking for. A dietician would look at that list of foods and observe that it has a good balance of most nutrients, even though there's a lot of sugar and salt and that, for now it just needs to be eaten in larger quantities, for the sake of growth, which is the current priority.

This thread just reminded me of my 'French pizza' fuck up. We went on our hols and served DS pizza which wasn't the pizza he ate at home. He now won't eat pizza at all. We are 10 months into this and I can't believe I mucked up one of his safe foods by serving a different brand. I've learnt a valuable lesson.

When dd was a similar age all she would eat was honey nut loops and chips. She would drink milk. HV told me to offer her other stuff and if she didn't eat it not offer her an alternative, that she wouldn't starve.

She lost a lot of weight! We were referred to a dietician who said if all she wanted to eat was chips then just feed her chips. That she needed the calories and would grow out of it. That we were running the risk of making food an issue if every meal was a battle.

All she had for two years was cereal, milk, chips and vitamin drops. She's now 15yo and eats a lot better. They do grow out of it.

I would increase the crisps and cake, yes, if she is losing weight, because these are higher calorie food than the others items. If you can make the cake, you might feel happier with this. Can you increase the variety of cake and try her with scone and bread type things as well? I've made some very nice carrot and cheese muffins in the past and you could butter them too, to increase the fat content.

It sounds very stressful for you so I hope you get the support you need.

OP I too have a son on the autism spectrum who eats a limited list of foods, most of them of the beige carb variety. The behaviour isn't quite as extreme as what you describe but he was slowly whittling down his list of acceptable foods. I heard the nutritionist Bee Wilson on the radio talking about the Tiny Tastes programme as a way of increasing the range of foods for children with autism. I tried it, expecting to fail, but actually we have had a degree of success increasing the range of things he'll eat by offering tiny, tiny pieces of new foods. Her book is called First Bite (very helpful tips and also interesting in and of itself) and you can google more info. Might be worth a go.

In the meantime yes, I'd feed her some more calorific stuff to keep weight on and keep her healthy.

She's not a nutritionist. That was the other first. She's a food writer. But still, interesting and helpful to me

The other *guest.

Don't come to MN if you can't stand peoples' suggestions

Touchy, ok then seen as ordering people off MN is the game, don't come on if you can't stand criticism of your post. Which very much read like a suggestion as opposed to just a share.

Do you want your child to starve?

WAKE UP.

Right now, she is growing, it is more important she EATS and gets food in her system and doesn't fall into the 'failure to thrive' category than limiting the calorie rich foods through some fucked up stupid ideal of 'healthy eating'

My son has autism, he is also a seriously restricted eater. He eats bread, cheerios, pasta and smooth pasta sauce, pizza, sausage and potato (mash and chips) and a couple of varieties of crisps and biscuits. He only drinks water.

He's 9, he has NEVER eaten properly. The dr made it VERY clear to me that it was more important to FEED HIM than worry about the WHAT i was feeding him,

Give your head a wobble and stop restricting the food she needs to survive.

Thank you for all your replies. to those of you going through the same struggles day in day out. I can totally sympathise with the poster who said they dread trying to concoct something at mealtimes and to the smoothie and swapping ingredients rant!

DD will eat Jacobs Cream Crackers, Mr Kiplings battenburg cake and cheese and onion Discos crisps. She will eat a full block of Asda own brand red Leicester cheese per week. Like a previous poster I have made the mistake of messing with the list in that she also used to eat toast but stopped because I once put a different sort of butter on it and she used to eat melon but stopped because once it wasn't as fresh as usual. She will not drink milk, even in milkshakes.

I tried having a snack table so she had ready access to food and could help herself whenever with no pressure. It made no difference. Even accidentally touching a food or getting a crumb on her can mean she'll never touch it again. When she liked toast it had to be the exact same degree of toastiness or she wouldn't even entertain the idea. Like another poster, if she has a new food on or near her plate she'll be so anxious about that that she'll eat nothing at all.

I know she needs the calories but if she has cake and crisps daily, because it's the same particular sort of both, it's likely she will get fed up of them within a month or two and then there'll be nothing calorific besides cheese on her list.

She won't eat at nursery at all and I dread her starting primary school while undiagnosed. The idea of her having to sit alongside others eating all different foods that are offensive to her will be horrendous for her and most likely make her sick to her stomach.

Don't fret to much about lunch times at school, it is quite possible to have children eat elsewhere so they don't have these issues if it's still needed when she's school age.

I doubt she will get bored of it.

DS has eaten the same brands of foods for 8 years now.

Look up ARFID, Avoidant, restrictive food intake disorder. It actually has a 'proper' name now.. most of us used to call it food phobic or restricted eater.

There is a book you can get called 'can't eat, won't eat' or something like that, its about £15, but well worth a read, even if its just to give you a sense of 'not alone' in this.

She starts school in September but doesn't have another paediatrician appointment until then so there's no way she'll have a diagnosis by then and so will struggle to get help.

Cleo, DS won't even sit near people eating food he doesn't accept.

He eats his packed lunch (an he's eaten the same lunch every day for the last 6 years, i kid you not!) in the office of one of the pastoral staff, he isn't made to go into the hall.

i know you said she doesn't eat at nursery, but perhaps this might be something to work on with the school?

arfid kids find other people eating very stressful, DS gets very anxious, he's worried they will touch him with it, or offer it to him, or drip/drop bits of it on him or his clothes. Eating on his own in school is really the only option for him.

Do you have or are you in the early stages of a ECHP? If so you can have it raised as part of that

No, her nursery teacher has her pegged as awkward and difficult and is being obstructive.