to take my DD to see a G.P for fussy eating

[guiltynetter]

...or would I just be wasting their time?

Am at my wits end with DD3. she eats around 5 different foods and that’s it. nothing particularly healthy. I asked my HV for help, and we went on an 8 week NHS run ‘fussy eaters’ course. it was actually called happy healthy toddlers. It was okay, but in the 8 weeks she didn’t improve at all, and the lady who ran the course said she had a severe case of food neophobia (trying new foods) they said to keep trying new stuff.

6 months on she has not tried anything new despite trying every day, and her range of foods is getting smaller. I’m desperate. I can’t go out with my friend to a soft play place today because she won’t eat anything off the menu.

Do you think the GP would be able to do anything or is it a bit pointless?

If nothing new is crossing her lips, try even smaller steps. For instance ask her to smell it and reward when she does, also try putting it just to her lips or licking, pick it up to feel it, etc. It is a really slow progress with a fussy eater and the toddler years are the worst.
I also wouldn't avoid going to soft plays etc. As many of them will serve the food you have said. I have been to places that do pasta for instance and asked for just plain pasta or with a bit of cheese only.

For instance ask her to smell it and reward when she does

I would advise against this.

Mine was like that and I used to bring jam sandwiches if we went out t either play dates or play centres etc.

Another thing you can try which made me feel slightly better is to make your own chicken nuggets and fish fingers. I eventually graduated to doing salmon fish fingers as long as they had bread crumbs on it he ate it

I wouldn’t reward but I would encourage things like smelling, touching and licking foods.

Battered breaded or southern fried, why not.
The senses of taste and smell are interlinked so by encouraging smelling and also exploring textures, it makes the food more familiar and less scary, it is all about small steps and has worked with my dd.

When I say reward I mainly used praise, as offering high value rewards can be as bad as punishments if unsuccessful but they still need to know that small steps are good.

A couple of reasons. Firstly it attaches reward to food. Food should be eaten because we want to eat it or because we are hungry. Not for a reward based on someone else’s idea of when and what we should eat. This ties in with the whole “clear your plate” thing which we no longer (or shouldn’t) encourage children to do. Children need to learn their own hunger cues and “i’m Full up” cues. It’s a big part of developing healthy eating habits and portion control that prevent over eating and obesity as teens and adults (when we actually do get to control our own diets)

Secondly, requesting a child put something to their lips for a reward, all good and well until they can’t do it, and so....no reward, so does that mean they’re naughty? In their head no reward = bad, feelings of negativity, feelings of letting parent down, guilt etc. All because you wanted them to eat something that you like. How is that right?

Also, children are not stupid. They know that putting it to their lips for reward is just the first step. They know what you are doing, they know they are being manipulated. For me as a child I wouldn’t have co-operated at all. I would have seen you coming a mile off and you’d either have had a hysterical panic attack on your hands or I would go mute and refuse eye contact. I’d possibly have tried to run off and hide. That small piece of (whatever) would now have made that food a big red flashing X and I would be terrified every time I saw it that I would be made to smell/touch/lick it.

Please don’t do that to your child. There are other battles that are worth having. You don’t need to win this one.

We take the view that the same food gets served to all people at the table unless its something they truly do not like (DS doesn't seem to like the mushroom texture although will eat mushroom flavoured stuff like soup and DH hates cheese) we don't force food and find that if something isn't eaten now it is usually down to not being hungry. Never make a fuss and we never serve pudding (much to DHs dismay) that's more of a personal thing as I always feel full after eating a main meal and tend to keep sweets as treats so they are never expected

The serving one meal may work if you don’t have fussy eaters or children who have a restricted diet. For those children though contrary to popular belief they would starve before letting the “wrong” food pass their lips.

Have you read about ARFID? (Avoidant and Refusal Food Intake Disorder) Google it and if the symptoms fit you may find it beneficial to take her to a specialist. Your GP is probably going to start with a nutritionist which prob won't be of any help - they're good at suggesting things to eat but had nothing to offer in terms of getting kids to eat.
Is it a sign of other things - food refusal often goes hand in hand with autism etc. I hope that doesn't alarm you but i thought it worth adding.

We saw these guys - they saved my sanity
www.foodrefusal.co.uk/

Oh Battered I wish I could get you to have a chat with some of the Ta's/teachers at ds's school - you talk so much sense. The time that one of them tried to get ds to lick a piece of banana is burnt on my brain (and I'm not sure her shoes ever recovered....)

and I'm not sure her shoes ever recovered.

Karma is great

I too was forced to “eat” (gag and vomit) in school. I remember losing a whole week of break and lunch times because my teacher decided I was eating an apple if it killed me. So every day at break and lunch she would set the apple (the same one) down in front of me and tell me I could go out when I had finished it. I couldn’t even start it so I didn’t get out. It was only when I told my mum what had been going on that it stopped. Of course I was bullied for that by the other kids. Which was fun.

You could try but a lot t of GP's don't really understand and the advice we got when DD was a similar age was that a child won't starve itself ( DD did)
We went through many many years from age 2 of trying to expand DD's very limited diet and the only thing that worked was totally relaxing about it - easy to say now but we went through a lot of tears to get to that point. DD used to have about 5 things she would eat and even those could be a bit hit and miss if the circumstances weren't right but now aged 12 she has a reasonably well balanced diet and she does occasionally try new things. We find that putting food in bowls on the table and letting her choose what to eat works really well
She still won't eat if tired or upset though or if the food doesn't " look right", it seems to be more about textures than anything else for her.
She recently went on a school trip and a teacher phoned me concerned as she was eating very little but I know she's ok.
Anyone who tells you not to pander to your child's fussiness or tells you to not offer alternatives has no idea about a child who genuinely has food issues so ignore them

Food should be eaten because it satisfies our nutritional needs and that should be rewarding in itself which then allows us to develop appropriate feeding behaviours but with selective eating disorders this in itself is not enough therefore encouragement is needed.
I agree that any negativity around eating needs to be avoided and I certainly wouldn't suggest promising a new toy or pudding if a child tastes, smells, licks etc. They certainly shouldn't feel manipulated or coerced into it but exploring food with different senses does need to be a positive experience otherwise they simply won't try and can then become ill as a result. So you need to strike a balance between gentle encouragement with praise but without putting undue pressure on them and letting them know that it is ok if they can't do it.
It also doesn't need to be all about mealtimes, you can encourage exploration of senses as part of messy play or encouraging the child to help prepare the meal. The idea being that when we eat something we use more than just taste, we use sight, smell, touch and sometimes even sound and the more familiar all those senses are, the easier the transition to actually ingesting something.
Ideally we could just leave selective eaters to eat what they want but when you have a child who is actually making themselves ill, you need to intervene.

When I was a little girl aged about 4 - around 100 years ago, so feel free to ignore the advice as outdated. I started to refuse all food, just didn't feel hungry and genuinely didn't want anything. After a day and a half of this my mother took me to the go. He said, 'she will eat when she is hungry. No child of this age ever voluntarily starved to death. Make sure she is taking in fluids and leaver her be'. Another day passed and then I suddenly asked for some rice pudding, and the phase - whatever it was- was over.

GP, not go.

I wouldn't praise/reward/encourage smelling, licking food. Like battered says, kids aren't stupid they will know exactly what you are doing.

It's creating an emotional response to food - mummy is pleased with me when I lick/smell this.

Food is food, not something that should be rewarded/punished.

You can, however, give opportunities to explore food and comment but in a factual way 'it feels sticky/soft, etc doesn't it' if they decide to touch/play with it themselves but stay away from 'well done for touching it' type praise.

Good ideas to take the pressure completely off are to do things in a non-food way where there is no opportunity to eat it even if they want to, so things like potato/apple shape painting, treasure hunt in dry pasta.

Food should be eaten because it satisfies our nutritional needs

A 2/3/4/5/6 year old does not understand their nutritional needs. For a child without an aversion to certain foods it can usually be enough to say “this will make you big and strong with loads of energy” but for a child with an aversion it means nothing. The questions running through their head surround “am I hungry” and “will I like it” and also, “what happens if I don’t like it? Am I allowed to spit it out? What if I choke, what if I’m sick? Who is watching?”

but with selective eating disorders this in itself is not enough therefore encouragement is needed.

I disagree. Opportunity to try those foods at their own instigation is what is needed. The food being present is enough.

They certainly shouldn't feel manipulated or coerced into it but exploring food with different senses does need to be a positive experience otherwise they simply won't try and can then become ill as a result.

A positive experience yes, and IMO, child led, not carer led.

I can only speak from my own experience. I know what worked and what was the quickest way to disaster. When all eyes were off me, all pressure off, my eating wasn’t being discussed, people weren’t trying to persuade, encourage or trick me into eating -I ate. Which was the end goal everyone was trying to achieve.

Cowes, yes that advice is outdated, and your childhood gp was wrong.

2/3/4/5/6 year old does not understand their nutritional needs. For a child without an aversion to certain foods it can usually be enough to say “this will make you big and strong with loads of energy” but for a child with an aversion it means nothing. The questions running through their head surround “am I hungry” and “will I like it” and also, “what happens if I don’t like it? Am I allowed to spit it out? What if I choke, what if I’m sick? Who is watching?”

Yes, that's what I mean and why encouragement is needed. Ideally eating healthy food should be self rewarding and there should be no need for cognitive understanding but this isn't always the case and food aversions tend to illicit stronger responses so more needs to be done to help the child select a reasonable diet.

Yes any sensory based exploration of food is very much led by ds normally a sniff of something I am eating (generally followed by “horrible” and running away!) or I will say “do you want to smell/touch it” and leave it to him to decide. Forcing it is never going to work.

Ds would very much starve himself though. Today he has eaten one and a half slices of toast. He may eat some chips soon if we are lucky!

Sorry ameliablue I don’t really understand what you’re saying. I’m not sure how you can agree with my post and use it to say encouragement is needed when I’ve said that’s exactly why encouragement is counterproductive. Encouragement= pressure. Have the food available. That’s enough.

Sorry I haven’t read the full thread , so forgive me if it’s been mentioned but eating together as a family at the table is supposed to be helpful. If you and other half can eat together obviously, no good if he gets in after bedtime.

I don’t think all eating together is relevant at all with a true picky eater , when ours were small we always ate together ( no bedtimes ) and it made not one jot of difference . We always put stuff on the plate that we knew she wouldn’t eat with at least something I knew she would and left her to it . I’m sure the key is to not make a fuss about it .