Aibu to "starve" my 5 year old daughter

[Arrowfanatic]

Ok, hear me out.

As a baby my 5 year old ate a wide variety of food, she's my 3rd child and was the best eater. However as she has gotten older she has started to refuse more and more food. It has gotten to the stage now where all she will eat is chocolate cereal, shreddies, ham sandwiches and cheese and tomato pizza. She will eat crisps, chocolate, sweets and Apple's but "meal" wise that is it.

What do I do? I have never pandered to her, she gets exactly the same served up to her as the rest of the family and she just won't touch it. She is the most stubborn child ever. My health visitor said to refuse to cook anything she likes, that she won't let herself starve. Well that wasn't true, she went 3 days only eating cereal at brekkie and a sandwich for lunch. Would cry she was hungry but refused anything else until eventually on day 4 I relented and cooked pizza.

My aibu I guess is, would I be unreasonable to again refuse to cook what she does like even though I know she won't try to eat anything else. She's always coming down poorly, and gets sore lips and things which I'm sure is from a diet lacking in goodnss. I tried to get her to take vitamins, but she refused them totally.

Help me, I just don't know what to do??

So did my child until she was about 18 months/2.

You risk making this a serious issue.

No drama over food. None. That’s the golden rule (SN may be an exception of course.)

Kids use food as a thing they can control. She’s going through a phase of doing this most likely.
Provide what she will eat at the healthier end - if that’s pasta and sauce for a week then so be it. Obviously don’t feed her chocolate for every meal, pick the healthier options from what she will eat. Offer extras and keep offering them but NO DRAMA. No forcing. No tantrums, no fuss, no positive or negative attention from you. If she refuses, shrug and say ‘ok well there’s nothing but fruit until bed.’ Or whatever. Don’t cajole or anything like that. No drama. No battles over food.

If you suspect SN then advice is to get some more knowledgeable help - it may be a texture thing or a taste thing.

My ds used to eat wonderfully. Things change and he now has a very restricted diet to the point of losing weight and being under a dietician

becotidelots of children with SN have eaten fine/a wide varied diet in the past but it doesn’t mean they are being fussy now.

It’s really common for children with ASD, SPD, etc to start off being fantastic eaters and then become ‘fussy’.

It’s also common for children with SPD to vary what they can tolerate, so if all is going well and there are no other issues going on, they may be able to cope with a certain food.
The next day, they may be struggling with other issues or sensory overload from other sources and can’t cope with that food at all. It doesn’t mean they are being fussy because they ate it yesterday.

Even if OPs DD has no SN and is ‘just being fussy’ your advice is not likely to lead to a positive relationship with food in the long term. Many adults have unhealthy relationships with food and it is advisable to limit the chance of this happening when they are younger.

DS1 (11) ate lots of things until he was about 2, then he became very fussy. He’s currently being assessed for ASD. He would starve himself rather than eat something new. If he does try something new I make a huge fuss in a positive way.

I have ASD and I’m fussy, if you made me eat something I didn’t want I would be sick, my gag reflex is already too strong!

I think the health visitor is wrong, just keep encouraging her and I know it’s incredibly frustrating but you are not pandering to her by giving her food she will eat!

OP - google Food Refusal service in Birmingham. I would agree it sounds more than just fussy eating.

My middle dd is a bit like this and at 14 still has a very limited diet unfortunately.

Re 'pandering' - I was very fussy about food as a child. Not quite as bad as my own dd though. My mum completely pandered to me, made me what I wanted, sometimes cooked something else if I didn't like the first meal etc. It wasn't too difficult as I was the only child at home at the time. And you know what? It really helped me. As I grew up I got more adventurous when it came to food and got to the stage where new foods started to look more appealing. Now as an adult I eat most things and a wide range of different cuisines and I am a good cook.

Sometimes pandering works because it takes the pressure off.

As to the vitamins, I'm assuming you've tried chewy ones, ha e you also seen vitamin drops? I used to give them to my daughter hidden in a little bit of juice that I knew she would drink. Then when she was older tried again with the chewy vitamins and she'll take them now.

Good luck! Lucky eaters are so stressful!

I was incredibly faddy as a child, my mum let me have the same thing for a month on the basis of "she wont die from having cheese sandwiches for a month" as long as i had a multivitamin as well (the chalky fruit flavoured ones that i still kind of miss!).

I now eat almost everything, although I'm still very faddy :)

No chocolate or sweets - they’ll make it harder for her to accept less seeet choices

No touching with tongue crazy stuff - if an adult wouldn’t want to do that at the table neither should a child

Don’t starve her it will ramp up the pressure

If you up control more likely she will respond by increasing her control and narrowing what she will eat so yes agree to trying not to fret too much and letting her make decisions, even small ones eg choose which apple

I think it very sad that people think it's fine for their kids to have a very limited diet as long as they have multivitamins.
You wouldn't find such fussiness in third world countries where children are genuinely starving.
Psicologichal problems are not so widespread,try a "that what we have for dinner " approach.
Get rid of all junk/snack food in the house.
It's ridiculous not only she will only eat pizza but only pizza from a certain place.
She's running the household basically.

I have a very fussy eater with the ever decreasing diet. The only thing I have put my foot down to now is that he eats so few things that none of them are allowed to disappear. I don’t argue and don’t make an issue of it but he must eat the few Jung’s he does eat. If anything else disappears we have to revisit it.
He has been pretty good actually and since we got to that stage he hasn’t refused them and in fact one thing that did disappear has come back. I just have him it one night and he ate it without argument. We don’t discuss it at all and actually he eats more in volume than he ever has and in terms of variety no real improvement but nothing else has stopped being eaten either.

Avoidant restrictive food intake disorder is real and is a huge issue for many children. It is neither naughty nor controlling behaviour but a serious condition that starving them, as many suggest, will only make worse.

I was very like your daughter at her age. I would vomit if I had to eat something with a texture that I didn't like and would chop and change with what I would and wouldn't eat. Food being separate and not touching and no sauces was really important to me. I went through a period of only eating blackened toast. One of my most vivid childhood memories is having to eat butcher's sausages and mashed potatoes at a family member's house, as my parents didn't want me to be rude. It was just awful for everyone.

For me, having had a lot of counselling later in life when I got diagnosed with an eating disorder and OCD (which I and the counsellors do not believe was related to this phase, so I am not implying in any way that they are related), it was all about control. I hated school, never really managed to make close friends (always the third one in a group of two good friends) and was painfully shy. I was a bit picked on for clothes/being swotty, but never significant or sustained bullying. I think the food was the only thing I felt I could control (although I definitely can't guarantee all that I was thinking as a child, obviously!).

All this to say, perhaps if you go to your GP, you might be able to get some help with the issue, as I'm not really convinced by the HV's advice and what works for one situation might not work for another (i.e. just trying one piece really didn't work for me). Good luck (PS I had the best parents in the world IMHO and still had problems, so don't stress that you've caused it/are a terrible parent/are doing it all wrong).

Twofalls - I do know what I'm talking about. You're not prepared to do it, some people aren't. Like controlled crying, it's controversial and also it does work.

My middle daughter went (and still goes through) very fussy stages - the difficulty being that she will love a particular food, want it regularly, then go off it as shes bored with it (porridge for breakfast being a prime example....). It is frustrating, hard and soul destroying, but you will get through it, with a mixture of making sure there is always something not too unhealthy that she likes, and offering other similar foods, but not making a big deal of it.

Looking back, it was a really nasty cold that probably started the whole thing off at 2-ish - probably didn't feel particularly hungry, food maybe tasted 'odd', sore throat etc?
One of the things our GP said is to try to get vitamin B into her (I can't really remember now which of the B vits it was...) - either in the food or as a vitamin supplement, as that helps increase hunger, which in turn will help to get her to eat more, and gradually a wider variety.
The other thing that helped my DD was sport. She's always loved sport, made her feel important in a way that the rather overshadowed by amazing big sis feeling didn't, and the exercise, and being outdoors made her hungrier.
I wish I could wave a magic wand for you - with mine, she now eats a wide enough range of healthy foods that I don't worry about the things she turns her nose up at. Eating out can be a challenge, but she is getting better at trying things that previously she wouldn't. Cooking for the whole family has helped too - at 13 she will do so once a week or so.
Good luck, and hope it gets easier!

Becotide. Did you miss the bit where I said my dd now eats a wider diet. And we managed it with causing a massive issue around food. So no actually I was not prepared to watch my child gag, throw up, hyperventilate, stop eating, stress at mealtimes. You don't need to resort to those tactics. My dd has a healthy relationship with food and a balanced if slightly less varied diet than her friends.

Just because your methods worked for you doesn't mean they will work for everyone. And coming on threads like this telling people they need to be tougher (because you were and look aren't you marvellous) is irresponsible. Following your advice with the wrong child could cause serious issues around food.

It's like controlled crying, just because it worked for your child does not mean it works for everyone. Throw SEN into the mix and it gets more complicated, as you will know.

Offyougo, was there anything remotely helpful in your post it did you just come on to judge?

Thanks again for all the replies.

A few people have mentioned ASD and whether she has any other rigid habits. Whilst autism is in my family (both my sister's have son's with varying levels of autism) it isnt something I had considered. She is very smart, has a very advanced vocabulary however her 8 year old sister is the same and I assume she has just learned this from her. She has no other real issues other than a bit of bladder control, again this is an issue we also had with my older daughter (who eats everything btw )

I wondered if as the youngest child in what is a very busy household if this is just her way of having some control? In addition to eating very few foods she also eats very very VERY slowly and tiny amounts. We often say she eats like a baby bird, and I do worry that she simply won't get enough of what she needs. Physically she's pretty short and skinny but then she takes after my side of the family who typically are smaller built where as my other two kids take after their dads side who are taller and bigger built.

Overall she's a happy, headstrong, sensitive, clever, active little girl. Stubborn to the extreme at times, if she doesn't want to do something you won't convince her otherwise.

The overall consensus seems to be to not make dinner time a battle field, feed her what she will eat (It does seem to change day to day so this won't always be easy) and I guess just hope as she grows she will improve.

It's just one of those things that as a mother you want to give your child the best start in life, and it's drilled into us that kids need a healthy diet, 5 pieces of fruit and veg a day and all that jazz so when you just can't manage this it does make me feel like a bit of a failure.

Some good suggestions here.
I was an incredibly fussy eater as a child and would gag when trying to eat most foods. Definitely some intense sort of food neophobia, I would get incredibly anxious around meal times and get so worked up that by the time food was in front of me I'd just feel sick. The smell and texture of food was totally repulsive to me.
My parent's gave up by the time I was five, and just pandered and let me eat whatever I wanted (very limited, zero fruit or vegetables, mainly just cheese on toast and chips).
Did me no good at all, the food anxiety wasn't resolved so I was scared to go to a friends for tea, or go on school residentials, or to birthday parties.
It became such a dominant factor in my childhood, and I felt so limited by it. I also had a shit immune system, and was a very sickly child. Despite eating well now, I still suffer from years of childhood malnutrition, and it's frustrating to be unable to undo the damage.

It eventually subsided when I got myself a scholarship to an independent school for sixth form and ended up boarding.
The "family style dining" in the boarding house, with big dishes of each component to share on each table was the saving grace for me.

I was partly motivated by saving face and not wanting to look fussy (I wouldn't have wanted to embarrass myself by just loading my plate with potatoes, for instance), but also nothing was touching! I could try new foods without them being "tainted" by others, there was no adult sat at the table to pressure me into trying things and it was a huge novelty to be eating the same meal as everybody else rather than a specially made concession. There was also enough of the limited foods I did like (read: carbs) to fill myself up if I was hungry.
By the end of the first half term I was eating full roast dinners.

I would honestly recommend whole heartedly family style dining. Everyone eats the same, no comment on what is put on the plate or eaten. Just a family meal, on the table, not a word said. No fuss about plates not being cleared or vegetables ignored. As PP's have said, remove the stress and anxiety from mealtimes. It's far less intimidating to sit at a table with an empty plate to fill yourself, than it is to be presented with a plate of food that turns your stomach, and that will be apparant that you haven't eaten.
And no snacks!

(To add, as an adult I've been diagnosed with ASD. It isn't hopeless even if this is the case. I eat totally normally now.)
As PPs have said, you chose the "what, when and where". Give an empty plate and the control of the "how much and what components of the meal to eat" to your child. Filling an empty plate helped me feel more in control, I'd advocate it so, so much.

Becotide what worked for your child, worked for your child. That does not mean it would work for everyone's child. If you are some sort of expert, then please offer your services to the dieticians and psychologists who deal with people with food refusal etc, I'm sure they would be grateful.

Offyougo - honestly why bother posting such unhelpful shite.

Eating with friends etc definitely helped to get her to try things - as did removing the pressure, letting her help herself a bit more.

I’d just like to say how valuable I’m finding this thread. My eldest in particular has been getting fussier and fussier about protein sources in particular. Because she’s getting worse I’ve been less tolerant.
This thread has made me think we need to ease off. I’ve been huffing at her and saying ‘can’t you just eat a bit more meat?’.
I’m going to stop nagging her. I’m also going to move to a helping themselves to how much they want.
I suspect it’s our nagging that’s making her fussier.

I have been at the dietician this morning with ds. As unhelpful as usual in many ways but she did reiterate the point that the important thing for a lot of children with restricted diets is to get the calories in. If that means chocolate with each meal the so be it!

I think we all have this ideal vision of what our child’s diet will look like and I think for children with genuine food issues that can actually be quiet damaging because we let our own preconceptions cloud what we are doing and worry too much about what others will think.