Child only eats beige food!!

[helpmysonwonteat]

Name changed for this one.
Both me and DH love food and cooking, when I was PG I had visions of cooking family home cooked meals and all sitting round the table, and I have tried SO HARD to do this.
When DS was being weaned it took a while for him to get used to purees and then when he did it took ages to get to lumpy food. We tried BLW, he wouldn’t pick any food up. Took till he was 18 months to eat anything that wasn’t mashed up, then one day he decided he wouldn’t eat mashed food any more, so we tried giving him smaller portions of our food. Wouldn’t eat it, completely refused, screamed at the sight of it. Only thing he showed any interest in was nuggets and chips. That was August and he’s refused any other food since other than toast, crisps and yoghurt coated fruit. In the mornings I have to blend fruit and veg into a smoothie to make sure he’s gettting his vitamins.
Health visitor said ‘just offer what you’re having and nothing else if he doesn’t eat’ I did that and he didn’t eat for a day other than his usual snacks. I couldn’t have him going to bed hungry so gave toast - this went on for a few days so I called the HV back and she said ‘offer him what you eat and nothing else for four days, if he doesn’t eat then take him to A&E and get him fed on a drip ’
That’s not advice I am willing to follow.
He had nuggets and chips on Christmas day!
Any advice beyond ‘starve him into submission’ would be welcomed - please be nice and I want it to be known I am not one of those parents you read about in the sidebar of shame that sends their children off to school with a mars bar for lunch! We eat really well and if I had my way he would too - he’s little but always has been, consistently on 23rd percentile since birth.
My friends’ autistic daughter is the same, and autism runs in our family (sister is very high up on spectrum) so that’s a worry in the back of my mind as well because he is extremely hyperactive and won’t ever sit still, even when a room full of children are sitting still for song time at playgroup etc.

Beige food is still food. Your HVs advice is fucking barbaric. Yes a child will starve themselves. My DD ended up in hospital on a drip when she refused to eat or drink after hurting her mouth. Pinning her down to have the cannula inserted was horrendous. No way could I do that if I knew some buttery toast was the alternative.

OP my DD is a picky eater. I am an adventurous eater, she was BLWd, has eaten out in all sorts of cafes and restaurants since she was born, but she went from eating almost anything to virtually nothing. She's started very slowly expanding her range of food again. I will give her food she will eat plus a little bit of something I would like her to try, and that's that. I won't get into a power struggle because its utterly pointless. You cannot force a child to eat.

(FWIW nursery suspect DD may be autistic too)

Mine was similar around 2. The mealtime hostage facebook group has great advice in their pinned post along lines of most given above (division of responsibility). I needed to ask a couple of questions in the group but its been relatively stress free ever since. Now 21/2 and repertoire of foods slowly expanding. We do normal meals for whole family but prepare them so beige food is separate and she cam help herself to stuff she's less keen on, she usually picks a bit later on in the meal.

Dancing it took a looong time! Nursery and school both tried to access extra help for me but because he was healthy (he has his main meals as a soup rather than smoothies) he was low priority for support.

Also it wasn’t a physiological or developmental issue- totally psychological, so we were stuck for where to get help from. We moved boroughs and saw a new GP who contacted a NHS place in Waltham Forest who specialise in children eating issues - Wood Street Health Centre. They referred us to two parent workshops and we were very sceptical that it would help as had never come across any other children with the same texture issues.

It was amazing. They understood what it was and the practitioners gave us lots of strategies to gently work with him to try more foods. It seems that at some stage a child with sensory food aversion creates rigid food rules that leads to a v restricted diet (it’s no ones fault! That was a relief to hear). These rules are usually around textures or appearance of food. The gagging is a response to food outside the ‘rules’. If you pm me your email I can scan the handouts they gave us at work tomorrow and send to you. Maybe they’ll help...

My daughter was just like your ds. She ate five different things- all beige. It went on for years but now she is a Neurotypical 11 year old who eats anything.

I tried everything to get her to try new foods, eventually I just gave her two things on her plate I knew she’d eat and one thing I knew she wouldn’t. I started to reward trying a new food- didn’t matter if she didn’t like it she wasn’t expected to finish the new food. Rewarding the trying eventually paid off but I remember ringing my mum deliriously happy because dd had eaten one pea!!!

Oh and my son has ALWAYS been like this. It wasn’t ever a phase.

Something I have found helpful to get DD to try new things is for some reason she is always very interested in whatever Daddy is eating, if we're away from the table! She couldn't give a monkeys what I have (probably because I'm here all week while Daddy is at work) but if he ever has a snack or something outside of a mealtime she always wants to see/lick/poke sometimes even taste. So now at the weekends I'm making DH eat things randomly in from of her so she'll taste them.

The things we do hey!

The words rod and back come to mind.
It’s not a texture issue he likes crisps so happy with crunchy. He likes nuggets so happy with mushy and chewy. He’ll,drink smoothies so it’s not the flavour.
You are allowing him to be malnourished. Yoghurt coated fruit is shockingly bad for teeth. Crisps are chips in another form.
No need to starve him just cut out snacks give more variety and let him choose. If you really can’t bring yourselves to tell him this is supper, take it or leave it then go for an intermediate step.
Put out a platter of finger food to help himself too without any pressure - mild cheese, vegetable and fruit fingers like red pepper, radish, cucumber, plums, halved grapes. Add some pita bread, some mini breadsticks and hummus or other dip. Do chicken without the breadcrumbs in tiny portions.

Cut out all nuggets, chips, crisps, yoghurt fruit and other junk. An absolute no to white mush. Give him brown bread toast. Give him dry non sugary cereal, plain or tomato pasta. Just get some variety in there.
It’s actu more unkind in the longer term to allow him to rule the roost about his food. a firm, no battle, take it or leave it stance. No persuasion, no bribery, no comments. Just present food with an expectation of it being eaten.

My husband would only ever eat chicken, chips & gravy as a child and even at 21 when we met he wouldn't eat much more.

At 35 he'll now try everything new once, twice, three times and eats everything I cook. Apart from drinking a glass of milk 😁

Apparently, so it seems, it was because his Mum was a terrible cook. Could it be he doesnt like the flavours rather than textures?

I also found talking to her about food or asking her what she wants ir even mentioning lunch/supper counterproductive as she instinctively says no to everything. Plopping things in front of her so she can help herself if she wants to, but no pressure has a much higher success rate.

Some fantastic advice here and you’ve definitely reassured me that I’m not alone. Going to take it on board and try some of the ideas suggested using the gently gently approach, will also amazon prime those books tonight!

To the two judgy health visitors in disguise, what a P.P said is spot on. Buttery toast is definitely preferable to a cannula that may well be his first memory.

Haha trinity it’s not my cooking, he won’t eat anyone’s cooking. Me, DH, the DGP, restaurants... if Jamie Oliver cooked for him he’d throw it on the floor

So Crumbs1 when I did this with my DC - here is your food take it or leave it, and it was left, meal after meal after meal what do you suggest then? My DC was taken into hospital and tube fed because we tried this, on the advice of the health visitor AND IT DIDNT WORK!

Its not a case of ruling the roost about food. its about this child being different from other children that I have and other children that other people, like you, have. you obviously don't have and never have had a child with an eating disorder.

allowing your child to starve to death because you refuse to give them food that they WILL eat is pretty unkind in the longer term as well wouldn't you say. and if you think that's being overdramatic, message the other posters on here and see if they think it would have come to this with their child.

Your approach may well have worked with your child and it may well work with 99.9% of other children. but it does not work on all children.

I put out more fecking platters of finger food over 7 or 8 years than I care to think about. all untouched.

talk about holier than thou. Eating junk is better than eating nothing. if you don't understand that, then sorry, you have absolutely no concept of having a child with real eating problems.

I spent years and years presenting food with the expectation of it being eaten. YEARS not days or weeks or months. and it wasn't.

mummymeister thank you - I have tried the finger foods every day to put it in the bin, untouched when he’s gone to bed. Wet food is a no go, he will force himself to be sick which is traumatic for both of us.
I have tried that official advice (although I would never let him go days without food that is just something I don’t agree with) and it doesn’t work for him. Your words were so kind and true - what works for 99 percent of children won’t work for a 1%.

I have experience of this with my DD now aged 7. She rejected my lovingly made purees that her older sister had loved. We ended up doing BLW by default but she refused fruit and veg outright from 6 months old. Luckily I found HV's very supportive.

My DD has gone through phases of refusing all fruit and veg and living on fruit puree and beige food with multi vits. She would quite happily go to bed with no dinner night after night. Things have improved massively and she will eat veg soup/pasta sauce and I still chuck grated veg and courgette in bolognese. She will also eat cooked or raw carrot, cooked broccoli and peas. And nibble on slices of apple. She has a problem with textures and used to gag on raw fruit and veg.

She is not autistic, unlike her sister who eats all sorts. My brother and I were the same and eat all sorts now. My parents forced me to clear my plate (rationing babies) and I'm sure that has contributed to my terrible relationship with food and weight problems since the age of 9. I won't do that to my kids.

still cant stop laughing at the concept of giving my DC hommous and breadsticks and expecting after years of never eating suddenly it will like this is what DC has been waiting for.

there is a massive difference between a child going through a faddy phase and a child like mine that really actually hates food, hates the taste, hates swallowing it, hates cooking it, shopping for it or even thinking about it.

helpmysonwonteat - my DC wont eat wet food either - still. if I make Bolognese I have to strain the spoonful almost dry. tea last night was home made sausage rolls (have to be home made not from the shop) and 2 carrots - raw. Judge away Crumbs1.

I do think its very hard for anyone who hasn't had this experience to understand that these children WILL starve themselves. ditch the finger food bowls and serve toast, crisps and yoghurt covered fruit 3 times a day 7 days a week.

mummymeister I know it’s hilarious but gets me so frustrated when I hear the same thing over again from professionals... a DOCTOR said to me... well just tell him you’re in control and he has to eat it. Ummmm ok this is a child who won’t even be reasoned with to put his shoes on lol!
I hate the saying ‘rod for your own back’ reminds me of ‘the fishy rods of shame’ by hurrahforgin, so true!

My friends DS was like this she was told a child will not starve themself and not to even offer any snacks at all from the normal range he'd eat.. Only give what she wanted him to have not what he s old dictate. It was hard going for a. Week then he realised.
He only ate nuggets, chips, toast. Dribs and noodles.
Now he eats everything.

She did however give a reward for trying things so let's say. 2 bits of apple. ( tiny) and then a harbio.. And did a little a time..
My son wouldn't touch bread or dry things with his hands... He shivered lol.

Our dietician is generally pretty useless (advising to hide butter in mash for a child who she has just heard me say is literally scared of butter led to him refusing to eat that again ) but her main advice was spot on - the key is to get the calories in, where the calories come from in children with restricted diets is less important.

We have a variety of supplements to help and have to keep the amount of bread to two slices a day sadly as Any more and he becomes even more constipated than normal but other than that he eats what he wants and sod what anyone else thinks!

DS as a baby/ child was a very fussy eater of mainly beige foods, despite all manner of tempting. He is adult now and will eat other foods as long as there aren't more than three different things on the plate, they aren't mixed and are not even touching...I still don't know why.

I also have a very fussy 2 year old eater who is low percentil for weight so this has been a huge stress for me.

He loves avocado mashed, those tiny pasta lik macaroni, its smaller so its not like the regular sized pasta like little ones can gag on. Frozen fruits...it is hot here at the minute. He also does ok with shephards pie. I have also used distraction techniques so that is playing with toys and cartoons sometimes. Good luck. Do not turn this into a battle though. I stressed so much and only when I went with my son's rhythym we started getting somewhere.

My DD ended up in hospital on a drip when she refused to eat or drink after hurting her mouth.

This happened to my DD too (the one who usually eats!). There is nothing like seeing your child actually starving themselves to put "fussy" eating into perspective.

@sirzy my GP said there was no point referring to a dietician for my dc's eating issues without tackling the route cause of it first. I agree with her, I also love her a little bit as she has lots of bloody sense, unlike some of the so called health professionals I've met!

OP, if your DS will eat peanut butter on toast, a friend in a similar situation used to spread a thin layer of avocado underneath the peanut butter, making sure it was invisible (!), to add some valuable nutrition and calories. Her DS never tasted it!