To ask if anyone has expert knowledge on young children refusing to eat or drink?

[CanYouHearMeAtTheBack]

By expert I mean I don't want smug posters arriving to tell me that I just need to be tough and he'll give in and eat eventually.

DS3 has been a fussy eater from about 18 months. After a succession of ear and throat infections the range of food he will eat is pitiful. What really concerns me though is that he is now barely drinking either. In the last 24 hours he has drank less than 300ml of fluid.

This has been going on for weeks. I've taken him backwards and forwards to the drs. They usually say either his throat or ears are 'a bit pink' but no obvious infection. I feel like I'm not being believed, but I really think something isn't right.

He does feel hunger, and will ask for junk like a packet of crisps or party rings but won't even eat all of them. I've stopped having junk in the house so that he can't have it but it just means that he's now eating virtually nothing.

I'm really worried but don't know what else I can do

Why would a 3 year old refuse food and drink? What can I do?

Mine drinks plain water with lime or lemon pieces he puts in it, probably just him though

This doesn't help with the overall problem, but you can make jelly from any fruit juice using gelatine leaves. Might be a way for you to feel better about the fluid intake.

Just put four gelatin leaves in water to soak, heat half a pint of juice to boiling, add the gelatin, mix to dissolve, then add another half pint of juice. Put in the fridge to set. You can use pretty much any juice.

It’s been tough but since finding out he was autistic it’s made me appreciate it from another viewpoint.

Also, I was a very picky eater - I remember being a child and my mum begging me to eat stuff. I lived on boil in the bag fish and garlic sausage for about 2 years.

But I’m fine now. It’s a bit different for my son as he’s autistic. He likes to talk things through so I figured a proper conversation was the was to go but he was older.

Personally I’d have low key conversations about it from now.

‘You know, when you’re older there are lots of foods you can try if you’d like’

‘Mmmmm - this is mummy’s favourite food - if you ever want to try it you can just ask!’

Otherwise just leave him to it. Ignore it. My (absolutely wonderful) MIL clearly thought I needed to be tougher, but I knew it wouldn’t work.

My stock reply to interfering people was ‘I’m happy with the way we’re dealing with it thank you’,

I’d be a bit pushier with the doctor if you think anything else might be amiss though - I didn’t realise how many flags for ASD my son had from that young and the food was a major one.

I'm surprised he doesn't touch regular milk, any water ever, sweets, crisps, other chips than McDonald's, all types of biscuits, chocolate. Most kids his age would easily consume most of those. But at least you got fruit!! Exactly which fruits will he eat?

I danced about when joy when DS tried Wotsits.

Lots to read and think about, thank you.

alardi I did mention crisps, but as for the other stuff, nope. He was cows milk protein intolerant as a baby, so only tried chocolate fairly recently and doesn't like it. He used to eat potato waffles but he's gone off those now too.

Fruit he will eat: banana, grapes, melon, Apple. For the first time this week, orange.

Sometimes you need to be creative with your descriptions.

Mine love broccoli but refused cauliflower til I told them it was white broccoli. Same with romanesco, that's pointy broccoli. Mandarins, satsumas etc you can market as baby oranges.

Does he just have the dry coco pops for breakfast?

And you said he eats biscuits, too. That's good. Any savoury types?

We knew a lad about 9yo who literally ate 5 foods with calories in them (2 types of drink, chocolate, a specific brand of crisps & one other simple thing I forget). Plus water. That was it. Clever kind mature sensible sporty kid, but no flexibility on food. For his kind clever matureness, I would have had him as my kid.

Just to add more noise to some of the good points....
ARFID - read up
Yes, children will starve themselves
All food is good food
Have patience with those who don't get it. (Or rather accept they never will!) Mysecond eats normally - occasionally picky, takes a few goes to decide she likes something etc etc I suddenly realised that a lot of the entirely useless and irrelevant advice i got from people with my first does have it's place for non-arfid kids.

Theres a decent amount of water in melon, maybe try giving more of that? If hes not drinking much, does he pee normally? I wonder if he might have had a UTI and is trying to limit the amount hes peeing?

Thanks to all the great advice on here I've calmed down a bit. All food is good food .

So today I've agreed every time he's asked for chocolate milk and even offered it so he's been much happier. He refused to eat breakfast and I just ignored it. Then asked for biscuits at 10ish. I suggested a sandwich and we compromised (can't quite believe I'm negotiating with a 3 year old ) on half a salmon paste sandwich (which I didn't list earlier as he has refused to eat it lately) and half a packet of crisps. Later, I suggested jaffa cakes and he ate 3 👍.

So in essence he will eat as long as I'm chilled and let him eat crap what I know he likes.

Any sensory issues I have 2 with sensory issues, 1 ASD, 1 SPD and we’ve always had food issues. I would give anything that will be eaten or drunk for the moment and build up from that base.

I think it is a bad idea to give flavoured/sweetened drinks/chocolate etc. They will take the edge of his appetite. Ask for a referral to a dietician. Food refusal is a powerful weapon

It's great that you are negotiating with him - it's an important life skill that he is learning. One you will grateful for when he wants to stay out late with his friends later and wants to negotiate his curfew....

Obviously years down the line!!

Well done OP! You are negotiating with him and that gives him a sense of control which is often a big factor in children who refuse food.

I would recommend with the chocolate powder to look through different brands to see how they're fortified as many are these days in different ways. There are some that are specifically designed for low appetite/nutritional needs and I found when I was rebuilding my appetite that they were helpful both in having something to boost the nutrients I was lacking and also having it regularly helped to increase my appetite and ability to consume more fluids. Some brands, like Meritene, it's recommended to only use once a day due it being pretty much skimmed milk powder and vitamin powders so not enough fats or proteins so it's better to have a variety and see what he likes and try to cover different needs.

When my younger daughter was that age and she was poorly and having low appetite and quite low on the centiles, we were recommended to keep a tray or plate out with a mix of foods she would eat and things like grated cheese as we as drinks for to graze as it came to her. The open relaxed access seemed to help her a lot.

Yes, ARFID is real. It's not just fussy eating.
Yes children will starve themselves
Yes, children will end up on those rough as hell nutrition drinks.
And Yes, I have been through it with the older one.

Who doesn't eat:
Wet food
Food with a sauce
Food mixed together
Food touching each other
Chewy food
Food with fat on it
Mash in any way, shape or form
Mince
Anything that involves cheese sauce or melted cheese.
Anything green
Cauliflower
Sausages
Burgers
Anything that involves butter
And if you want me to be brutally honest, yes it is fucking wearing.

So we got some help. The advice we were given was to:

Serve all meals deconstructed and in serving dishes making sure there is something that's acceptable in every meal. And allow self service.

Don't comment on what is or isn't chosen.

Eat meals as a family at the table

Don't comment on what is or isn't eaten. This was hard as the younger one was more than happy to grass on the older one and make silly comments.

Introduce table manners. By this I mean not allowing derogatory comments about food (I banned the word yuk), not commenting on other people's food choices and asking if things can be passed.

Don't use food as a bargaining tool. So nome of the pleeeeeeeease eat this for me or you can only have pudding if you eat your main course type stuff.

Don't buy novelty plates e.g. the dinner winner plates or any plates with words on it e.g. eat or yummy. Apparently these kind of things can be off putting for kids and in the case of the dinner winner can actually fuel the fussiness.

It's taken a while but the oldest will now eat a meal in a restaurant albeit a plate of chips without making an almighty scene like they used to do.

Missed this off bit we were also advised not to do anything to the safe foods like adding vitamin drops to chocolate milk.

Only because they will tell straight off if you've added to them. Vitamin drops aren't tasteless (b vits have a beefy/yeasty taste, vit c can taste bitter and iron has a strong metallic taste)

Then you run the risk of flooding a safe food but more importantly you also run the risk of them trusting food even less than they did before

Flooding= losing

My DS12 still eats like a sparrow and has a narrow food menu. He's growing and putting weight on. Don't worry. One day will grow out of it. I did apparently.

Tonight he ate a toddlers size portion of pasta. A slice pizza for lunch. Two weetabix for breakfast. And a biscuit .........