To go to the GP over my child's fussy eating?

[guiltynetter]

DD has just turned 7 and although has always been a fussy eater, recently is getting much worse and the list of foods she will eat is getting smaller and smaller. I struggle what to feed her and I'm completely at a loss what to do. She eats no actual meals and would happily live on crumpets and weetabix if she could. Is it pointless making a GP appointment to ask for advice or is there nothing they could do?

The reason I'm more worried is because we've always 'got by' before but recently she has got a lot worse. I don't know how to handle it. The only thing we used to eat as a family was roast chicken on sandwiches with veg and roast potatoes (she just ate the sandwich part) and yesterday she said she doesn't like that either now. I could cry!

Just for reference, she won't eat...

Anything potato based
Nothing with any type of sauce
No vegetables
No meat other than chicken and ham (for sandwiches)
No fish
Just one fruit (strawberries)

Thanks!

What is her height & weight?

Does she have milk on cereal?

Instead of contacting your GP, I’d go back to the paediatrician who offered a dietician referral and ask them to do it. It’d probably be quicker than if the GP put the referral in.

I have a kid who goes off food she previously liked. She is 12 & sees a therapist for anxiety—the food refusal seems to wax and wane with her anxiety levels. I find that if too much is happening in her life she just wants her food to be really predictable and easy to eat. No surprises, no new flavours or textures, no expectation that she’ll eat it and love it.

I would check that there’s nothing new worrying her because my experience is the anxiety can manifest in so many ways as children have a hard time processing it. In the meantime I’d get that referral and just don’t mention food to her at all. Mine is quite healthy and not underweight, she manages to get what she needs.

We’ve had this with our DD1 (now 12). She would live on Quavers or Pringles if we let her. She’ll eat plain spaghetti, plain rice, cheese, bacon, though with all these, she’ll change her mind and decide she doesn’t want to eat them. There are no veg that she’ll eat, but she will eat lettuce and bananas.

There are no allergies in her case. We think it’s about control in her case, and this is what experts have said. She’s adopted (as is DD2) so it does make some kind of sense.

I can’t really offer you any advice, other than not to make it a battleground. We’ve both done that and it really only makes things worse. I reassure myself that she’s still very healthy and fit; she does gymnastics (she’s done it right through from being 5 years old) and horse riding. She used to be too skinny; now I worry about her potentially becoming overweight, and take care to limit her access to snack food.

A lot of children will only eat guaranteed textures. It's the sort of thing that combined with social comms difficulties might point to autism. It doesn't sound like you have that worry but it could well be about anxiety and control.

My husband was taken to the gp by mil when he was a child. The gp just said ‘you need to eat your dinner!’ Ye is still quite a nightmare. In the end he was just served up the same thing every day. She is quite picky and it has rubbed off on him.

@guiltynetter

I found it easier to list what she won't eat than what she will 🙈 to be honest id say she doesn't genuinely enjoy ANY meal or food. Its there to be endured until she can have some fruit or something sweet for pudding.

She will eat

Cheese (normal and spread cheese)
Crackers
Crumpets, potato cakes, milk roll bread, wraps
Weetabix and shreddies
One brand of chicken nugget
Plain pasta
Plain rice
Yoghurts
Strawberries
Water thin ham
Used to eat roast chicken as of yesterday 😳
Tomato soup at a push

I think that's it.

This sounds very similar to my sons diet. although I'd say my dc is more limited. I've always made sure he eats a vitamin every day, he has fruit smoothies (the innocent smoothie type things), his bread is whole grain, and he drinks plenty of milk. Just so I felt somewhat in control!

We just had a full review by a dietician. We had to keep a food diary weighing everything and recording the quantities he actually consumed. It was surprisingly reassuring, he was short of a couple of vitamins so we will try to find fortifies foods he will eat.

As I say he has SN so the advice on how to widen his diet would probably be different as it's not the same as a fussy child.

I'd recommend trying to push for a dietician, if you get access to a good one I reckon it would be reassuring.

I really appreciate all the replies, they have really made me feel that I'm not alone. I've rang up the paediatric secretaries today and asked them to ask the doctor to refer me to a dietician.

GinPink I suspect when you look at her diet closely she might be fine especially as she has the vitamin drops. I really struggle around the meal time aspect really, should I just be leaving her eating no '"proper meals' and focus on what she does eat, or what? She would love crumpets for every meal 😳

I weighed her this morning for the first time since March and she has lost 2kg.

I don’t see any harm taking the dietican referal.

What does she eat in a typical day? I wouldn’t worry about things like variety as long as she is getting the calories and nutrients in.

I went to the GP with my 11 year old when he was about 5 with the same issue. He barely ate anything all of a sudden when he turned 4, before this he would eat anything and everything. The doctor basically laughed me out of the room saying his child was exactly the same and it’s perfectly normal. 11 year old is still fussy but thankfully eats a bit more than he did then.

Not sure what a GP could or would do.

Definitely take the dietician help

I also think you should look up ARFID.
I have suffered from this since I was a child but have recently undergone hypnotherapy and it's had great results.

ARFID is really misunderstood. It is a phobia of food so the normal treatments for fussy eating actually make it worse. Forcing your daughter to eat food will make that phobia worse but that's what some GPs and dieticians try to do....
You need to understand the reasons behind the phobia and treat that.

If you can afford it I'd look at private hypnotherapy- I can recommend someone who specialises in ARFID.

GP can refer to a paediatric nutritionist. Do it - it's getting worse rather than better.

does she eat biscuits, cakes, chocolate, crisps, icecream etc?

what does she do at other people's houses? (eg fat a friends for tea)

My DD is exactly the same OP, except she won't eat any dairy, or eggs, or anything "saucy" or "slippery". It's a sensory thing with her. Her diet was so limited and her range was getting smaller and smaller, so I took her to the GP. He basically said to her "Eat your food if you want to grow!". It was pretty useless. We ended up at a food clinic for children, and they're helping her to overcome her issues with food.

My son was \is like this it caused me a lot of tears,stress and frustration.
We found a meal he would eat chicken nuggets,fries and 2x little bits of broccoli and did what all the books suggest you don't do and rewarded him with an ice lolly if he finished it. It worked for us and although that is still the only meal he will eat ,it's a lot better than nothing. Before we did that he would go to bed having only eaten breadsticks,a small yoghurt(strawberry and raspberry only) and maybe an Apple (peeled and not soft)
Slowly with age (8) he has started to try more things, I feel for you op it's a hard slog.
I was told that they wouldn't make a dietician referral unless he had problems with chewing and swallowing.A consultant pediatrician told me to ' improve his nutrition '🤦but offered no advice on how to do that. This is only my experience and obviously if you have concerns about her weight you should see your gp.I have found the school nursing team helpful x

Don’t be surprised if your GP just tells you that no child will starve themselves - mine did.
I agree with getting specialist help and possible ARFID diagnosis bit a few things we did that helped DD
Ignore the “rules” breakfast at teatime? Fine
Don’t link food and behaviour, either good or bad
Make food as irrelevant as possible, sit and chat at the table and if someone happens to be eating at the same time, great
Put the food in the middle and allow everyone to help themselves but only put it on your plate if you are going to eat it
Serve food not touching or serve one thing with another thing on a separate plate.
Grazing is ok as long as it’s reasonably healthy
If they will eat something let them have it in whatever form - so if it’s raw veg only that’s ok
Good luck, DD is 16 now and while she has some food quirks she eats a healthy balanced diet

Could she be autistic? I was /am similar and am autistic.

I've read that girls often get misdiagnosed with eating disorders when they are actually autistic - autistic girls often present differently to autistic boys.

One of my friends was like this at a similar age in the 90s. She was hospitalised with an allergic reaction as a teen when she was made to eat a food item she had been refusing to eat for years. Turns out she had coeliac disease and a bunch of food allergies.

Prior to that she was deemed to be the spoilt child of indulgent parents despite the fact her two sisters ate pretty much anything!

Friend now has a good and varied diet, albeit limited by the allergies and coeliac disease.

Yep ARFID. I thought it was just fussy eating but everything makes sense now. Autism diagnosis too recently

What does she weigh now?

You could try ringing your Health Visitor to see what advice/referrals they could offer.

Since she is 7 and doesn't (as far as you know) have SEN what does she say when you speak to her about it?

My DS is 8 now and he has a very small appetite and is slightly underweight but generally eats a healthy balance. Last year when he was 7 I realised that his range of foods had been narrowing - in his case it was a little bit about control and a little about only wanting to eat 'favourites'. But I sat him down and we looked at some diagrams of food pyramids etc and talked about being healthy and strong. I let him see me eating foods that he knows I dislike - cauliflower - blurgh!! - in order to show him that we can't always eat favourite foods! Then we did an 'alphabet challenge' where we tried to eat something from each letter of the alphabet over a 4 week period - we did vegetables but you could do any food.

Not saying it is easy and definitely think a dietician is a good shout but just wondering if you have sat down and properly discussed it with her?