To just feed her pizza?

And PS, she eats carrots and cheese (on the pizza) = that's pretty amazing!!

Really can't think what that triggering word it might be clumping - just like many PPs it was about food selectivity, autism and empathy.

Hm. Something else, maybe TheHate — perhaps too many post replies in too short a time would trigger it? Could be anything…

Yeah pizza is fine. Like you say cheese and tomato sandwich. She eats quite a lot compared to some autistic children. She is doing well.

We went from one acceptable breakfast to 4different cereals

If she’s eating so little, I’d give her what she wants.
I probably would make a GP appointment and definitely give her a vitamin supplement.

I was a very skinny child and only ate little portions (safe to say I grew out of it!). I wouldn’t make a big deal out of it in front of her.

DD was picky, I would make small portions of healthy nibbles in bowls and say they were for adults and very special…. and nibble them. She would occasionally take a bowl herself. She is now 6 and has grown out of picky eating.

Thanks clumping whatever it is, I don't want to derail OPs thread - originally I posted much the same as others have done - multivit gummies for nutrients, let them eat enough calories through their safe foods, make a packed lunch, ignore outside social pressures and be prepared for the long haul, don't make it an issue and just take the small improvements as part of the big steps over time.

My DD is autistic and lives on pizza, chicken goujons, pasta and pesto, and tuna mayo sandwiches. She will eat fruit but the only veg she will eat is yellow peppers and carrots.
It's really common with autistic children and most do widen their tastes as they get older. I wouldn't push it, just do what you can to ensure she's healthy such as a vitamin tablet daily.

This is so common even amongst NT children. How many parents do you hear saying their kids won't eat anything but chicken nuggets and chips? Just keep giving her what she likes and offering a taste of new things. One day she'll say yes and try something new and you'll fall off your chair and feed it to her for every meal out of sheer joy that she's eating a new food and she'll end up getting sick of it then also revisit things she used to eat and like- when you've dropped previously safe foods off the list they can spontaneously come into favour again given the opportunity.

OP i would imagine it has already been suggested but look up ARFID. Offering safe foods plus something new is good and you're right now to tamper with any of her safe foods. I would give her the pizza and feel good about the fact she's eating carrots too.

Dieticians are rubbish. I was referred to one. They assessed I wasn’t anorexic or bulimic and that was that. I was discharged.

I would let her have the pizza but do keep trying other foods alongside, letting her try things if she wants but no pressure. I'd particularly persevere with the today dinner idea as even if she doesn't eat home made yet, persevering to have it as an option will hopefully break through eventually as it already has some familiarity.
My daughter was similar and now her she mainly eats turkey with mashed potato and gravy and carrots for dinners.

I’m an Educational Psychologist, and honestly with a brother with autism, this level of restrictive eating and poor sleep, an autism assessment would be very beneficial.

Also agree this sounds like ARFID and all the fantastic advice around not changing safe foods and building trust. It’s an anxiety response to food - life or death in their eyes. It’s possibly linked to those innate instincts we have not to eat things that smell off or look a funny colour for example, but in a child with sensory needs it can become over responsive and so difficult for you both.

Also to add you are totally not unreasonable to feed her that every day - with the carrot and corn it’s really not that bad. A lot of the idea that we should eat a varied diet comes from a neurotypical stand point - if she wants the same thing every day that’s totally fine. Yes the pizza isn’t the healthiest but she’ll grow on it and it’ll take away some of the stress and anxiety of eating. As someone who’s worked with children on PEG feeds because of this, forcing children with ARFID to eat will inevitably limit their diets more and they become fearful.

When DS was younger I used to just put food out on the table for anyone who wanted it. Sometimes he'd try a bit, sometimes not.

He's 9 now, wise to that trick and he's on the waiting list to be assessed for autism.

He eats cheese, ham, chicken, bread (only white), pasta, carrot, cucumber. He's generally against any kind of sauce, pizza being a rare exception. And he'll eat many fruits and sweets/cakes, I'm trying to cut down on these, but hunger is a big trigger for meltdowns, so sometimes we have to just give him whatever he's willing to eat.

I've got an 11yo DD with Autism and a restricted diet and in your situation I'd just feed pizza and also start sending a packed lunch except for roast dinner days. We had to do this, my DD actually loves her food and gets upset if she can't eat a meal so she wasn't OK in school with something she couldn't eat.
She has slightly increased her repertoire over the years and recently even tried guacamole!

Sadly that has been our overriding experience (although we have a new one who seems bang on at the moment)

ds is 90% tube fed but apparently if I make him eat mash with extra cream in (he refuses but potato in any form and any milk/cream/yoghurt and has done for 10 years) all will be solved 🤦‍♀️

I'd be asking for a ASD referral to be honest

Not eating can be a sign of sensory issues

Going from my memories of being a still-slightly-food-restrictive (though out of the younger "Rice Krispies only" phase), then-undiagnosed, autistic kid:

Unfamiliar foods didn't even register in my head as actual food — it was like being told to eat a block of clay or a caterpillar. Impossible to even bring the fork fully to my mouth.

Foods with certain textures and flavours (lumpy, slimy, bitter — including most vegetables, anything remotely burnt, brown bread, and other things — and fermented) were so disgusting the feeling was similar to being offered a bowl of someone else's vomit or a dog-turd, and "just try a little bit, you might like it" was about as persuasive an argument as you'd expect.

Foods which I thought I knew and was familiar with, like a favourite pizza, if they were slightly wrong in some way (say, if someone hid vegetables in them), it was like the shock of taking a swig of coffee and realising the milk is off — and of course, that experience can really put you off having that thing again in the future, or at least make you check very carefully next time that it's not been tampered with or gone funny. And you're not going to trust that person again when they say it's fine.

The insistence on sameness and predictability is in order to avoid eating something that feels as horrendous as getting a mouthful of someone else's vomit.

I have a kid who was very fussy and now eats well due to the usual methods of introducing new foods over years/eating together/consistent mealtime expectations. But the point is I know my kid and know that she was being stubborn and trying to hold out for something she 'liked', rather than anything else. So that's why I handled it as I did.

You know your daughter better than anyone so I think you should trust your instincts, give her pizza and give her a second plate too like others suggest- or even leave crudites etc on the side which she can try when no one is around if she feels like it.

I'd just be making sure to give her a good large amount of the foods and full fat milk/yogurt until you get professional advice.

I hope you yet your referral soon, it must be really hard, restricted diets can be so so worrying to a parent.

I'd feed her whatever she'll eat and, as a PP suggested, on some days try a small portion of something new. The main thing at this point is to get calories in-will she eat the chewy haribo style vitamin tablets?

I wrote the above because a few people, mostly early on in the thread, were making suggestions that, if the DD's experience is anything like mine, could be very counterproductive. If it's autism-related it's not necessarily "just" pickiness or stubbornness, but something the kid genuinely can't help, and they can be very hard to trick — they know better than anyone else on the planet exactly what that specific pizza is meant to taste like, will detect the slightest change, and their brain will respond with disgust in exactly the way your brain would respond with instinctive disgust if a packet of cooked chicken smelt a bit funny.

So yep, I concur with the others who say keep offering the safe foods and keep offering the option to try other things. A lot of the foods get easier to tolerate and even enjoyable with time — the sensitivity to bitterness tends to wane with age, and experiences broaden gradually.

I still can't hack aged/matured cheese at all, and don't particularly like brassicas, but the rest is just a memory.

For a potentially autistic child, or ARFID, this doesn't sound too bad, you're doing great OP. Feed her what she'll eat, keep up that multivitamin and focus on calories. Don't try to 'fill her up on veg' so she eats less pizza as someone suggested upthread, she needs the pizza!
You have:
Milk for breakfast, sometimes rice krispies. Could you talk to her about milkshake or paediasure and try that, but be very clear if she doesn't like it, it's ok and you will swap it for milk? Don't just put it in without telling her.
Then peanut butter sandwiches, grapes, Greek yoghurt (brilliant), a couple of different types of veg and two hot meals (pizza and this school roast)? It might be samey but that's actually quite a balanced diet.