To take pressure off and just cook what she wants?

[ChickenBurgersAndWaffles]

DD is 8, and most likely ND.

She goes through phases where she insists she dislikes everything put on her plate, bar maybe one or two things, currently it’s everything apart from chicken burgers and waffles.

She’s spent the last few days insisting she only like chicken burgers and waffles, there’s no point arguing with her or trying to serve her anything else as she just won’t eat it.

She’s always worse when out of routine or tired or worried about something – she’s all of these things, out of routine due to easter holidays, tired from holiday club earlier in the week (that she loves but finds exhausting) and worried as she knows that next term is “transititon” term at school and she always worries about transititions before they happen, even though she’s usually fine and surprises herself by managing. DD is also going to her dads tomorrow until Sunday night and that’s another transititon even though she loves going, the thought of changing homes scares her – she came back to me after a week there on Friday hyped up and very unsettled, usually it’s EOWend for 2 nights but holidays he has a week or a few extra days.

We’ve compromised on that she can have some chocolate after eating and has to have some cucumber or raw carrot on her plate (and she sometimes eats this)

But WIBU to just stop arguing and let her have what she wants? I feel like the worst mum for not forcing her to eat properly like I normally would in these phases but I'm exhausted to.

My kids are both ND.

They were sooo fussy when they were younger. So limited.

I mostly catered to them with the odd phase of panicking and trying different things.

they have both grown out of it. My eldest is now 15 and will eat pretty much anything. My youngest is 11 and she is coming out of it. Trying so many new things and cooking new recipes too. Asking for more vegetables to be added.

so I would go with your instinct to go with it.

A neuro diverse child will go to bed hungry time and time again. To them, non-safe foods may as well be a plate full of shit.

Mumoftwoinprimary
I'm ND and remember similar food battles.
Decades later I still don't like the textures I didn't like as a child. No lesson was taught other than realising some adults really care, like really, really care about their ability to say "My DC eats everything! I couldn't have a (whispers) fussy eater.".

It's very dangerous to let an ND child go hungry. I have an ND child and have made friends with other parents of ND children through support groups/charities. The two parents I know who have gone for the old school, hard line, "eat what I make or go hungry" stance are now dealing with clinically underweight children. Skin and bones. Referrals to dieticians etc at hospital. One set of parents have even been referred to SS due to the low weight and low energy of their child as observed by their school so they now also have that to contend with. Starving a child into submission is never the answer, much less an ND child.

In answer to your question op - I serve safe foods at every meal. I put them alongside whatever we are having. Absolutely no pressure to eat anything and no comment on what they do or don't eat. Mine is non verbal so I have a bit of guesswork too but if he told me what he wanted I'd absolutely cook it! I also serve out sweet (if any) with the main which I see pp have advised. I just think all available food being out, visible, and on the table makes things clear and consistent. So yes, I'd serve chicken, waffles, veg, anything else you're having if different, and chocolate. All out on the table and all an option for dc to eat. No fuss, no pressure.

My three children have all been raised in exactly the same way, eldest son is autistic has some texture issues but generally eats everything put in front of him. Middle daughter undiagnosed but suspected on the spectrum somewhere, a bit more fussy but getting more and more adventurous as time goes on. No one puts pressure on her though. Youngest, autistic and has arfid, eats a limited choice of beige crispy foods, day in, day out but cooperates and takes iron and vitamin supplements but has low energy and has lost a bit of weight.

Three children, raised the same way and three very different eaters to one another. Never forced any of them to eat anything, my daughter would often not eat a main meal, but I never let her go to bed hungry, she knew the alternative would be bread and butter, so there wasn't an empty stomach (or she'd be up being sick in the night).

For parents who have used the 'learn to eat everything or starve' method, some children don't even feel, or recognize, the feelings of hunger. My youngest son is one of them and just wouldn't eat at all at your house, ever. He'd just lose weight and end up in hospital.

I don't much care what happened fifty years ago, its 2023, these issues are known about nowadays and parents who have researched eating disorders and gained advice from health professionals know what they are doing.

We have a great dietician, ND herself, who is meeting with my son regularly and engaging with him and discussing things and encouraging him to try some different things.
No one has ever suggested starving him, not under the age of 70 anyway, it's an old school of thought that simply doesn't work.

For parents who have used the 'learn to eat everything or starve' method, some children don't even feel, or recognize, the feelings of hunger. My youngest son is one of them and just wouldn't eat at all at your house, ever. He'd just lose weight and end up in hospital.

This is really important. My daughter doesn't recognise hunger or thirst.

It is dangerous to perform 'learn to eat' parenting in these circumstances.

You can't punish away issues like this.

Please please please look into selective eating disorder, also called Arfid.

This disorder needs more awareness.
It's an anxiety based disorder which could link to transitions etc making matters worse.

It's not ideal but if she's eating something it's better than nothing. Please don't do what I've seen one poster say and if they don't eat they go hungry. My parents did this with me, it doesn't work.

Isn't is just 🙄

I'm autistic, I eat the same things over and over in a cycle. Its a very common thing with autism. I'd let her have her comfort food. The world is hard enough for her being nd. Why make it harder when you don't have to?

Take the pressure off. You have enough going on. Review come Weds (I think you said she's back to school on Weds). And ignore ignorant comments from people who clearly don't have ND children x

@Lights22 Back at school Monday but it always takes a few days to get back to normal so I'll review Wednesday or Thursday

I agree with this - I’d just add one thing into the meal each time and she may eat that too. Battles over food are not worth it - and although my DC is NT i found his food intake at times really challenging. It’s really ok now though and they do get better in most cases I think.
I think the put it on the plate and they get nothing else not that helpful ( or worse serve it up again at the next meal which was my dads ‘go to ‘ solution)

If you know she'll go back to eating normally when she's settled just give her what she wants for the time being along with multivitamins.

DD has ASD and has always been a fairly good eater but I know on days that are very busy and challenging its best to give her her favourite food and I keep a supply in the freezer.

Children with ASD often don't like fruits and vegetables because they are so varied, in a pack of grapes you'll have different taste, different textures etc whereas a pack of crisps is always the same. DD does however love frozen grapes and other frozen fruits, I suppose the cold hides the differing tastes and the hardness means they are the same texture.

If she hasnt got a diagnosis yet I urge you to start saving so that you can go private if needed it's a much quicker and nicer experience than going through the NHS which in my area takes 4+ years. If she has ASD it is likely to show up more blatantly in her move from Primary to Secondary if she is masking and only showing subtle traits now.

@Singleandproud Unfortunately I cannot save at all, I have £0 left at the end of the month. I work, but with commuting, childcare, food etc I have nothing left. We never go without food but I just cannot cut anything else without us going without. It's really that bad. I'm a single parent, and ExH has an even lower income than me so pays about £40 a month maintenance which gets swallowed quite quickly into my general budget.

So DD may never get a diagnosis because we keep getting rejected for NHS and CAMHS due to school managing her.

My ASD DD also does not recognize hunger or thirst and would happily not eat or drink unless you told her to.

It was often just me and my Dd as well. I sometimes ate with her and sometimes her dad. He got home from work too late for her to eat with him.

She was a very fussy eater with a small appetite as well.

I got into the habit of waiting til she said she was hungry , then offering her chopped cucumber, or grated carrot, red pepper or even apple to eat while I got her dinner ready.

It finally turned out she was gluten intolerant and thought getting a tummy ache after eating was normal. We have diagnosed coeliacs on both sides of the family.

In hindsight Im glad I didn’t stress her and me over what she ate when she was younger.

I had 2 fussy eaters which I appreciate is completely different. But our health visitor helped me to draw up a meal planner so we had a 7 day rota and each meal had one food in it that we knew they'd eat. The rest was served up with it but no comments made about eating/touching/trying it. It took the pressure off all of us, tbh, and gradually they were better about expanding their tastes. Took the one until the teenage years mind.

The one thing we were told though was to never cajole or bribe with sweets/chocolate. The only sweet thing that they were allowed was fruit and that came as part of a meal.

I understand that being autistic might make restrictive eating more likely. Might that also imply that having restrictive eating practices mean that ND is more likely?

My mother (nearly 80) has always been very limited in what she will eat - yes even when she was tiny - and I’m wondering if that says anything broader about ND too (there are other suggestive traits too).

Eldest is neuro diverse. Mid twenties now.

With hindsight I fought her every step of the way and made both of our lives so much harder.

Let her eat what she wants for now, but continue to offer the healthy extras along side.

Just give her the meals she likes and will eat. They soon change and like more varied foods, its not going to kill her eating the same food. Lots of children do this not just nd ones.

Always try and take any battle out of these things

When I see the way some posters speak about the way they treat their children, I just think why bother having them?! So nasty.

Both ND and NT children and adults have foods they like and dislike. Do you eat foods you don’t like? No? Well then. Maybe in a social situation if served something you don’t like, you might be able to force it down to be be polite (which children don’t have the same social niceties), but in your own home? Especially when you’re feeling a bit out of sorts and want a bit of comfort.

For ND people, especially children, the list of things they dislike can be longer than other people’s, and also the feelings of dislike they have for those foods can be intense in terms of sensory difficulties etc.

Also, 50+ years ago, there wouldn’t have been an expectation on children to eat a wide variety of flavours, textures, world cuisines which yes, many people do now enjoy but some don’t. It would have been basic, samey bland meals every night. And those hunter gatherers bringing home a goat, again they would’ve eaten that goat every single night, then killed another goat and eaten that then another goat.

May be say in holidays you can choose three meals for me to make but they must have a veg or salad piece on there.

But when it's back to school time I can choose.

If it's only holidays you have a big problem, then over the course of the year she does ok??

I haven't mentioned any extreme mental health conditions either. I'm saying, with your just let him go hungry l, they'll only do it once, etc, that doesn't always work. So how many nights of your child not eating, how low their weight, before you concede it isn't working?

Yes. An issue was made out of food, she couldn't eat the food they provided so she didn't eat. They wouldn't provide food she'd eat.