To not feed DS pasta for every meal

[PastaMonsta]

Yet another meal wasted because DS decided he didn’t like it. The list of foods he wants to eat is getting smaller and smaller. Today he decreed unless the meal is pasta based (spaghetti bolognaise, spaghetti carbonara, macaroni cheese) he won’t eat it.

Asides from the fact no one else in the family wants to eat pasta for every meal it’s just not healthy. AIBU? And can you think of any meal suggestions he might like that are like pasta but not?

For context he’s in Y5, has ASD, and is on the 99% percentile for BMI

I was an extremely picky eater when younger and so skinny, my mum was at her wits end with me not wanting any other meals apart from pasta with butter and bird's-eye beef burgers (also lived off cucumber) 🤣 my mum gave in and I had it often but I'm now a 29 year old woman who will eat anything! sometimes feeding them what they want isn't the end of the world as long as they are eating xx

My DH is Italian and eats pasta and butter. I’ve never known anyone else to.

a small portion of pasta (plain if dinner has a sauce he could try with the pasta) alongside the family meal sounds like a good idea to me! if it's become a big problem, perhaps served in a separate bowl. I'd try to keep this to a small portion though, to encourage him to eat some other things too.

If he eats all the pasta, but doesn't touch the main meal, and wants more pasta you'll need to decide whether you want to go down the route of topping up the pasta or whether you go for a 'no more of anything til you've had some of everything' approach. If he's freely eating a variety of other things and has only recently stopped eating your usual meals, I'd say he's more likely going through a phase of picky eating, and would probably benefit from an approach of, you need to have a bit of everything to get more of anything.

If he's been very picky for most of his life, and has now slightly reduced the amount of things he eats. It may be worth keeping various easy pasta sauces in the fridge to keep some variety in his diet, and making sure you have different shapes and types of pasta to stop him reducing what he eats further.

You could also go the route of 'we all like pasta. Shall we make Tuesdays pasta night and try a new pasta recipe every week?' Let him help to choose the recipe and to cook it, and have the entire family try it. That with the above may be a good way to compromise and keep his safe food, but introduce new foods and recipes without it feeling super restrictive. This is one of my favourites https://cafedelites.com/bruschetta-chicken-pasta-salad/#recipe

Agree. I feed my suspected asd child within a range of foods she isnt distressed by plus add something to each plate that she might try but probably doesn't. You can get pasta made out of different veggies and hide them in sauce (mine won't eat sauce so you're in better stead than me)

So my son is also ASD - please do read up on Arfid, if you are not aware of it (some council's will not diagnose though, mine doesn't but my son definately has it).
Now 16 will eat 3 home cooked evening meals ONLY, margerita pizza, mince wraps with tomato & cucumber, & spaghetti with Swedish meatballs (with passata 1 tablespoon only). Will have certain takeaway's from certain places on certain days also.
Please don't do what the previous poster said about cooking for the family - it just means they will not eat. If you are trying to hide veg only do it in moderation if they taste it they will not eat it. My son is very texture oriented so if the texture changes you have no chance.
Son fluctuates between the 11th & 19th centile & after years of hospital observation & tracking - told to give him what he wants & to not make food an issue.
He's now well over 6ft & whilst lots of other areas have gone to s**t - we negotiate over food to try & find a balance

Can you mix up the type of pasta? As well as wheat pasta there's brown rice, lentil, chia, quinoa and others. That way you mix up the nutrients.

That doesn't help with someone who has ASD. In fact, it's cruel.

If he's eating I wouldn't really care. It's pasta so not like it's really unhealthy.

Pick your battles, this wouldn't be one of mine as long as he has a full tummy.

Is there a reason why you dont want him to have pasta everyday, other than you may find it a pain to cook alongside other dishes you would prefer to eat? Because its a fairly big standard carbohydrate source and not exactly unhealthy. If you said he wanted to eat candyfloss with every meal I would understand from a health point of view but if its just the botheration of boiling pasta along with whatever you're eating, I would just do it.

My neighbours kid when i was a child got hospitalised because she believed the 'he won't starve himself' idea. Turns out he would.

I on the other hand wouldnt starve so i was bullied into eating food that would literally have me heaving as I ate it. I have had lifelong issues with food and a very unhealthy relationship with it.

My nephew on the other hand who was allowed to eat him limited choices and then gently given other options alongside them now has a much wider range of foods he will eat than me and a mich healthier relationship with food.

For some children its not the easy route its the best route

My mum would have said "he's spoilt ".
If he's hungry enough he'll eat it. It's a game he's winning. ... refuse to cook pasta for a week, lie. tell him there is pasta strike.
I'm joking of course but bit of a first world problem... Next week he will only eat penne or spaghetti....refuse to comply..your rules

There's tons of pasta options that I can think of like tuna/chicken pasta bake, pasta salads in warmer weather, chilli con carne and pasta (one of my personal favourites), macaroni cheese etc.
Also an idea is to just switch the carb option for him to pasta for other family meals.
For veg, I blend tinned chopped tomatoes, bell peppers and mushrooms for my pasta bakes and bolognese.

I wouldn't fight him on it because it may cause further issues down the line.
Another thing to bear in mind is a lot of people with ASD go through phases with food, I had a service user that ate only mashed potatoes for 2 months and then one day decided it was vile.

@RedRosette2023 I eat pasta and butter too, my DH thinks it's disgusting but it's my comfort food. I would have it when I was little if I was sick etc.

Did you miss that the child has ASD?

Cook him pasta for every meal and the rest of the family eat normally he may well ask to eat a bit of what everybody is eating, I did that after a particularly bad spell. Normally I serve him his favourite food alongside food everybody else is eating.

Is he particularly stressed at the moment when my ASD child is stressed he reverts to his safe food. i find if the food is how the ASD child wants it he finds it easier to cope with the rest of life.

i took my ASD child to yo sushi at least 10 times and all he would eat were edamame beans (and the chocolate mousee cake) now he scoffs salmon nigiri, tempura prawns and katsu curry without the sauce of course.

Would very gradually watering down the milk be an option? Or gradually moving from whole to skimmed.

If he is happy eating fruit there is no reason not to include extra fruit with savoury dishes.

I agree with people suggesting to give a little of what he likes alongside different things. They say it takes at least 10 different tries for children to like some new foods and our tastes continue to develop into adulthood.

Use low fat versions of cheeses and spreads as this is recommended for over two’s anyway. If he has ice cream as a treat you can get low fat versions that often taste similar or you could try making frozen yogurt lollys or frozen berry and milk ones to see if any alternative would work.

I don’t think the diet you described sounds too bad as others have said. Would trying to get some extra walking in help (this might not be possible with his ASD?) Or would inventing games at home that involve running/moving about or playing with balls?

I just attended some training on selective eating yesterday, and the emphasis was on respecting children's preferences and not imposing neuro-majority views of what eating should look like. Your son's diet sounds absolutely fine.

Have you tried skimmed milk and reduced fat cheese for him. I know you can also get low calorie ice cream but I don't think it'll go down well with your DS as it definitely tastes different.

The child has ASD? It's not that he's spoilt or being difficult. Did you read the OP?

I think with children with ASD, you kind of have to pick your battles and if they're not in danger, ride with it for a while. My sister was like this with mash and beans, also she'd only wear one pair of shoes for everything. School, playing out, riding bike etc etc.

How many children died during the Irish Potato Famine of ASD?

My daughter has ASD and she is very restricted with eating. I’d be very careful with the like it or lump it route.

My DD will starve herself rather than eat something that she doesn’t like - she made herself very ill and what our GP/CAMHS/etc thought was anorexia, was actually related to sensory issues with her ASD.

I always make sure there’s at least 1 safe food on her plate - she’s the same with pasta so I just serve it in place of potatoes/rice/etc. She has some odd combos sometimes, but at least she’s eating something and more often than not she’ll try the other stuff on her plate so we’ve ended up slowly adding other “safe” foods.

With batch cooking, I don’t batch cook large amounts - I don’t have a large freezer either, but if I’m making something like a cottage pie (which she will eat) I have some individual oven dishes so make an extra portion and stash it in the freezer.

Shes 17 so a bit older, but I’ve given her control over her diet (to a certain extent). She doesn’t like breakfast cereal, or bread or anything like that but she does like overnight oats with natural yoghurt and fruit - but only if she makes it herself.

Sometimes it’s quite puzzling - she’ll eat cottage pie, but won’t eat mince in any other form like burgers or meat balls, nor will she eat anything else if different textures are touching each other on a plate, but I’ve learned to keep it zipped, quietly introduce new foods alongside her safe foods and just generally be quite chill about it.

I also insist she has a good vitamin supplement

Its quite a while ago but when i first started teaching i worked in a special school for children with autism.
The staff there were amazing over food issues and it was quite an important part of education ( ( probably ofsted would disapprove now but it was really appreciated by the families)
You need both a segmented plate, and another tiny plate.
Start with regular portion of safe food on segmented plate ( to get used to plate)
Once that is good choose one additional food stuff. First meal ( or meals!) it sits on the tiny plate, possibly a long way away from child. Moves gradually closer ( speed can be within one meal or much longer time scales)
next step is food must be touched, then licked ( but not necessarily put in mouth), then in mouth but can be spat out etc, i am sure you get the gist.
this was not a rapid process in any shape or form but some of our students had exceptionally restrictive diets ( far worse than the OPs dc) and “we” ( not me really, the other staff were amazing and really experienced) had a lot of success in very gradually increasing the range of foods eaten.

What?

Some of the replies here are cruel, he’s a child with additional needs ffs you can’t say oh well he won’t starve, because he probably won’t starve but he may make himself very unwell rather than try a food that isn’t safe.
let him have pasta, make it healthy as you can. Blend vegetables into the sauce, use whole meal pasta if you can. I’m a children’s nurse and the centile scales are bollocks!

Puree up vegetables into the sauces.
For Bolognese I add celery, tinned tomatoes & onions/garlic plus carrots & tinned lentils. You can puree them up separately & then add later. For cheese sauce add some cauliflower, celery & low fat cheese & do the same. Another alternative is a tomato sauce with basil, onion & garlic & some strong cheese like mature cheddar or parmesan grated on top. Or home made pesto with fresh basil, pine nuts & parmesan. Make big batches at the weekend & then freeze them in portion size. Protein can be pine nuts or almonds pureed in or meat/cheese.

The rates of child mortality suggest sadly a lot of children did die as a result. Not sure what your argument was supposed to be!