Help with 6 year old not eating

[Summertimewoes]

I’ve posted in AIBU as I need as much traffic to get some help !

This is going to be very long - sorry !

My 6 year old dd had a near choking incident four months ago and since then has been barely eating .
She has an active phobia now of swallowing .
She lives off certain crisps, mini Oreos , vanilla ice cream , the cheese part of dairy Lea dunkers , one bite of waffle with Nutella per day , one or two pieces of pasta with ketchup .
If we are out in a cafe , she will eat some donut or some cake .
Sometimes before bed she is so hungry and will accept a chopped up banana- will only eat two pieces .
she will have two innocent smoothie and one Ella’s kitchen fruit pouch per day as well .

Backround is she was diagnosed with sensory processing disorder at age 5.
she’s on a private waiting list to assess for autism .
She is what you would call high functioning . Very bright in school, masks incredibly well , and Then can’t cope once we are at home .
School has seen no issues whatsoever up until June when she could no longer mask as she was so hungry all the time .

I’ve been to the gp three times , sent to children’s hospital to rule out any physical problems with swallowing ( none )
She attends OT for past 18 months for sensory regulation. ( private )
She Is seeing a child councilor ( private ) weekly but seeing no difference.
Gp has referred her to a dietitian and a psychologist but not sure how long we will be waiting .
I had been referred to a child psychologist - Public - who said there was nothing they could do - this is the HSE so our public healthcare system .
Ive emailed private psychologists who either are not taking on new patients or say she’s too complex .

Her OT thinks she is showing signs of PDA and is experiencing burn out.

Her behaviors are very difficult at the moment but we are doing low/no demand in the hope she will regulate and the eating will follow .

Here’s my question (after all that !)
Has anyone got any experience with this ? I can deal with the behavior ( just about ) but we are extremely worried about the eating . I’m not sure how she is surviving.
I’ve tried different approaches with food but maybe there’s something I havevt tried ?

Our healthcare system in Ireland is broken , no one knows what to do with her and we basically don’t know where to turn .
Gp mentioned Arfid so I’ve been researching a bit on that too .

Anything else I can do to encourage eating , get some help ?

I tried that but she wouldn’t eat it because it doesn’t look very appealing!
I also purred the mince into a smooth sauce and added to spaghetti . She will occasionally have one/two bites of it like this - maybe once a week .

You poor thing . Glad to see you came out the other side . How awful you at the time .
My dd also spits out food and it’s heartbreaking.
If we are out with friends and eating , she will say she needs to go to the toilet and Then spit the food down the toilet 😥

Thank you , I’m definitely going to try a cake . Lots of pp’s have mentioned too

Nope only innocent smoothies and notices the taste !

unfortunately she can always tell . I tried so many different brands (cheaper) even before this eating issue and she always knew and refused

Something I haven’t thought of ?! Would they have hypnotherapy available for a child that age do you know ?

@Summertimewoes I completely relate to you and your daughter. I have two boys, and the youngest one DS12 is under a dietician as he is below the 1st centile for weight. They have given us every type of high calorie drink and milkshake to try, but all they do is make him feel sick and then less likely to eat, so we have stopped trying those. The dietician has advised just to increase portion sizes of things he does eat (bread buns, toast, bananas, Wildlife yoghurts, Ritz crackers) and introduce food chaining as has already been mentioned. I do manage to get some other things into him in the form of a cake that I bake (again, mentioned lots of times above!) which has lots of eggs and butter, and I have recently added in grated carrot, and also courgette. Even though he seems to lean towards sweet food, he doesn't like things too sweet, so I use about half the brown sugar in the recipe for this cake so it's semi-savoury, and he likes it. I even made some to take on holiday with us recently, and he lived on that and bread buns and bananas from a nearby Lidl. Unfortunately his older brother DS16 is pretty much the same. Whereas DS12 lives on bread, DS16 lives on potato products. I definitely think they both have ARFID, and dietician agrees, but I can't see any solution in changing this for either of them without some kind of hypnotherapy or other mental health intervention. They are both desperate to eat normally and want to put weight on, it's not that they're restricting themselves on purpose.
If it's any consolation, DS16 is a strapping 6'3" although on the skinny side, and has today got a great set of GCSE results, so they do manage to get on in life! I do hope you manage to find some help OP.

Ottolenghi has a cauliflower cake that is very nice and could maybe be adapted. Or try some vegetable savoury muffins or a cornbread?

Your creativity is excellent! So sorry it’s not working. You’re a fabulous parent and there will be a solution, hope you‘ve been able to pick up some help from this thread.

Have you tried to give her a liquid multivitamin and mineral supplement?

Maybe try making a smoothie and filling the empty innocent bottle so she thinks it’s from that brand.

For optimum nutrition I’d try a banana, strawberries, a tbsp flaxseed (cannot taste it at all), apple juice/milk, scoop of Nuzest Vanilla protein powder (it’s a protein powder that it not full of nasties like some others and you can buy sachets to give it a try)

@Summertimewoes no idea about hypnotherapy.

I would image maybe a clinic in London could have a specialism in it?

Will she eat pureed stuff or even baby food pouches of spaghetti bol etc

Thanks, that’s very hard with two of them !
Glad to hear your ds did so well with his exams - well done to him - and you !

Thank you so much

Thanks, I’m in Ireland . I googled yesterday but nothing coming up for children .
Il see what gp thinks - I’m sure she will think I’m mad but il try anything at this stage!

I picked up an Ella’s kitchen pasta tomato pouch yesterday- for 10 months plus
She ate half the pouch !! Took her 30 mins but even this small achievement is huge at the moment !
She said she will have more for dinner today so I’m really hoping she will eat it again.
She did leave some of the pasta pieces but ate the sauce .
I just want her to get back to the flavors of dinner foods and hopefully she will crave them again