To think just don’t offer them beige food?

[Ashlll]

Or am I spectacularly uneducated here? My sister has a 3 year old who apparently will only eat beige food and mostly crisps. She says it’s a sensory thing and we have to respect it when around him, for example when I took him and dd out last week I had to give him quavers rather than the snacks I had got for dd… which then made dd want quavers too! Same with water, he won’t drink it and it has to be juice.

I am not massively strict but did say to dsis just don’t buy these things then he won’t know he can ask for them… she says he just won’t eat or drink. I think this is ridiculous (I’ve not said this to her). AIBU?!?

Ok. The op refers to the kid only eating crisps!!! I’m saying - why does a 3 year old know what a quaver is!!!!

Because children don't exist in a bubble. They go to parties. They have older siblings. They go to nursery, or childminders, on playdates where older children might be present.

People are talking as though children are being given Red Bulls

My friend is a great cook and makes delicious meals every day. Her son (now 21) would never eat it. He was definitely nuggets and chips. By the time I met her she said she had pretty much given up. She still cooked lovely meals for herself and partner, so it was available, but her son would only eat beige food. He was skinny as a rake so was happy he ate anything!
However some kids will be encouraged if their friends are eating good foods so keep offering what your DD eats and he might try some.

Weird. I’ve parented 3 kids and none of them have ever had a quaver and defitnely no crisps before they were at least 5!

My eldest two used to eat anything and everything. Both very good, healthy eaters. My youngest was completely different. To be honest he was never even overly interested in milk, I had to wake him from day one to feed him when he did feed it was very short, maximum 5 mins at a time and he was a skinny baby. I started weaning at 6 months, he wasn’t interested at all. He eventually started eating solid food around 8 months old. I breast fed him for two years because I was so worried. To start with he ate a range of foods just not very much but gradually starting refusing certain things. This went in for years and years. He woukd eat chicken nuggets and plain pizza and I was just so glad he was actually eating something. He’s 18 now and still a crap eater.

Good for you. Here's a medal 🙄

It’s got nothing to do with colour
RTT
louds of mumsnetters have already said this.

I don't understand it either.

In my head I imagine either putting a picky tray of food in front of child who is a fussy eater so they can pick what they want.

And getting them involved in the kitchen so they make their own meals (with parent obvs) even just a stool and chopping with childproof knives etc.

I used to work in a restaurant and we had kids cooking mornings - they'd make crazy messy pizzas with random topping selections but absolutely loved eating them as they had made them themselves. Pride goes a long way.

Tell me you have no experience of an ARFID child without telling me you've had no experience of an ARFID child.

my hv didn't care
school nursing didn't care
peadiatrics didn't care
early MH help didn't care
camhs didn't care
we saw a private clinical psychologist who diagnosed ARFID
NHS specialist psychology team sent us for a blood test, by this time my child was a teen. They shoved some vitamins at us and continued not to care.
Our local nhs refuse to help.

Even if you get specialist help, no one really understands how to fully treat it anyway so it's not just going to get treated and go away/be resolved.

I have picture of my child eating spag Bol and apples, and other perfectly normal home cooked, healthy, non upf foods when younger. It's not something brought on by feeding upfs fgs.

Our experience is not unusual.

In my head I imagine either putting a picky tray of food in front of child who is a fussy eater so they can pick what they want.

And children with ARFID will only pick their safe foods. Again and again. For weeks. For months. For years. Getting them into cooking or making pizzas won't make a single iota of difference.

I loved cooking as a child - never ate any of it though!

And the advice of the diagnosing clinical psychologist (who is well know in areas of asd and ARFID and you know, an expert, unlike most of the Judy idiots on mumsnet who have zero clue) said getting calories in is the most Important thing, feed the child their safe foods. Because having a dead child isn't really in anyones best interests now is it?

As a child, I apparently refused to eat cereal. Once I was old enough, I could articulate that it made my stomach hurt. Turns out I was lactose intolerant. Yet I was regarded as fussy....

I don't agree with making kids eat what we eat or clearing their plates. Maybe they don't like the same as you. Or dislike certain flavours. I don't like courgette, so never cook it. I think blueberries are totally tasteless. A child told to eat what they're given doesn't get that choice, and I don't think that's fair. For years I left some carrots on the board for DD to have raw (she dislikes them cooked) and every meal had red peppers and cucumber on the side (her favourite). She doesn't like meat particularly so no roasts or chops, I make toad in the hole instead. I still check to see if if she wants her bolognese sauce lumpy or smooth. Takes 2 minutes and I'd do it for myself, so why not her too?

ARFID and other less extreme food aversion was always there.
My mother will tell stories of how she used to have to literally drip milk in to my mouth as a baby. I remember sitting at school refusing to eat certain foods, but not allowed to get up until I had. I even forged notes to say I didn't have to eat those foods.
If my brain decides I don't like something, then I will literally gag watching someone else eat it.

Thankfully I can now eat most foods, but I have to smother lots with hot sauce, because spice.is actually my safe food.

Of my 2 youngest, I have one that absolutely refuses to eat vegetables, to the point where he throws up if its on his plate. The other won't eat any meat that looks like meat and would live on plain pasta if given a chance.

Both were weaned on to real food, with curries, stews, home cooked foods with only rare ready made chips, nuggets etc.

Both, however, are autistic (as am I) and now I would prefer that they at least est. So yes they live on beige, safe foods

Beige foods, defined by Cambridge University Hospitals as plain dry carbohydrates.

exactly what I was told back in the early 90’s, an alive child is what the aim is.

there is an old saying which applies here
"Never name the well you won't drink from"
If you have never experienced a situation then how can you say so definitely what you would or would not do?

and my child was quite happy to join in with the cooking activities but never tried anything he made.
He also had the no food is allowed to touch anything else on his plate thing for years and years.
I think once at university he tried to fit in and gradually added a few other safe bland foods. When he came home for Christmas that first year, he ate a sort of Christmas dinner for the first time ever- slices of roast chicken with no skin, some peas and carrots and for the first time a few roast potatoes, but all separate on the plate with no gravy. I could have wept with joy!
There are still quite a few things he still won’t eat but a million times better than year 1-18.
I asked him a few years ago if he could recall why he wouldn’t eat different foods, all he could say was “ I don’t think I was THAT bad”
You were!
I was interviewed once for a documentary about children who only eat a few foods, didn’t make it into the programme though as apparently 6 different foods was quite a lot more than others they’d interviewed.
I would definitely have found life easier if I could have responded to critical onlookers with a curt
” he has ARFID”

It’s a crisp not crack.

This doesn’t work for kids with ARFID or adults. I cook all kinds of things for my own family but I will then eat something else, I was the same as a child. It’s weird because despite my weirdness around food, I actually love to cook and present food for other people.

Eating mainly quavers could mean a multitude of different things.

And realistically it doesn’t happen overnight.

It doesn’t say that.

That is exceptionally rare and totally irrelevant.

Previous posters have stated the you don't grow out of AFRID so how comes your son increased his diet? Maybe it's something that might help other parents

It’s actually easy - don’t give them the crap in the first place and they won’t want it! My daughter only likes drinking water and milk because that’s all she had for the first 6 years of her life!

That’s what I thought too.