Worried about my three year old

[lookingforadvice22]

My three year old CONSTANTLY asks for food. She’s obsessed. I feed her nutritious, well balanced meals with plenty protein. I also give her snacks between. She asks me for food approximately every 5 minutes from the second she opens her eyes til the minute she goes to bed, crying for extra milk at bedtime.

I have made snack options boring as hell, all she gets is carrots, cucumber, dry crackers and fruit. She knows and accepts this is all she will get and even then she asks for it ever 5 minutes. I give her a snack approximately every two hours. So that’s about 100000 times of saying no before I finally say “ok now it’s snack time” and give her one of the boring options which she eats.

Honestly if I had an open snack policy she would eat constantly. She’s tall and big for her age but not overweight. I now feel really stressed about food with her, feel like I have to be quite controlling.

We were at a friends house the last 24 hours and my friend was clearly taken aback by the constant asking and took me aside at the end of the visit to say that they didn’t think it was normal.

Should I take her to the doctors? Any ideas of what this could be? Behavioural? Something medical underlying?

i think she’s always been like this… as far as I can remember.

Two of mine were like this. They used to cry the whole time I made dinner then start crying as soon as they finished! When we went to vparties they would be obsessed with the food and would rather minesweep everyone's plates at the table than play.
Health visitor said let them serve themselves they'll stop when they're full but actually they would eat until the were sick and not learn from it.
No idea how it stopped apart from slowly growing out of it in the infants. Also no idea why my others didn't do it but here's what we did:
Rigid timings for 3 meals plus two snacks in between nothing more ever apart from no limits at kids parties
Absolutely tons of fruit and complex (wholegrain) carbs and massive bowls of salad at every meal
Lots and lots of them helping to prepare meals including preschool lunchbox

It really sounds to me like she might be hungry? I wonder if she needs snacks that are high in protein and fibre and healthy fats to keep her going? If I was hungry and snacked on just cucumber or some fruit it wouldn’t help much/for long.
Unless there’s weight concerns then I wouldn’t personally be withholding food from a child saying they’re hungry… I think it’s really important for a child to learn to listen to their body and the best way to do that is let them tell you when they’re hungry and also tell you when they’re full.
If you tried letting her lead for a while, coupled with really better snacks, and still found she was asking for food every 5 mins then yes investigate further, but I feel like you surely have to try all that first? Just more filling food?

I also agree with pp that the other possible explanation could be something gastric going on, maybe like heartburn or chronic gastritis, which gives a raw hungry feeling..

A friend of mine had a child like this who was also autistic. A therapist advised her to make a sign saying ‘the kitchen is closed until’ and then a clock sign. My friend was sceptical but it worked straightaway.

You haven't said how big her meals are OP, or what they are. Also, being clued up on diet and nutrition is one thing but a three year old's ideal diet is not the same as an adult's ideal diet. She needs more fat, dairy, carbs etc than you do.

Maybe it’s more of an anxiety thing?
Have you tried a visual timetable? And exact timings for meals and snacks? So she knows exactly when to expect things and feels reassured that food is coming.

I’d stop all days out that would interfere with the timetable while she’s getting used to it, stick to local or easy things.

Go to the GP and enquire about genetic testing. Some people do have a gene that means they never feel full. It’s rare, but it does exist. I saw a programme about it. Definitely get her checked out.

It might be worth seeing what happens if you have an open snack policy but she can only have apples or carrots or something cheap.

carrots are pretty cheap.

would she actually eat them?

i did do open house on snacks but mine were older.

I am assuming you have tried giving her food when she asks and have started withholding for a specific reason, did she just not stop eating? Was it to the point of vomiting? My daughter is sturdy but not overweight and she eats seconds of almost every meal at nursery. She just loves food and is hungry, I’m not sure I would dream of refusing her food if she was hungry unless there was a health or weight issue. If she is asking anyway and continuing to eat them, what’s the point of keeping it boring OP?

Just list a couple of meals then. It’s hard to offer an opinion when you don’t say what you actually feed her at meal times

and I don’t understand your reasoning of making snacks boring? Why not give her a piece of cheese with buttered crackers and an apple? or some hummus and breadsticks?

you say she’s a normal weight but it sounds like you’re trying to restrict her eating in general

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xmWdVrjQAbo&pp=ygUZMTAwIGtpbG8ga2lkcyBvYmVzaXR5IHNvcw%3D%3D

This was the documentary I saw. The 5 year old girl Liliana is who I am thinking of. If your little one is as hungry and distressed as she is, could be worth checking out.

What led to the withholding and boring snacks? What would happen if she had free access to as much healthy food as she wanted and there weren’t set time slots for snacks? You say she would eat constantly, maybe for the first couple of days, but she may learn to regulate herself. Most kids are born with good satiety signals and the ability to self-regulate over time, there’s been studies that are really fascinating, as it’s us adults who often screw it up for them!

How about l if you put out a box every day with all sorts of stuff in it, boring and nicer stuff, and she could eat it at whatever pace she wanted but once it was empty, that was the end of the snacks? Is she eating her dinners?

My DD2 eats a lot. She’ll have breakfast, happily take a snack 30 mins later, come home from playgroup after a substantial snack and immediately ask for lunch, then 45 mins later be cruising for a snack She’s tracked the same centile since birth so I figure that’s just what she needs and she’s growing, so as long as the snacks are healthy and she’s getting a range of stuff, I don’t really mind, as long as they don’t interfere with eating of meals.

PWS comes with lots of other symptoms aside from insatiable hunger which I think would have been noted by now. People with PWS are typically much short met than average and usually have learning difficulties which doesn’t seem to tally with what you’ve described.

Katie Price's eldest son has prader-willi syndrome. Definitely worth asking the question.

Is the issue that it's annoying you or that you're worried about her health? Or a combination of the two more likely.
I agree get her checked out but I would say at 3 she's old enough to have self service snacks which makes it way easier to be consistent and hence not worth badgering you.

At her age I'd probably go for a split day so put a box in the cupboard with the morning's snack allocation in it, then when she asks direct her to the snack, then every time after that direct her to the empty box.
Then at lunch time do the same for the afternoon. She will quickly learn what to do when she's hungry and will also quickly learn that it's quicker to check the cupboard than ask you. And you can just say check the cupboard regardless of whether there's a snack there (together with "oh dear is there nothing left" when it's empty)

Of course at first you'll have to come along and help her wash hands and get a plate or whatever, but over time she should be self service, and eventually you can just put the whole day's worth there in the morning.

I understand the feeling though, we have one who happily skips entire meals and probs wouldn't eat for 2 days if we let him, but completely feasts when he finally gets there, and another that eats one bit and gets down, then 5 minutes later hungry again...

Are you worried about a genetic cause of childhood obesity? If so these are questions to consider - what happens if you say no? Do you need to lock kitchen cupboards? Does she ever raid the bins looking for food? Does she take food from other children? Are there any developmental delays that you are aware of? If the answers to these are no, then it’s highly unlikely to be something like PWS

I think the way to combat this is have 2 clocks on a wall near to each other one that you design together that could be a paper plates where you draw a snack in certain places and put it next to a normal clock. Then set the hands on the snack one to say when the clock next to it shows the same time that means its lunch dinner or snack time. The visual might help. Then if she asks if she can have a snack, you say what does the clock say? She will learn to check and know when to expect a snack.

Have you ever heard of Prader Willi syndrome?

They don’t always have learning difficulties

No, I did say usually, tbf.

Do you give her a snack when you get somewhere? I’ve found offering a snack as soon as we get somewhere then means they don’t ask constantly throughout a visit. Sometimes this means eating a picnic at 10/10.30am but it just stops the constant asking.

Fair

My now 6 year old was like this. If we ever went out for the day and knew there was a picnic lunch, he would go on and on about the picnic until we had at. Kids parties would also have him constantly eyeing the table until the food came. He was always ‘ALL++’ for nursery meals when all the other kids were ‘Some’.
I taught him to tell the time on a digital clock! Snack time was at 10 and 15 and I would just tap the clock if he asked outside of it. It worked in the sense that he stopped asking all the time but he was rigid about those timings. I think it was an anxiety thing and he does show some other autistic traits but not sure he would get a diagnosis (I’m a teacher - I fill in a lot of referrals!)

He has grown out of it now. Still absolutely loves his food - he’s really adventurous and loves eating out. He still likes to know what we’re having etc but doesn’t ‘bother’ for it anymore. Interestingly one of his friends still does it - they sat down at a party food table, completely ignoring the games etc, the other day after being there for 15 minutes!