Fussy eating 5 year old....at my wits end.

[TakeALookAtTheseSwatches]

My 5yo is extremely fussy, the things she will eat are:
Chicken nuggets
Garlic bread
Sweetcorn
Broccoli
Strawberries
Oranges
Nutella sandwiches
Plain crackers
Pom bear crisps
Biscuits
Chocolate
Ice cream
Sweets.

That's it. Obviously there is no meal there whatsoever, she will eat chicken nuggets and sweetcorn/broccoli most nights. I've tried getting her to help me make stuff so she can be involved, she still will not even touch it let alone eat it. I have tried just giving her meals and making no comment but she will just kick off massively.

Tonight we had lasagne and I put about an inch long piece on her plate along with chips and garlic bread. She ate the middle out of the garlic bread and will not touch the rest. She has spent the last hour screaming because she's hungry and wants ice cream.

I just don't know what to do, surely I can't just give her chicken nuggets every single night?? But equally it's not like she'll eat if she's hungry, she just won't. Any advice welcome.

Oh dear, I feel for you because it's all on you, no one else can feed her. Please be encouraged by the fact that she is eating some foods and that she will gradually extend the number of foods she will have.

I know it’s hard but I wouldn’t worry and just give her what she likes. My son had a very limited diet from weaning until he was was about 18 but then suddenly changed. He never ate any fruit or vegetables but now eats salad, a few different vegetables and some fruits.

My DS 18 has OSFED, he stopped eating breakfast when he was about 8, then something triggered him hardly eating at all when he was 14. He's now on the road to recovery because he has complete control of buying, preparing and cooking his food, also the times he eats, which have to be on the dot or he can't eat until the next meal. He's now a healthy weight for an 18 year old.

She might be neurodiverse. Thats not a bad list for a lot of kids. Go heavy on the broccoli and take the pressure off but eat your own food around her and keep offering.

Just wanted to add you can have ARFID without autism.

The causes can be sensory, fear based, through trauma or just the central nervous system thinking food is a threat, in the same way most people in england would look at a bag of crickets and not consider it safe nor food even though it is except this is for regular foods we would eat, or low appetite based.

Withholding safe foods against a child with ARFID to see if they will eat actually causes more trauma and food aversions. The OP would be best speaking toa paediatric dietician if she suspects this to be the case.

My DC was a picky eater, health visitor told me no child will intentionally starve themselves, and suggested giving them what they'd eat plus one or two they wouldn't normally.
No pressure, no forcing, over time they did eat more of a variety and grew into a healthy adult. Still doesn’t eat certain foods but never suffered along the way.

A friends DC wouldn't eat mash potato grated cheese.

Frozen whizzed up banana is as nice as ice cream.

OP the Ellyn Satter family served meals system works well for us and our ARFID child.

Look up the 32 steps to eating too, as putting food to the mouth isn't even in the first 8 steps, and each step is a win when it comes to picky eaters.

A really good quality vanilla ice cream only contains cream, milk, vanilla, egg and sugar. That's not so bad. Stay away from the majority of ice creams though that are full of chemicals these days to stop them melting and are not good for the gut.

As a mother of a child who is now 27 and a until the age of 11 only ate porridge, bananas, beans on toast and peanut butter and was underweight and would rather starve than eat something not on that list, who now eats everything and isn't any less healthy than anyone else, to try and relax. I cried at the doctors regularly, especially at how thin he was. The doctor kept reassuring me that there wasn't a known case of a fussy eating child dying as a result of their limited diet.

I now have fussy eater number two to deal with and I have just let them get on with it. His diet has started widening since he hit his teen years but it was definitely less stressful the second time round.

Try making a plate that contains both safe and unsafe foods each night. Or saying that if she tries one bite of new food the she can have some nuggets?

It sounds like she has extreme neophobia. Food neophobia is a normal part of developmental food psychology but is obviously a severe case for your daughter. Exposure to new foods can take 8+ tastes until they grow to trust them and if they just look and won’t taste them it doesn’t count as an exposure. Sweet foods are easiest to trust hence your daughters list.

Maybe try similar foods? So if she likes broccoli try cauliflower and say it tastes good and is very similar to broccoli etc. If she likes nuggets try turkey dinosaurs.

Things that may encourage children to try new foods include:

Seeing peers eat them
Seeing adults they respect eat them or hero characters like superheroes eating them
Being told they taste good (being told they’re good for them doesn’t work).
Parents telling them they’ll be proud of them if they try it / other positive reactions

Not much advice as I'm in a similar situation as you - only it seems she has likes! Maybe some solidarity. I know mine spent a lot of time with grandparents when I was working so was given anything he liked. He learned quickly to cause a bit of fuss to get ice cream and sweets. It has become very hard to undo and set new boundaries. And he will literally starve than give in to eating anything remotely healthy.
Would a nutritionist/dietician be able to give any advice?

My child is the same , i have no idea why as we baby lead weaned at 6 months and she ate everything we ate within reason, all kinds of meals and ate everything! Then she started nursery age 3 and it all changed
She will only eat raw veg never cooked, wont eat potatoes apart from chips occasionally
Wont eat a sandwich but will eat all components separately
We have to make packed lunches for school every day and its a struggle
Will eat meat but no sauces ,only plain pasta
Will eat huge amounts of salad , raw veg, gets through about 10 huge cucumbers a week as a snack ,only drinks water
Shes a healthy weight so no worries we are hoping as she gets older it imoroves
The best thing we did was take her on an AI holiday as she was able to try little bits of new foods without feeling bad if she didnt like them
She will try new things but i think its the textures she heaves :(

Could it be that its not that she doesnt like it, she doesnt want it. I used to say this as a child as I knew my grandma would make what I wanted. Granted that was a roast dinner so a bit healthier. But that was my go to "i dont like it". I didnt eat pasta or pizza until I was an older teenager

My toddler wouldn't transfer to lumpy foods because of the texture, she would eat the lot then heave it back up! I used to hate that meal times were a battle and disliked having to throw away decent food that she rejected. All inclusive could be a good thing, they like to keep up with peers so are more likely to try whereas at home they would refuse. Needless to say, she eats everything now.

This does sound awfully like ARFID and given the genetics for ND are there, I wouldn't be so quick to say she's NT.

From an adult ARFID sufferer, who went through all the varieties of parental pressure to eat that ranged from 'harsh' to actually abusive...

• Offer several safe foods at every meal
• On a totally seperate plate, make available whatever other option there is (ie what you're having).
• Say NOTHING at all about trying it, about it being nice, and if she does try it, again say absolutely fuck all. Nothing. Zip it.

In essence, take the pressure right off, and respect when she has what may seem like odd whims, ie a particular brand of chicken nuggets being acceptable/unacceptable, or things needing to be cut smaller or prepared in a certain way.

Ignore anyone telling you to just offer what you're having or nothing, kids with ARFID will absolutely starve themselves to the point of serious weight loss and needing a feeding tube.

Don't try to hide food in safe foods, thats a rapid way to lose a safe food!

Praising attempts to try stuff usually backfires, most children, by the time they're noticably struggling with food, will read this not as genuine praise but as you telling them 'look, see you WERE being silly, it IS nice really, so you were wrong, your opinion isn't important'.

Negotiating ARFID as an adult can be hard, there have been times I have been so hungry I am in tears but there isn't a single thing I can stomach, and I can buy whatever the hell I like!

When you're a kid, and you don't know whats wrong, and you don't have the language to explain it, and you're trying to explain these things like 'the texture of that potato reminds me of a time I was sick and then I feel sick then I start gagging' or 'having my mouth slightly too full with large pieces of food or having to chew for too long makes me feel physically sick and I stop being able to swallow whats in my mouth'... thats hard. Trying to explain it to an adult who patently does not believe you because they have never experienced these feelings/sensations themselves, impossible really!

Lots of folks with ARFID are also supertasters (not all, because ARFID can be about shape/size/texture/appearance as well as flavour) - so for us, what tastes fine to you can be massively overpowering to us. Or we can detect underlying flavours you can't - I can pick up when DP has not rinsed the dishes well enough, I can tell the type of potato used and when we've moved from the old bag to the new bag, I can tell if the milk is about to go off two days before it actually goes off.

You can do a supertaster test strip (they taste horribly bitter to supertasters, very mildly bitter or like nothing at all to normal and non-tasters) which will tell you very quickly who in the family is or isn't!

Can I ask what you eat?
Lasagne with garlic bread and chips doesn't sound great. How was she when younger? It does sound like you may have created a rod for your own back as all the snacks and sweet things must have been introduced by you.

Also you can be autistic and have other eating disorders. DS 18 was originally thought to have ARFID, but now he's been diagnosed with OSFED.

Children will intentionally starve themselves, I have a DC with cystic fibrosis and a DC with OSFED and they have both intentionally starved themselves.

Please try not to be critical about a parent giving treats or less than healthy items because at times it is so stressful dealing with this. It isn't neglectful parenting causing this, it could well be a disorder.

OP, what I do with my fussy 5 year old (fortunately not as bad as yours) is treat it as protein + carb + veg + veg or fruit. So I would serve chicken nuggets+ crackers + sweetcorn+ strawberries. Then on a separate plate offer a taste of something else. Praise any interaction with the new food: sniff, lick, poke or taste.

I don't allow further restrictions as much as possible: I say for example "if you don't want to eat cheddar cheese any more then you have to eat a new protein" or "if you are not going to eat the paneer [a food he usually eats] then the alternative is the chickpeas the rest of us are having". I've found it helpful to talk about basic nutrition so he understands what he needs in a meal. There's some weird combinations, don't get me wrong! Choice helps, but that's always structured within the food type.

Hi, my five year old is the exact same! It’s so frustrating but I try to give him and myself some grace and just go with it. I also give vitamins daily and he drinks lots of milk. He’s a healthy weight etc so I’m hoping it’s spending he will grow out of. Always continue offering new foods big alongside your fail safes.

Haven’t read everything OP. But a couple of thoughts. If she is a healthy weight, whilst deeply frustrating, I wouldn’t make this the end of the world. Honestly, there is a spot of veg and fruit in there. Put things out that one day she might try (veg sticks, dips etc), literally stop it being anything of a battleground. This approach works well if she’s autistic - turning it into a fight won’t work or do either of you any good. Honestly, it could be worse diet-wise.

Does she eat different flavours of ice cream, and if so then would she eat homemade ice cream? There are loads of recipes online for no-sugar ones and you could try banana, strawberry, pear, frozen yoghurt, peanut or almond butter, blueberry etc. Might be a way to explore some different flavours as well as get some different nutrients in.

My fussy eater is 18 now. Still fussy. Strongly suspect autism in all my kids. He hates certain textures.
Honestly, vitamins if they will agree (mine didn’t until he was a teen and could take pills as he hated sweets). And give her what she will eat.
Your child eats better than mine ever did. No veg. No fruit. Just pasta and turkey dinosaurs. Wouldn’t even eat cake.

Pressure gives them trauma. I regret making such a stress about it early on because he gets anxious around food now. We weren’t horrible or punished but he knew we were upset and worried. I backed off by the time he was 8. I never comment on his food. I put it down and took it away at the end. Always something he liked on his plate. Always.