AIBU to be surprised by a five-year-old given cola in a bottle?

[Freshtona]

On a flight the other day and a child of about 5 was having total meltdown and was given a baby bottle with Coca-Cola to calm them! The parents had bottles of coke with them to top it up!

I think child was ND, but regardless of that, why would anyone give that to a 5-year old child??? I try not to judge other parents and my own DC aren't strangers to sugar but cola is not allowed. The caffeine and sugar would surely make meltdowns even worse, not to mention the effect on teeth.

• a child had coke

I think you missed the context here. I was referring to ND children who will only eat one type of food or drink cola or whatever. I am not talking about children with deformed hearts, downs or etc - however even with a downs child healthy food is still the best for them, they are children no? My point remains the same children who only ate junk food did no die in the 80s or 70s and were not left in the forest to die. Those issues didn’t exist as children ate what they were given. ND did exist, Einstein himself was ND.

Even till recently there are places around the world where McDonald’s etc is expensive (go figure) they have ND children in those countries, but they aren’t reliant on McDonald’s or biscuits, or just one type of food, they eat what the family provides.

A child will not suffer if given milk and water and healthy food, A ND child should have access to healthy food. Or parents making excuses.

I think you’ve misunderstood what a restricted diet is. You seem under the impression that it’s an invented condition. Do you feel the same about acrophobia, or anorexia, or OCD? Are these too things could be tough loved out of?

yes children and adults DO starve themselves to death even when offered healthy alternatives. Often the foods that are reliable and “safe” for autistic children are those that are very uniform and unchanging. Obviously the foods that come from McDonald or in a packet fall into this category and as the list of safe foods dwindles the proportion of these types of foods increases.

Just FYI the first cases of autism and Asperger’s were documented around WW2 but obviously existed unnamed before. These children even in the unbending attitudes to child rearing of the time had restricted diets.
its not a choice and it’s bloody exhausting to live with, and the idea that “you could be a bit firmer” is as upsetting and unrealistic as suggesting chucking a paraplegics wheelchair out and they’d soon get off their arses and walk.

No children do not starve themselves to death when offered healthy alternatives

I’m guessing horrendous earache - I have been incredibly ill with this on flights and a sweet drink can help. Most likely it was easier to keep topping up from their bottle instead of waiting for the flight attendants to bring a tiny glass of water.

You also say kid was 5 - could easily have been a small 8 year old. Unless you asked to see the birth certificate it’s bizarre to assume.

I have definitely given one of my kids a swig of my coke at a similar age when they burned their tongue on a hot bite of food while eating out and needed a quick cool down. They survived the experience 😂

Really wish as parents we could all stop bloody judging each other.

So anorexia doesn't exist either? Right ok then

The reason children aren't starving to death is that parents find food they will eat

It does exists hence why I said children, let me specify and say young children. There isn’t a 5 year old who will willingly starve themselves to death, maybe a 14 YO. So again certain behaviours you can manage in young children vs adolescence.

Find me a young child who has died of anorexia, there is nothing. You are welcome to read medical journals on children’s eating disorders and educate yourself. There will not be a 5 year old or young child in there.

If someone sat you down today and said here's a bowl of crickets and snails and you're not getting up from this table until you've eaten them, how long do you think you'd be sat at that table?

After all, they're healthy. Do you think it might make you panic a bit, feel a bit queasy, maybe gag a bit from the slimy mucousy texture or the very obvious insect face. I reckon you could eat them, eventually, after you've rationally told yourself that they are just another form of food.

For children with ARFID, which can be caused by trauma from past food reactions, trauma from choking on certain foods, and sensory sensitivities, some normal healthy foods look like a bowl full of crickets and snails and it causes such intense anxiety that it feels like torture. They do refuse to eat. They will stick to what they know, what always has the same taste, texture and colour because it is safe and predictable. That is why most safe foods are beige and unhealthy and often branded because brands provide consistency.

My son will go days without eating at all if he so much as has a slight variation or someone tries to give him an asda sausage roll instead of a greggs sausage roll.

He has been hospitalised because of it. In hospital he wouldn't touch anything except ice lollies for 5 days.

He's losing weight rapidly, he is anaemic, he has significantly low vitamin D. He experiences fatigue from normal daily activity.

He was brought up on good home cooked healthy food, then just like his speech, he had a regression with food at around 18 months.

Thankfully I was still breastfeeding. Nearly cost me my job because my child would not eat any food at all, or drink water and I had to take so many breaks. We saw a paeds dietician and their advice was to continue breastfeeding because stopping wouldn't move him onto other things, it would just take away the one thing keeping him alive. This carried on until he was 4. Of course in that time we had to give him safe, predictable, and yes unhealthy food.

We do follow the Ellyn Satter division of responsibility feeding model for shared family meals, but I can't remove his safe foods or force him to eat something he isn't comfortable with.

At the end of the day would I rather have a child that eats chicken nuggets and sausage rolls, alive, so I can work on his diet at a pace that suits him, or would I rather have a dead child? I'm always going to go with the chicken nuggets and sausage rolls and squash and milkshake in that scenario.

Why would you put a small child through all of this though when there's food available?

to prove you're a "better" person? To "win"?

Hooray you forced another human into submission by denying them food... con...grat..u ..lations?

Anorexia while rare has been diagnosed in children age 5
A 8 year old almost died of anorexia weighing 23 lbs

I know a a child with a feeding tube due to limit food intake - the are in infant sized clothing at 7years old.

It's rare but happens

You can’t win as a parent . To me flights are an exceptional circumstance and I allow things with my kid on flights I woudn't allow ordinarily such as loads of screen time ..people can judge me all I want I don’t care. And I certainly don't care about a parent deciding to give their child a sup of coke on a flight to calm them down , particularly if they are neurodiverse. I would be more judgemental towards the people making judgy comments about it being honest , the same people would be complaining if the child had a meltdown probably .

I think it’s really hard to interact with someone who simply denies a well documented condition exists. IF it was just lax parenting then how would we see so many instances of restricted eating across class and culture in the autistic population???
You can stick your fingers in your ears and stamp your feet and insist you are right but sadly it isn’t a case of “just being firm” and “they’ll eat it if you give them no choice”. Your ignorance and insistence on labouring you ridiculous point will have made people facing a more difficult life than you can imagine’s, days harder. Now on top of the worry and work of supporting a child with restricted diet they must also feel the criticism and intolerance of your views. I hope you are offered more compassion empathy and thoughtfulness than you give.

He wouldn’t know what a sausage roll was if you didn’t provide it.

You don’t have to force children to eat but you’re in charge of what they’re exposed to. For all the excuses in the world, you’re the parent. If they won’t eat then you go to hospital.

I’m tired of the excuses when I’ve met many SEN children with Afrid who aren’t guzzling crappy drinks or eating takeaways every night. There seems to be so many excuses on this thread to feed these kids the worst crap under the illusion it’s better than hunger. Even a protein shake if chewing is an issue is a better option, there is always more of a middle ground than a coke and a sausage roll.

I reiterate and I don’t care if it offends, you’re the one who exposed them to that food and you can shout at some of us till the cows come home but I still wouldn’t give in and I haven’t given in myself as a parent to a child who doesn’t eat most days. My child doesn’t even know what Greggs is. Yes some nights it’s a plain weetabix for dinner but when relatives have given her sugar or rubbish her moods and behaviour sky rocket out of control.

Because you’re the parent.

It’s not about winning. It’s taking a child who already has troubles regulating their moods and making sure that the food on offer isn’t the most unhealthy option which will exasperate that.

The fact that many modern parents frame basic parenting as winning or bullying is telling.

Yes I did expose him to it, because he wasn't eating ANYTHING. He had stopped eating.

We followed our hospitals advice which was that if he will eat it, that's what you give him. Whatever it is.

It's easier to add foods in once you've established food safety and security. It is an eating disorder.

Your view doesn't offend me. I just feel sorry that you're particularly dense on this matter.

I’m not dense.

I am in the same position including extended breastfeeding as my child would not eat. Breastfeeding was originally blamed but it was the only thing sustaining her when her peers were on finger food.

I still didn’t expose her to crap food. She eats the same 2 meals which I batch cook weekly and hide things like veg or broth in. Some days she refuses altogether. Some nights it’s a basic picky plate of cheese or plain meat - not ideal.

She gags and throws up on new textures or foods. She hyperventilates if a meal or food/hunger is mentioned. She is not the same as her peers with eating and it shows. We have to monitor her weight and keep a food diary. It’s a constant daily stress for us alongside some other ND issues she’s displaying which we can’t diagnose due to age. But considering I’m ND and know a lot of ND people, I see it especially around her peers. I’m isolated most of the time as we can’t live the normal experience others have. So yes, I empathise.

One week she lived off nothing but cheese and another week it was weetabix. I’ve had all the phases and every meal time or trying to get her to eat is unbearable misery for the family. I cried the day she ate some plain rice as she refuses nearly all carbs. I cried again the day she decided strawberries were a safe food but it comes and goes.

I will still stand by that I won’t offer crap because it’s addictive and does nothing to sustain an already fragile child who can’t seem to regulate herself in a way that is deemed ‘normal’ for her age. Your child your choice, but don’t start harping on at others that the only choice was a Greggs as it isn’t.

I can't get over how if some weeks your child only eats cheese and she goes days without eating anything - how you can't comprehend how others may offer other foods out of desperation.

If she stopped eating cheese and all other foods you allow - would you just stop feeding her or would you try other options just to make sure she ate something?

I will still stand by that I won’t offer crap because it’s addictive and does nothing to sustain an already fragile child who can’t seem to regulate herself in a way that is deemed ‘normal’ for her age. Your child your choice, but don’t start harping on at others that the only choice was a Greggs as it isn’t.

And if your daughter stopped eating her cheese and rice and weetabix or any of her safe foods, then what? If everything you put in front of her suddenly made her gag and wince and panic and meltdown?

You'd let her starve?

You're really lucky your child will eat those things. I hope she continues to do so.

If her child ended up in hospital they would most certainly recommend trying anything and everything before resorting to significant medical intervention. The last thing they want is to fit an NG tube and it is a very last resort for failure to thrive.

In an earlier post she said if your child stops eating you take them to hospital. It's precisely what we did!

The advice was, if you can find something that they will eat, that is what you give them, then you work on food fortification methods but that isn't straightforward either.

ARFID services vary across the country and some are only accessible from ages 11 onwards too. This is the predicament that we've been put in. I think some people think our ARFID kids get to 6 months old and we give them a 4 pack of sausage rolls and a can of Stella.

Unlike most on here my younger children drank coke from time to time. Not the precious first born of course. But the other two from time to time. I never really banned anything, we just didn’t have it in our house.

Maybe the child’s ears bother them on planes and a bottle of coke was their big plan. You just saw a snapshot, you have no idea what the wider picture looks like.

I used to work in a dental hospital and the amount of kids who would have a GA and all their teeth removed was a daily occurrence. There is no world where a 5 year old should be having coke ESP out of a bottle which is awful for the teeth anyway

It wasn’t a sip of Coke…. It was Coke in a baby bottle!

So what ? Literally none of the ops business