To give my dd Innocent smoothies?

[Mummylion9]

DD is 12 and has autism and sensory issues which makes eating very difficult for her. She eats no fruit or veg other than a small piece of broccoli and/or apple or cucumber which I insist on but it's difficult for her.

She does like the individual Innocent smoothies so I buy those for her, she might have one or two a day certainly no more.

But then I start to worry about the sugar and how we are supposed to be cutting down on fruit juice etc.

So good or bad in these circumstances? I give her vitamin tablets too.

just give them. Make life easier for yourself.

My kids used to have one of the innocent cartons with a straw most days for years. No food issues, they ate plenty of fruit as well. They are late teens with no dental issues.

This x

Same, my autistic son would have been institutionalised, or at the very least kept hidden away at home. Thankfully times have changed!

It's a close run thing. A kitkat has less sugar, similar fibre and more fat and protein.

Of course. A child can’t know that they like chicken nuggets unless they’ve had chicken nuggets, for example.
I’ll explain how it went with my son. He weaned at 6 months like most babies. He ate a huge array of foods… we did BLW and I have a picture of him aged about 10 months eating strips of steak. Loved veg, fruit, meat, pulses, all sorts. When he turned about 15 months old he stopped eating… at all. Anything he used to eat was completely rejected. He lost loads of weight. At the same time, he started showing other signs of neurodiversity. His speech regressed and his social skills declined.
While this was going on, we obviously tried to feed him literally anything to try and get him to eat. Bear in mind also that this regression started in March 2020, so seeing any sort of HCP was nigh on impossible.
After a couple of weeks of just milk, he started eating Greek yoghurt. We had a few weeks of just Greek yoghurt. Then one day his older sisters had pancakes and he lent over and took some of one of their plates. I nearly cried in relief. A few weeks after that, he ate a dry ryvita cracker. Then an apple. Then some pork sausage. Then a chocolate digestive.
6 years on, that’s still pretty much his entire diet. Is it what I’d choose for him? Absolutely not. Would I rather he starve? Also no. When your child doesn’t eat, you will try feeding them anything until you find something they’ll tolerate. For us, that’s mainly ryvita, apples and yoghurt with the occasional sausage or pancake. For others, that’s chicken nuggets. Or innocent smoothies. Or McDonald’s chips.

She won’t have any other smoothies or juice, I’ve tried and she refuses them unless they are Innocent ones.

Don’t feel bad OP. Yes they’re sugary but at least she’s eating something.

lots of people won’t understand. But you do what you need to do to get her fed. if you start messing around and hiding other smoothies in the bottles she will lose trust and smoothies will be off the safe list.

keep them in, maybe 1 per day. Don’t remove unless you’ve managed to introduce something else first.

good luck x

My grandparents were convinced I just wasn't hungry enough. My parents went away for 4 days and when they got back I still hadn't eaten anything.

For my brother my parents were told by the NHS to just let him eat what he would eat. They told them to keep feeding him multivitamins and to be reassured that he wouldn't be growing if he wasn't getting enough nutrients.

Certainly for me, I ate everything until I was about 2 or so - olives, whatever, you name it. But then I just suddenly cut out almost everything. So my parents couldn't have known that I shouldn't have had a X in case I liked it (and the wouldn't eat anything else!) because while I was weaning I liked everything! And then once I had cut out almost all the foods, any options to get fruit or vegetables into me, as opposed to essentially just carbohydrates was an opportunity to be taken. Over my childhood we worked, slowly, carefully and without conflict, to expand the range of foods I ate so I could manage to go for tea at someone else's house. I remember at the start of primary school the only fruit I would eat was a banana, and by the end I would eat bananas, apples, cherries and I think grapes. It wasn't strong tastes I had an aversion to particularly - I was happy to eat blue cheese for example, which plenty of adults won't eat. It was textures.

I then made a real effort, once I was an older teenager and could control my revulsion, to expend the range of things I ate. And I got used to more things, and then slowly got to the point where I actively liked more things, and now as an adult I'm really into food.

My brother struggled for longer than I did, but got the hang of quite a few things by the end of university.

You could just make your own without all the added crap.

Totally understand if that’s the case and I work with SEN kids and adults so I am aware of the challenges. Just thought I’d mention it as I’d used a high powered quality blender before the blendtec and there is no comparison in end product.

Ah well, dd is happy and healthy, the dentist is happy and has said once a day with food is no problem at all, so I am happy to give them to dd. They must be doing some good, she's got a fab immune system.

Dentist told me when my child was young that an occasionally sugary drink is fine just sip it through a straw won’t effect teeth.

Except as the OP has repeatedly said, her daughter wouldn’t drink them.

Aren’t they mainly apple juice now? I’d do whatever if she was happy drinking it tbh within reason.

I used to work for them!

Had 2 or 3 a day, perfect healthy person.

Loads of sugar but it's primarily natural. I worked in whole head fruit as well and ate about 6 punnets a day. Baffling amount of fruit if you think too hard but it's not granulated is it?

Their called innocent but they are far from it

I used to give them to my children but they wrecked DS's front teeth in a matter of weeks. Admittedly there was no enamel on his front teeth due to chicken pox as a baby but they are notoriously bad for children's teeth.

Hadn't read all the thread. Make your own then put them in a Smoothie bottle.

But it wouldn’t taste the same 🤷🏻‍♀️

This is an autistic child who has food aversions , any food she consumes is a win , getting any nutrients into her is a battle and if she likes smoothies I’d focus on the vitamins and nutrients and calories she’s getting from them . You clearly know very little about autistic children and your comment is ignorant.

I get a lot of annoyance about giving too much leeway to autistic kids but this has to be one one of the stupidest things ever. Do you seriously think I haven’t tried this? He will not touch this!!! It’s a safety net that is so good for so many (although we pay for it)

Autistic children with food sensitivities thrive on sameness. That's why so many safe food are highly processed. A tube of pringles will always taste the same , a happy meal, a chicken nugget etc. An innocent smoothie will always taste the same but a homemade one will taste differently (and even a minute change can be detected trust me) if quantities of fruit, the ripeness of fruit etc changes.

You will not fool them with packaging and may take away a safe food if you try.

Yep.

I never thought I'd give my child McDonald's as often as I do but it beats starvation.

My daughter can taste the difference and refuses it.