To be reaching near fricking hysteria because of this?

[chegirlwithbellson]

I know I am so please, please calm me down.

Sorry to do yet another AIBU but I have tried this in special needs and not really got a response (not moaning about that, I know its a bit specific).

DS2 is nearly 7. He has global learning delay & auditory processing disorder. He was neglected as a very young baby and had a pretty traumatic first few years even though he first starting living with us at 8 weeks.

We had no PR for two years so had to do as we were told by SS and this pretty much revolved around his birth mother's wants. When that calmed down DD got sick and two years later she died.

He has issues but is amazingly resiliant and I love him so so much.

Anyway - the thing that is dementing me may sound trivial.

He has persistantly taken food. It tends to be sweet things. He has gone through 2lbs of sugar in a week before we noticed what was going on. We dont have sweets around the place often but when we do he manages to get hold of whatever is in the place. It doesnt matter where we put things he will take them.

He will eat icing, cake mix, hot chocolate as well as the ordinary temptations. He will also take indegestion 'sweets' (I am pg) and eat them by the packetful. I hide them but he will climb and dig them out.

I have tried talking to him, reasoning, shouting, going mad, sanctions et. We now have a cupboard in the kitchen with a (tiny) padlock on it. I couldnt stand the thought of the build up to Christmas being spoiled by him raiding anything I bought for special.

Its like a compulsion. I understand the reasons why he does it - from the obvious - he likes sweets, to the deeper - the need to fill an emotional hole due to the trauma in his early life etc.

I have just been in to tidy his room and found yet another pile of wrappers hidden under his chest of drawers. Including yet more indegestion wrappers. I had them hidden on top of a wardrobe, in a box with a lid!

I know its sounds stupid but I am in tears here. I just do not know what to do. Obviously we wouldnt normally have the amount of stuff in the house, I dont even buy buiscuts anymore because I cannot face the stress. I need to have certain things i.e. sugar and we will sometimes have other sweet things.

I hate getting so mad at him. I worry that he is going to get hold of something dangerous one day although we are really careful with medicines. Its because he seems to have no control over what he is doing (I am not making excuses, I know he can be plain naughty).

Sorry its long and garbled.

troublewithtalk, that's such a good point. My nephew has auditory processing probs, I don't know much about it but I do remember my SIL saying that the OT had told her that her son will always seek out physical sensations of one kind or another. I really don't know why, perhaps it's to do with the physical sensation to the body being re-assuring somehow when your brain is struggling to process everything?

with my nephew I know that they give him massages - firm touch seems to really calm him and satiate that need to seek either food or rough n tumble or endless hyper play!

Our DD used to shake with anticipation when she was near high fat/salt/sugar foods and stuff them into her mouth. She wasn't weaned properly and at 3 when she came to us and would shove food down whole. I started adding herbs to her food and giving her highly flavoured foods like strong oily fish. When we saw the dietician, she said that DD hadn't developed taste properly so she craved taste rich foods and couldn't tell when her mouth was full but the highly flavoured diet seemed to do the trick into training her taste toward different strong flavours that were healthier.
She still likes chocolate and fixates if she is given some but can wait to eat it whereas before she would stuff it in whole.

wow that really is interesting trouble...amazing what a difference it can make!

In some ways, I'd be tempted to go completely the opposite direction - flood the house with readily available sweet items. No holds barred. Let him gorge himself.

My Aunt worked in a chocolate factory. Staff were allowed to eat what they fancied. They would all start off picking loads of chocolates. Within a week or two, they wouldn't touch them, because they were sick of them.

Does he mouth things often? Chew his sleeves, suck his thumb, etc.?

Trouble is right about the sensory diet, the little girl I work with goes total bonkers if she doesn't play with play-doh or sift through rice or something like that at the beginning of every day. It's a trick figuring out what they need, but it might very well be halpful in your case.

I meant helpful of course!

Could it be connected to your having another baby?

"I also have a chain on my bedroom door (like the ones you have on your front door) to help prevent the younger ones getting in "

There's a lot of locking going on -- why can't the younger DCs go into your bedroom?

I would be inclined to allow the snack baskets,and follow the other advice in the link that was posted earlier in this thread as well as by some later posters.

I have vivid memories of eating toothpaste with my siblings in the bathroom (must have had some sort of non-sugar sweetener), also perching atop a chair that was itself wobbling on top of the loo trying to reach the medicine cabinet that was almost at ceiling level we were trying to get at the senakot (yummy chocolatey taste). We also drank 'liver salts' (fizzy), concoctions of cream and sugar (sweet and high caloric), and ate cooking chocolate whenever we could lay our hands on it. Shop-bought sweet things were very strictly rationed at home there was plenty of home baking but the exotic bought stuff was what we wanted. Boxes of crackers were seized and polished off before they got from the car to the cupboard on shopping days.

BTW - another thought - there's something called 'difficult temperament' (not to be confused with bad behaviour, etc) that a consultant psychiatrist told me about. It is thought to be genetic in basis and one of the characteristics is certain kinds of physical sensation seeking. It resembles ADHD in some respects. Does any of this sound familiar?

www.childsday.com/ParentingExchange/PE2004-03.pdf

Hello everyone and thanks for adding your thoughts.

There is some really interesting stuff on here.

Math - I like to keep young children out of my room because I dont like my makeup, perfume, clothes etc being mashed up and strewn across the floor. Apart from a chain on the bedroom door and a lock on one kitchen cupboard thats all I have in the way of locks (apart from the usual). I would rather make the upstairs safe and allow my DS some independence than keep everything open and have to watch him all the time. He is very young for his age but he knows how old he is IYSWIM. He needs to feel like a big boy.

Snowy that would fit, particularly as its genetic and his birth mother has huge issues around personal safety and thrill seeking.

To those have mentioned sensory stuff. Yep he does have some issues with that. He insists on wearing a belt with all of his trousers otherwise he will walk about holding them on incase they fall off, he has wrecked shoes because he pulls the fastenings so tight they snap off, he is a chewer and a fidgeter and a fiddler. He seems to find it hard to tell the difference between someone brushing past him and someone hitting him, both are met with the same howls!

I have done some pressure stuff with him and he likes it.

I wonder if I contributed to this whole oral fixation thing? Becasue he was so underweight I had to feed him every hour. For the first 18mths I did not know if he would be staying with us or going back to his birth mother and I think I was feeding him up 'just in case'. I suppose I thought if I got him fed up it would give him a fighting chance if she didnt feed him again.

It was all organic and home made stuff though. I never fed him rubbish.

I know so many adopted and LAC who have issues with food. Its such a basic need. Look how many adults turn to food for comfort, its not suprising children do the same.

trouble your experiences are very interesting.

Interesting. Do you think there's a link between early insecure attachment and comfort eating then?

I really admire you for all you have done for him, btw.

snowy I think there is. It could be eating or any other sort of emotional prop. Sex, shopping, drink, drugs. I am not an expert at all. Its just the more I learn and see the more it makes sense.

I dont think its all inevitable or that there is nothing to be done. In cases of severe attatchment problems I do think it seems almost impossible to do much but in shakey attachment I am sure lots can be done to minimise the damage.

I dont feel that I am helping him much ATM. I love him and really want to do everything I can but its a struggle to know whats for the best.

I have to step back and see the little boy rather than all the issues IYKWIM.

Hello Chegirl. I don't have much advice, but thought I would share my own experiences as some of the things said on the thread have rung bells with me.

I am skinny, always have been. But I also have an obsessive/complusive relationship with sweet/snacky things rather like your DS. Never just one biscult, the whole packet, not just one crisp, not just one pieece of chocolate but the whole bar etc.

At the same time, I used to bite my nails to the quick and, having managed to give thatup, moved on to complusively biting and picking the skin round my nails at times of stress (I have 8 week old colicky baby and a tantrumy 2 year old, so yyou can imagine how myy findgers look just now).

I tend to link some of this to the sexual abuse I suffered as a child, because I distinctly remember that I didn't bite my fingers previous to it (at about 9). Someone insightful once told me that I did it, perhaps because I couldn't tell anyone what was going on and I needed an outlet. Does your DS communicate enough for you to ask him why he eats so much?

But, also, I am a diabetic and the sugar/tat complusion is also induced by low bllod sugar levels. This I think is what Snowy was getting at when she asked about his drinking and orinating habits. Low blood sugar or very high blood sugar makes you very hungry (you body thinks its starving) and you crave high sugar, high starchy stuff.

I wonder if your DS has (aside from his other issues) problems with his blood sugar levels?? It might be worth finding out.

I hope you manage to help him with this. It sounds like you are doing a great job so farr.

Cat thanks so much for sharing your experience. Its touching that you would do that.

I meant to answer the drinking question but it slipped my mind . I have not noticed any unusual behaviour but I will be getting it checked out. DS is due for medical check as part of the statementing process so I will ask for a check on his blood sugar/urine.

DS doesnt chew fingers but he has does chew his hair. He has locs so its easy for him to pop one in his mouth! He suffers from severe eczema and his first reaction to any kind of stress is to start scratching. If he is being told off or is trying to deal with any difficulty he will claw at his legs. This is probably a similar sort of reaction to your finger biting.

I hope your baby gets over his/her colic really soon

Not sure how much use this'll be, as I can't find a reference to it... but I seem to remember reading somewhere that if your diet's lower in protein than your body needs, then you can suffer sugar cravings.

Chegirl - This sounds like a really difficult problem, I would struggle with this if it were me!
Some excellent and thought provoking posts on this thread
I agree with the suggestion Uriel just made about protein (Im sure I have read that too)

I also agree that it sounds like a desire to have something in his mouth (oral stimulation), could be a stress thing too (due to adoption, also could he be affected in anyway by the sad death of your dd?)
Another suggestion - As a kid I was a bit of a food sneaker/seeker and still am really (mine was due to feeling competitive with my greedy brother who bullied me so I felt I was i a race with him to make sure I had food iyswim)

HTH

I'm sorry it's upsetting you so much. Others have suggested there may be a real problem here, but I would say, I used to be able to eat a couple of litres of sweet ice cream plus and still compulsively spoon out golden syrup - I grew out of it and don't really like sweet things much now, but the pleasure of getting sweets when they were forbidden was a real draw.

I never even got a stomach ache - and if you're a child, why would you stop eating something sweet if there were no physical symptoms to tell you not to?

I mean to suggest: he may be bewildered about why mummy is so upset, if there's nothing else that he understands to tell him it's wrong.

I would make an appointment with GP I think this case needs professional help
To begin with I would give him as much sugary things as he wants but make him ASK for it first to get him out of the way of stealing and any emotional conflicts this causes, also takes away the 'forbidden fruit element'.You will have to wean him off slowly otherwise he will feel absolutely dreadful as his bloodsuger level falls.Could you gradually substitute fruit smmothies and homemade milshakes for chocolate etc?

I would also suggest you talk to your GP just to rule out any metabolic problems. If they have any concerns about physical or emotional aspects of your son's craving, they may be able to refer you to a specialist. It is more than likely that he is okay, but at very least you can put your mind at rest about one aspect.

I had to rush off before I could answer you yesterday Chegirl. (I'm 6 hours behind you in Mexico, and I had to go and fix my toddler's tea).

With the picking/biting and eating thing, it helped me to chart when I did them and what kind of situation I had been in previously or how I felt once I was doing it. I won't say it cured me, but it has really helped me with control myself a bit more. That's why I asked if your DS could comunicate well with you. I thought perhaps that he (with your help could make some kind of diary to record what he is feeling like when he complusively snacks and/or what he was doing immediately prior to this.

If your DS is eating healthily aside from his snack habit, I think your main concern must be the medicine. Perhaps you might think about changing your strategies to make sure that there was always something he could snack on, and then he wouldn't go for the indigestion tablets or whatever. I have no idea if it will work or not. You see, I've tried deliberately not buying sweet and savoury snack things in the past, but it doesn't really stop me, I then go and eat the nearest thing I can get to crisps or sweets. In fact, being able to eat this stuff, when I want and if I so wish, oftens means I do it less. Daft, but true.