The incredibly fussy eaters thread

[boschy]

Following on from the thread on AIBU, this is the place for those with incredibly fussy/food phobic kids! If you are fed up with the "eat what they're given or let them starve" brigade, this is the place for you.

(If you ARE one of the 'eat or starve' brigade, please look away now - this thread is not for you, unless of course you've just had the Damascene conversion having discovered that your child is not the great eater you always thought he/she would be, down to your incredible parenting skills and totally relaxed attitude to food.)

My fussy eater is DD1, now 15. All was fine til she hit 12 months - easy to wean, I Annabel-Karmel-ed frantically etc etc.

But overnight she just. stopped. eating. And when she started again she knew exactly what she would and wouldn't eat. We had the tears and tantrums (from me) til I realised it was going nowhere. So 14 years later, here we are.

Her current repertoire is, in no particular order: macaroni cheese (no crispy top). garlic bread. breaded chicken products. chips. pizza with tomato sauce, no cheese. cold chicken (from a packet, not off the roast). spaghetti hoops in tomato sauce. Heinz tomato soup. Milano salami. pistachio nuts. crisps. any sort of bread as long as it doesnt have bits in. wraps. bananas. Innocent fruit smoothies (hurrah!). occasional off-piste forays into things like turkey schnitzel - successful; burgers/lasagne/bolognese - not successful.

She's bored with not being able to eat what everyone else does, but cant bring herself to try. I just try to keep going with the idea that she can try whatever she likes whenever she likes, and that she will grow out of it.

I wasn't going to read the AIBU thread but couldn't help myself. Nice to know all the usual cliches are there - "stop pandering to them", "more messy play will fix them." "just put the food in front of them, they'll eat eventually." blah, blah blah. We could have fussy eating thread bingo.

My stepson is 15 and will eat

Meat - Dry
Cheese
White fish - Dry
Raw carrots
Iceberg lettuce
Small apples
Small oranges
Black grapes from the fridge
Bread
Pepporoni Pizza with no other veg, or is goes in the bin
A spoonful of pasta or rice.
Potato wedges or chips

Nothing wet. At the age of 15 he will cry, get upset or become very stressed if faced with a smidgen of sauce or wetness on his plate. You would think it was a texture thing, untill you give golden syrup, chocolate fondue etc.

He smoothers everything in salt.

He is small, under weight, and very pale.

We like take the kids out to nice resturants or Sunday roasts, which his older brother really appreciates, but we cant because we can no longer face the panic attacks when there is nothing on the menu for him or the complete waste of money when he doesnt eat what he orders, or the tears when it arrives and it has something he doesnt like on the plate.

On holiday, we ate out every other night, and he literally ate nothing in the evenings because what he ordered wasnt to his requirements. Complete waste of money, and stressful for all.

We order take out and he is no longer included in the meal because he wont eat anything. He just gets himself a cheese sandwich or pepporoni pizza.

I spent years doing the he'll eat what he is given, then doing one meal for all that matched his requirments, but it wasnt fair on the rest of his family to eat salt laden, processed rubbish, so I leave him to it now.

Oh I'm jealous of your lists of things your Dc eat, that's how bad it is for me!

I really worry about school dinners. Our preferred school does not accept packed lunches and assure me they will work with DS to get him used to school dinners. Shall I give them a chance?...

Another one who would eat anything until 15 months when he decided he wasn't going to eat anything except milk and bread, preferably stale.
At 3, we've tried really hard to act as not-caring as possible about what he eats, just with the understanding that 'treats' are not things he gets more of if he hasn't eaten much earlier, and we eat in the daytime not the night.

Thankfully the invention of the Innocent Fruit Tube cured his chronic constipation, with the help of other juice and smoothies. And he will eat pretty much anything that can be described as 'bread' or 'cake' or 'pasta' which means we can take him to any restaurant and he will happily eat steamed dim sum/noodles/poppadums and naan bread/breadsticks/baguette etc, and might touch something else.

When going to friends' houses I mention some of the things he usually eats (omelette, pizza, yoghurt, banana) but say he often gets too excited to eat, so please don't make an effort and don't react if he doesn't eat anything - though if seriously worried about him starving, just offer some plain bread. He often eats hardly at all one day and then feasts the next, so again I try to relax and pick other battles...

I'm very glad I've watched another boy grow up being an even fussier eater - he's now 15 and plays football for a youth Premiership team, and is now a 'fussy eater' rather than 'incredibly fussy'. He was seen by a dietician who said relaxing was key, orange juice and pizza sauce would be sufficient fruit/veg, and while they could give him a multivitamin, it would be more to stop the parents worrying! And indeed he was always much healthier than his eat-anything siblings. Ds seems similar build and health. I was fairly fussy until puberty when lots of foods stopped tasting icky, so hopefully he'll be the same. By my mid-20s I could and do eat anything. Except tripe and eyeballs!

Autistic auntie thinks Ds is on the spectrum as he has horror of touching lots of 'slimy' things like many foods as well, but he has got better and will play with many foods he won't eat. I'm pretty sure he's certainly less aspie than I am, just a very stubborn child (nursery say they've never met a child as stubborn as him, even though they love him!) who will eat when he wants, thank you. So rather like me... I'm just insisting that food never gets thrown and he should say 'no thank you' rather than 'THIS IS YUCK!'

My Dd won't eat butter on a sandwich either, although thinking about it she won't eat anything other than strawberry jam in a sandwich!

Personality wise she's very well behaved, to the point of being a bit highly strung. Last week she told me that sometimes she has to wash her hands again even if she has just washed them which is a bit of a worry.

My main concern is she is very skinny, she's got a sickness bug at the moment and it worries me because she has zero fat to lose.

Thankfully she has always been great with milk, smoothies and pasta, which I guess cover most food groups

But actually, when you look at the list of what our children are eating, it isnt that bad really. obv not ideal, not as varied as we would all like, not gourmet, but most of them are getting some carbs, some protein and some fruit and/or veg most days, most weeks.

I think the sensory issue - in its broadest sense - is probably the defining thing (cod psychologist here). Mouth feel anyone? I loathe liver for example, because I hate the texture, and DD1 is disgusted by the texture of melted cheese which makes pizza/cheese toastie completely out of the question.

DD1 has literally only just been able to swallow medicine (calpol/penicillin/whatever) direct from a glass - not a spoon. Previously it had to be mixed with squash and drunk with a straw. And she simply cannot take tablets.

antarctic the restaurant thing - have you tried ordering off menu? eg if we go somewhere and they are offering sausages/mash/veg, DD1 will order just the sausage and a side of bread and butter. It might cost the same, but she has shared the experience and everyone is happy (apart from DH who grumbles from time to time, but that's tough IMO)

Can I ask, in people's experience, what's the best way to get some decent professional advice on this (apart from MN :)) the health visitor, the GP, a nutritionist perhaps?

AWimba, my stepson is also very highly strung, he cant wash up because of the food bits (I dont think its a ply to get out of chores, he does others), he cant touch raw meat, or anything gooey, and is a bit obessed with the word 'soggy'.

Hi NC

There was a fab panorama programme on a few years back which really helped me chill out wrt ds1's eating habits.

It was the paediatric consultant at BCH who basically said -
"look its all about the calories and getting some solid food into them". (some of the children she cared for were getting older and did not eat solid food, just milk from bottles)

She talked such good sense, it really helped me see that yes, ds1 had a very lmited diet (its better now) but that he wasnt starving, was growing and his tastes would change in time...and they have.

Its very interesting though, how many of us say that the "fussiness" started at 2 years old isnt it???

And anyway, its not "fussiness", its them not eating things they dont like

I think you're onto something with the sensory issue, all the foods I dislike are because of the texture, nuts, grated carrot, chick peas, that bitty texture.

With Dd I think it's mainly smell, she seems to have a very strong sense of smell and will use it as a way of describing things. She also finds it hard to be near somebody eating something she doesn't like the smell of, even if to most it would seem very mild like an apple.

msbrian I could never get any; googled lots of stuff which all said things like 'get a referral to Gt. Ormond Street Diet Clinic' - yeah, right. so we just muddled through.

I think the best thing is being able to share with others who understand you are not a complete incompetent who handles her child like a wet wuss; you are faced with a child who does not want to eat what everyone else thinks they 'should'.

I have an almost 5 year old DS. He also became extremely fussy at around 18 months. He only eats

Peanut butter sandwiches....have made progress and will eat brown or white now
Buttered toast/honey on toast
Fromage frais
Apples (occasional)
Certain cakes/biscuits (not all)
Recent progress with potato waffle.

Its sad because he doesnt know how to use a knife and fork as a result.
We've been to the GP who said he'll improve with age. Went to a Harley st feeding clinic, and a sensory clinic at great expense. To be honest they were both pretty poor, and the information given could be found on google!

He eats peanut butter sandwiches for every meal!

DD 2.5 years eats pretty much anything.

Boschy, we use to order off menu for him, but get fed up going through everything and discussing with him how he could have it, then having to relay to the waiting staff. Then he still picks the food apart looking for things (on holiday we ordered a burger, and he sat there, and pulled the bun apart, lifted up the cheese, lifted up the lettuce, lifted up the meat, and discovered a tiny scrapping of relish that he brother said you couldnt even taste. It was literally a stain on the bun under the burger, but that was it).

We now take the stance, if he wants something off menu, he has to discuss with the waiting staff himself, which doent go down well, but at nearly 16 he needs to take responsiblity.

I think Ive lost my patience!

Hello, good to know I'm not alone! DS1 eats tries everything and likes most of it.

DS2 is 7 and it feels like he never came out of the toddler phase.
Cheese sarnie, apple and smoothie for lunch every day
Pasta with cheese - went off all sauces 2 years ago but will have ketchup so I try to make it and serve in a Tiptree bottle!
Sausages
Burger or meatballs
Rice
Would eat fish fingers every day but recently managed to get him to eat plain roast chicken or beef
Went off pizza last year
Dal - he has eaten since baby, with mild spicing but for the last 6 months it has only been with bribery. I have said this is the one super healthy meal he has and threatened if he stops eating this I will stop making him special meals. I don't even believe myself but it's just about still working.

He has dyspraxia and is tired and stroppy by tea time having concentrated hard all day in school where they can't believe he would ever be difficult

Really struggling with it now especially as he has started gagging occasionally if food is not to his liking (omega 3 ff rather than normal ones, farfalle rather than penne) and I'm wondering what DS 3 is going to do now he's 2 & currently still eating anything.

It's hard work isn't it?

OMG city that sounds really difficult - :( for you

MsBrian, all the health professionals I've spoken to about it, health visitors and gps, have all told me not to worry and so long as Dd has plenty of energy and seems well just to carry on as we were. There was one health visitor who said the only thing she would be worried about was lack of iron in her diet.

awimboway

My ds1 is just liek that too...he cannot be in the same room as me if i am eating egg or oranges for example!

I am the same with melted cheese as to me it smells like vomit (sorry)

I think we all have foods we dont like/make us feel actually ill...for me I think pears taste like wet sand Its just that if an adult says, "sorry, I dont eat XXXX" its accepted. If a child says it, its being "fussy"

And my favourite unhelpful suggestion is to get them to cook with you because apparently kids always try things they have helped to make. DS has cooked all sorts of things with me, he enjoys cooking, then he refuses to eat it every time.

I'd forgotten about school lunches!

When DS1 was in Yr1 (he is now Yr8) his teacher came over to talk to me to tell me that they were very worried because he was eating practically nothing every lunch time and perhaps we should consider packed lunches...... hence cheese sandwiches everyday now since then.

...and I also have a very strong sense of smell...my mum laughs that I smell everything before I eat it..and I do!!!

Doesnt matter how nice it looks, I could never eat something that didnt smell good too..

This thread is making me feel much better on one side - clearly I am not alone - but more worried on two aspects

• it doesn't seem to get better until almost adult years
• it's not likely that the school will be able to deal with it as they assure me

:(

alana Oh yes! AND grow fruit and veg with them and they will eat it...yeah, right.

Ds1 will quite happily cook and grow things BUT he will NOT eat them.

MrsBrian I never had any profesional advice at all. Maybe I was unlucky but my GP and my HV both put the blame on wishywashy parenting...

My youngest is eight now and has a much longer list of food than he did when he was little. In fact for eighteen months or so, around the age of three, his list was

Fromage Frais
Fishfingers
Strawberries
Cheerios (dry if he could)
Bread and marmite

And that was it. He ate the same things day after day, washed down with pure orange juice (which I would dilute ever so slightly

Well meaning family would offer him sweets, crisps or chocolate, assuming that I was exaggerating the extent of it. He would be horrified ('Not sweets!')

Did anyone see the first series of "Freaky Eaters" on BBC3? Basically these were people with serious food phobias, would only eat grated cheese and ready salted crisps, that sort of thing. Anyway the programme got them all to have a medical exam at the start. Surely that would show up a whole host of problems seeing as they only ate such a limited diet. Well, what actually happened was that most of them were basically healthy - not great, but not dreadful either. So the show had to do lots of "if you carry on like this, you will get x, y and z because you are missing out on a, b and c." It was all sheer scaremongering imo because these were adults and their bodies had just adapted to whatever they were eating.

I'm not saying what they were eating was great - it wasn't. They had very serious food issues, but they didn't seem to have physical health problems because of it. In fact, most were medium to slim build and looked healthy. So I keep that in mind when cooking for DS. I still hate the waste and taking him out for meals is a nightmare, but I'm trying not to worry too much about nutrition.

(The second series of Freaky Eaters just seemed to be a normal diet programme with fat people who "couldn't" lose weight. Cut down the amount of food and up the exercise and they all found the weight went.)

Yes alana39, that drives me insane! Dd won't even eat a chocolate cake she's helped make, never mind a lasagne, she loves to help making them though.