resistant eater support thread - come and join me.....

[tricot39]

I hate mealtimes and have done for 4 years now. DS is 4 and has issues with food (likely due to illness in his first year) since week 4. We finally sought help last year and have seen paediatricians, SALTs and dieticians. It hasn't stopped the number of acceptable foods declining. We are mow down to plain/dry carbs and soft desserts/smoothies and chocolate. We hide supplements in the smoothies!

Over the past year we have got so much better at keeping things calm at mealtimes and trying to avoid pressuring him to eat (i give myself 3 "eat ups" per meal). But all that means is that the stress gets bottled up.

Anyway having ruled out physical and social/communication issues it seems to come down to phobias. He is a cautious chap and doesn't like mess or lumps/bits. The last SALT i saw actually knew what she was talking about and said that if we did nothing else we should do desensitisation exercises. We plan to use the ones in Just Take A Bite http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1932565124 here. This thread is partly to record that process and keep us on track.

We dont know anyone else with a resistant eater and so have noone to let off steam with. I hope there are some of you out there in a similar situation who want to share? Particularly if you are further down this road - i want to hope that these execrises will work but hope faded a couple of years back if i am honest :(

If you have read this and and are thinking about posting about your dc who isnt that keen on veg or that "kids will not starve themselves" then please don't bother. You are way out of your depth and i get enough of this in rl! Sorry to sound rude but i am hoping to find some people who understand how utterly helpless i feel

Anyone out there?

Just rereading this thread which I posted on as storynanny and wondering how your children are getting on with their eating now they are2 years older?
My resistant eater is now 23 and is as near " normal" as I think he will ever be! It is still a worry and disappointment to me that there are still loads of foods he has never even tried, but he is happy and healthy and now able to eat enough foods to be able to socialise with friends. I can do no more!
Hope you all coping.

My DD is nearly 7 and we are no closer to improving her diet than we were when she was 18months old. She was difficult to wean...really resisted new tastes, and I was so worried she wasn't eating enough that I gave her the food she would eat....mostly Mac cheese and yogurt. As she has got older, things have not improved. If she manages to eat and actually like a new food, she ends up dropping a previously accepted food. Hasn't eaten yogurt or Mac and cheese for years. Will only eat pasta, no sauce, wraps and French bread, hard cheese (only cheddar), sausages, plain pizza, and toast with Nutella on. She can't eat at other peoples houses. She had been assessed by paediatrician who said she likely has some sensory processing issues about food, but the childrens community services here in Cambridgeshire are so stretched, there is no one we can be referred to for help. I'm at my wits end....I had hoped when she began school she might improve when she saw her peers enjoying their food, but no. I'm starting to believe she will grow up with this problem, and I can't bear to think of the damage that such a restricted diet will do to her growing body. We give her vitamin supplements, but she only tolerates the gummy ones. So, so worried.

How are you all getting on? My 26 yrold has recently moved into his own flat and I think he is making reasonable meals althoughwithin his own strict limits. He seems to be happier around food now he is completely in charge.
Still many foods untried tho!

Our girl has always been two things; a good eater and a good communicator - from birth! She has always loved avocado, strawberries, broccoli, beans, tomatoes, and her carbs: macaroni and cheese, pasta, rice...about a month ago, she started requested fruit/vegetables only for dinner and sometimes even throughout the day. One night while in a rush we offered to stop at McDonald's, a very rare treat, she started hysterically crying, explaining she needs to eat healthy. We asked where she got this from, she insisted she made it up, “it’s my own thought”. We explain balance, drew a food pyramid, we see some improvement and then have a set back. Since this started she has refused to eat anything at times, and/or says she is hungry but she doesn’t know what she wants. We haven’t seen a dr yet, only had blood drawn that came back all good. We’ve spoken to two pediatricians, one said therapy asap while the other wanted to see her if things didn’t improve over the weekend (this was last week) - which they did. While she certainly doesn’t eat like she used to, she has abandoned the “healthy eating” opinions and is open to eating ice cream and other treats (requesting them more than ever in her little life) we are currently only having issues at dinner time but this has had many phases. That could change for better or worse today, tomorrow. At it’s worst, she asked for a hot dog, when I gave it to her, she went hysterical, hot dogs are bad for you, I know, I just know. Channeling the exorcist to get her point across. At it’s best, fruits and vegetables throughout the day, sometimes for dinner, but lately no dinner at all, "I'm not hungry". I hoping you can provide some insight. We are struggling watching her food refusal and at times obvious anxiety from being offered something to eat. We just recently drew a menu for her, so don't have to list options, she can just pick something. This worked great but hasn't helped with dinner which was the real goal. While we don’t want to bring attention to it or add pressure/stress it is a challenge putting her to bed without dinner, or trying to understand what is going on in her head and why she won’t eat? I really appreciate you taking the time to read our story and offer any input.

Hello. Just seen this thread. My 3.5 years old son is a resistant eater . He is currently on blended food as he has issues with texture since he was 8 months old and would throw up if there are lumps in the food. However, he is happy to eat certain biscuits, chocolates and filous. No fruits, vegetables, chicken or fish unless they are pureed. He has recently progressed to eating chocolate sandwiches and ice cream.

We are in the process of referring him to a child psychologist and waiting to hear to see if they can help.

I wonder if there is anyone out there who has already gone through this route and if they have any success?

He goes to nursery 3 days a week (since last August) and 2 days at childminder. We were hoping that if he sees other children eat he would start to copy them but so far with no/little success (only licking) and he would starve all day.

Help!

My son is 20 months and has special needs and refused all foods untill 17 ish months
We did loads of messy play and fed him in the same place everyday with the same cutlery and had to distract him with iPad
He was the same and would throw up on lumps and at the very beginning would gag at the sight of food and not even touch it
We have had visits from Salt and they said a babies/toddlers fingers are so sensitive that some children need to feel comfortable with touching the food before they even consider putting it in their mouth and spoons etc can inhibit this process
Perhaps if you put the food your son is comfortable with in a bowl such as yogurt and then mix a very small amount of fruit in and let him eat it with his hands and see what he does he will probably eat around the fruit to start with and then when he feels comfortable may eat the bits of fruit and then you can move on in stages from there
My son didn't like being watched whilst eating either and didn't react to praise so I had to put the iPad on and keep myself busy while watching him out of the corner of my eye
We were also told not to clean him up while he was eating so he didn't associate being messy as bad if that makes sense
If he got upset during mealtimes I would clean everything up straight away and end the meal and not push it
The Salt also advised me it's important to let them feel in control of their eating as it helps them gain confidence to try new things and if a feeding session goes badly to make no issue of it
it does sound that your son is getting a variety of foods though which is good

Hi All,

Great thread, We are really really struggling here and to be totally truthful we can't continue it's too hard.

Our little boy hasn't been the best at feeding even as a baby with milk, he would only have take parts of his milk (If he should have 6oz he'd only do 2oz etc...) This has gone on into his normal feeding and he's now 2 and a half.

When we started weaning him, we may have done it wrong or it might be his personality, regardless of it we are where we are and we need some support.

He's current food list is a simple one.
Weetabix, Cherrios, Apple (Every 3 weeks), Orange (His current favourites), Grapes (Currently gone off em), Blueberries (Currently gone off em), Strawberries, Plain white bread(won't have any other type), Dairyleea Dunkers, Haribo Jellies (Plain ones), Milky Bar (Currently gone off it)

He'll have maybe half a Weetabix, a third of an orange, half a slice of toast (If we're lucky) and maybe another half of Weetabix in the evening. That's it for his daily intake.

He won't try any other foods, it's completely against them. Not only that he won't actually eat himself we have to feed him, we've tried leaving his favourite foods on the side but he won't touch them unless we put them in his mouth and it's always a battle just to get him going. We are trying not to force him and be negative but it's so frustrating and we always feel guilty if we pressure or shout at him but if we don't he's happy to have nothing.

Hello
reading through your post, we have to say it's exactly what we went through. So, we are pleased to say that there is light at the end of the tunnel as our little one who is now 3 years and 8 months has finally starting to show interests in food. He is now eating jacket potato, spaghetti and baked beans - although only for our childminder and at nursery. He will now try different types of ice cream so long as it's vanilla (used to be only if it's white, but now will take yellow vanilla).

We have done nothing different really eg we keep offering him new food to try without forcing the issue. But as he showed some interests in food we decided it was time to try. We simply pack the new food for him and give it to the childminder and first there were tears but the next day he was eating them fine - he did not like it but ate it all the same.

The thing we noticed was that he started to put toys in his mouth and chew them about 4 months ago. Something he did not do since he was a baby. This then made him want to smell food and lick it - but still difficult to get him to actually put food in his mouth. We tried bribery eg he likes fast and furious cars so we said if you eat one mouthful of new food at the nursery then he would get a toy. This did the trick for about 4 weeks.

So, our advise is to give him all the food that he likes to eat even if it's the same food and it's junk. Back in February, he went off food totally. We gave him lots of milk, chocolates, biscuits and filous and for 3 weeks this was pretty much what he wanted. Drove us crazy but his appetite did come back very slowly - took another 2 weeks for him to get back to his old 'set' of food. As it turned out he was a bit under the weather and trying to fight off germs eventhough there was no physical signs that we saw. We did try to force him to eat and he sick it all up. So, we learned that we need to trust him. And now we just tell ourselves if he does not eat (his normal intake), then we know there is something wrong and we have to give him a break and he will eat when his body is ready.

The experts we went to see all said the same thing to us, he will eat when he is ready. And we took their advice and not get stressed and it helped us to get through the difficult times. We have accepted that he is what he is it helped a lot.

Hello,
It's been 2 more years since I posted anything and would like to update on where we are with our son. He is nearly 6 years old and has started school last September.

My son has come a long way the last 18 months or so. He is still on blended food we make for him (sweet potato, chicken or potato, carrots, courgette) but he started to eat normal food as well. His diet has more variety now:

Breakfast: blended fruits mixed with cereal powder, chocolate spread on brown toasts, corner full fat yoghurts (strawberry or banana flavours but refused to have the choc flakes or round biscuits that come with them).

Lunch on school days : wraps or white bread with cadburys chocolate spread, or philadelphia cheese spread on brown bread. Whole banana or apple or pears.

Dinner: our blended home cooked food, small tin spaghetti (but has to be peppa pig, alphabets, Thomas etc not the normal one), avocado, fishcakes, fish fingers, chicken nuggets, home made skinny chips (we called it Mcdonald chips), boiled plain spaghetti, rice, baked beans, mash potato, vanilla ice cream.

Snacks: red wine gum (his favourite), kinder chocolate, lindt choc (red and blue ones) , biscuits (certain types only), ice cream (vanilla only), chew sticks, pringles (sour cream only).

Our aim now is to get him to eat cut up vegetables and sweet potato so we don't have to make blended food for him. Also, he still have to have certain brand/type of food like the chicken nuggets has got to be breaded not batter and got to be Tesco and chips has to be skinny and not fat.

Please note that my son still likes his milk - he drinks around 1 pint a day. Arla lactose free milk is his favourite drink else he just drinks water. Still no juices of any kind but starting to like hot chocolate.

Some days he eats less than normal but we just go with the flow. We keeps assuring him that he does not have to eat all the food we give him and let him decide what food he wants to eat next and how much he wants to eat. We found this method puts him at ease and keeps his appetite up as he does not feel he is being 'forced' to eat.

My son is a healthy boy and gained weight and height the last 3 years and is now on 50 percentile (was stuck on 9th percentile for the first two years) and pretty much the biggest boy in his class.

I am posting this to help mums out there who is facing difficult feeding times. Often I hear other mums and family members say to me I should not give him chocolates as he goes hyper (which he is not) but he loves it and it helped him want to try other food.

So for all the mums out there give them what they want to eat and try not to stress yourselves over feeding times.

Good luck!

ThAts really good news! I’ve just come across this again, I was storynanny with the resistant eater ( 1-19 years plus)
I’ve just met said son for a cafe cup of tea , he’s 29 now and flat sharing with a friend. He was telling about a meal he made yesterday, stuffed aubergine with peppers mushrooms etc! He is almost “ normal”!!!

Posted too soon, normal re good intake I mean.
Even now there are foods he has never tried eg not a single baked bean has ever passed his lips, nor onion, anything whole meal flour.
He still claims to have been “ not that bad”
You were
Keep going everyone it will eventually be ok

@kt345 sounds so like my son!