20 month, fussy eating with certain textures- help!

[Abitstressed]

My son has always been fussy. He was breastfed until 13 months but weaned at 5 or 6 but only wanted purees and chocked (not just gagged!) in the early stages of weaning.

He now eats, crackers, oat cakes, toast, cereal- all dry. He will eats puree vegetables with cheese and sometimes meat/lentil, as long as the texture is consistent. It's not like he has a major sweet tooth, I can grind nuts and put them in his baby museli or on weetabix and he will eat it. He had an ear infection over xmas and since then has been even more fussy. He won't eat any fruit (unless it's a smoothie) but I am a little worried that he has started to have a "dramatic`' response to trying to introduce other foods. Ie we were playing "kiss the strawberry" and I should add at this splint, his speech is coming along nicely, he was saying the word strawberry and wanted to hold it. He kissed it (odd i Know but thought this maybe progress) he said yum yum and asked me if I wanted to take a bite. I bit some and put a tiny bit on his lip, he panicked at just the feel of the lump on his lip, he screamed and vomited all over me- and hadn't even gone in his mouth.

I tried putting a little mashed banana (and I mean a tiny bit of banana) in his favourite muesli (as I mentioned I can grind raw nuts in this and he loves it) you could hardly tell it was there, he ate one mouthful, and looked like he was going to choke, he was crying with his mouth open, he recognised a different texture instantly, he screamed and I told him not to worry but he could spit it out. He tried spitting it out but then made himself vomit.

I have just given up, and let him go at his own pace but a little worried as this seems to be getting worse, not better. I have his little friends round for snacks sometimes and they all sit there with their raisins and bits of banana, and my son sits there with puree or a dry cracker (my son can eat cake! and biscuits and chocolate - even 100 percent cocoa chocolate! but I try to limit these foods .

If is speech wasn't progressing as well as it seems to be at the moment, I would be even more worried. I eat with him, and eat sandwiches at lunchtime, but he doesn't want my food. I tried not giving him puree and only giving him what I wanted to eat, but he didn't eat anything part from yogurt and was up all night with a grumbling stomach.

Help!! Please I'm trying to not let him see how stressed I'm getting. When he went of puree food, although it seems ridiculous, I was upset and now relieved he has gone back on it as this is the only way I can get vegetables, pulses and meat into his diet. One thing I admit to, is I am quite a clean freak, so probably haven't done as much messy play as I should have- but have started to, and I actually love soup and will quite often have soup for lunch ( he sees me eat lots of other foods too). I used to have a chicken panini from Costa and he would have a few bites of that, without being sick and that amazed me, it has bits of rocket in it and chicken - bizarre. I've tried recreating it at home but he is having none of it, and I went back to Costa (a number of times, ahem) and he wasn't interested in the panini.

I feel I'm failing and I'm upset. He has a half brother who is an extreme fussy eater - and I used to get cross his mother didn't help with his eating - he only eats doughnuts, ketchup, chips and cornflakes, and I used to say if he lived with us he would have no other choice but to eat what we eat.... not I'm starting to think maybe this is genetic...

If anyone has any advice I'd be most grateful, I'm willing to try anything. I appreciate fussy eating is normal but my son's texture problem is starting to make him stand out from his friends, and that's fine if that's the way things are for a while, my husband says to just chill, and let him eat what he wants, but I think he would eat cornflakes and toast all day (like his brother) if I let him and I feel his brother is the ghost of Christmas future as it were- I know I sound mean but I have tried so hard for my son to have a balanced diet, I don't mind making puree (I just use the same stuff to make myself soup and add a bit of cheese and meat to his).

Sorry I'm ranting... please help!
x

Hi Abitstressed, I feel your pain. I had similar problems with my DS. I used to be really scared he would choke or vomit when eating things.

I also noticed he was very different to his friends and other children his age when it came to eating. People used to think I was mad when I said he couldnt eat certain things. People still dont take me seriously when I tell them he has this problem and he is 4 now!

He is a very fussy eater now and is only sick occasionally. It happened last week when we were in a restaurant, he looked like he was choking and then vomited.

My son has a tongue tie and that could be the problem but my GP did not seem to think so. My GP was not interested to be honest.

When he was much younger and I went to see the health visitor about this problem she told me that it was really important I did not keep giving him pureed food. So I struggled on giving him varied lumpy food and I found things he would eat and did not give him the things that made him sick. It was a very stressful time.

Hopefully someone will be able to advise you about this. I have never met anyone else with this problem. I have struggled so much with this and I am worried about my DS eating at school when he starts in September.

I hope you manage to get through this difficult stage. You never know maybe it is a phase that he will grow out of.

I see tacal mentions tongue tie (your GP is totally wrong btw), that's exactly what I was going to mention too.

Some tied kids just can't manage certain textures and will stick to the ones they know they can handle. I know you say speech is ok, but not all ties cause speech problems. DS1 had a posterior tie which restricted the back of his tongue affecting his chewing ability. He was pretty restricted, but could speak just fine.

Did you have trouble getting breastfeeding started Abitstressed? Sometimes that gives clues about ties too, although not always. DS2 is tied and fed beautifully, so again it varies.

Hi Mawbroon, thank you for this info. I think I will have to do something about his tongue tie. I did have problems with breastfeeding and there are some issues with speech.

Abitstressed, do you think this could be a reason for your ds's eating problems?

tacal, start with the tongue tie babies support group on facebook.

Hi Mawbroom and Tacal,

That's interesting, I hadn't thought of a tongue tie. I was concerned in the early weaning stage, at the way he seemed to gag so frequently, but I just thought he just had a hypersensitive gag reflex. I did everything in the book, tried finger foods, didn't give him inconsistent textures. After he choked, I was slightly more afraid admittedly and I just thought he was just going to be a late developer in that sense. I remember as a child, eating weetabix and it having a dried lump in it and I was sick (sorry to be graphic!). I hadn't thought about tongue tie because I breastfed, but it was hard initially. I remember having not fed him (kept putting him on the chest and trying) and he kept flopping off and the nurses saying I was starving him. He was 6 lbs when born and lost weight... but after a week he had just about got it. Then he didn't get off the breast!

I think I'm just slightly concerned, because it's not like he is insisting on having sugary foods (as I said at this stage his little brother just wanted this baby chocolate pudding and he was given it, and I always thought, if I was a baby I would just want chocolate pudding). He will beg for things like crunchy nut cornflakes of "choc choc" but he will eat things that are quite bitter, and as I said I can grind walnuts and he will eat them. It is just when he is sitting with the other children that he seems different. I just get concerned too as I don't know whether this is just fussiness or something physical. trying to offer him only what I eat doesn't seem to work, ok I only tried it for two days, but he didn't eat or drink, and I had the whole night up- I know maybe I have to endure this, but one night of no sleep is tough nowadays. However, if I knew that would work I may try it!

Going back to whether this is a physical problem or a psychological one, I just don't know. I didn't expect to have this problem, all I thought when I was about to start weaning was I wanted him to just taste vegetables, meat , stuff that's good for his little body, so I had mentally prepared myself to help him develop a "taste" for the good stuff, but I wasn't prepared for this other struggle. I meant to say, he was exclusively breastfed, and wouldn't take a bottle or dummy, and he was so sick. He would vomit after nearly every feed. However, he thrived. Again, this vomiting led me to think he had an immature valve/flap thingy so food didn't stay down.

I am not too worried about his nutrition, he is growing and actually, he gets vegetables, protein, carbs, fruit in smoothies (not the best form I know) but he should have a pretty balanced diet. It was something I was a bit concerned about but this was increased when he sat with all the other children, they all had "normal" food. Ok my son had a cracker, but I worry he will struggle at nursery. I think also I worry because his brother is taken out of nursery at lunchtime (he is soon going to school) and when we eat with other people, or he has friend's round the mum makes sure he either doesn't eat with the other kids, or he is given toast. His fussiness got worse and worse, and it was probably easy for me to judge on the outside, but he would cry and his mum gave him doughnuts etc, and I could see he was calling the shots, as it were. That's ok but I feel he now has an disadvantage, his older brother and friend's have a balanced diet, he sits with other children and family at meals times, whereas his younger brother doesn't. The younger one looks poorly and often tires out quickly and I am almost sure his nutritional status isn't great. I just don't know what the right answer is.

My son won't let me anywhere near his mouth to see if there might be a tongue tie. The only reassurance I had had was that his speech, at the moment has come on in heaps and bounds, he loves words and I was shocked at how well he is talking. This made me worry less that there may be a cognitive problem, but I could be wrong.....

I'm sorry I have slightly deviated from the original questions, I'm sorry this has happened to you too. Tacal, I think it sounds like (I have no experience to validate this) this certainly could be a mechanical problem,I wonder if tat has also now made him afraid, so he has that memory of choking, gagging and you can imagine it's a very natural reaction to want to avoid that! If I found my son had a tongue tie I probably would feel this would effect his eating, it just seems odd.

Thanks again ladies x

Another explanation might be that he had reflux when he was younger. This might have caused the vomiting. My DS had reflux and, as a result, is very scared of food and certain textures (but he is actually scared of purée textures and won't eat off a spoon and is very fussy. It's very obvious when we eat with others that something is not right. We are having speech and language therapy which includes help with feeding. You could maybe have one session with a therapist to rule out (or in) physical issues and get some pointers. Good luck x