skeletal 4year old: Does NOT eat ...help?

[sallybean]

My nephew is 4.
He does not eat.
And I don't just mean he's fussy, I mean he functions for 5 or 6 days at a time on two dry crackers. He has never, ever eaten a proper meal. He has been to the doctors repeatedly (due to so many and varied ailments from his lack of immunity and general bad health) but they just say he will "grow out of it". It breaks my heart because he is so very thin. He looks emaciated and pale and suffers so much with his health. But he has no appetite. The whole family have tried everything we can think of, but nothing works.
It has been suggested that he is seen (privately) by a professional, but I'm not sure where to start?? pediatrician? Dietician? ...???

Any ideas? Any advice? Any experiences?

Thanks in advance!

In that case perhaps the only answers are going to come from a psychologist specialising in eating disorders.

If your sister is going to go private perhaps she could look into going straight to a specialist rather than a general paediatrician.

The only children I'm aware of who genuinely are not aware of hunger are children with ASD. Now I can tell you categorically that, at the age of four, nobody would have expressed the slightest concern about my DD1 in any area of learning or development, apart from her being quite a quiet child, but at the age of 12 she was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. It may be the same for your nephew.

I hope you get some decent answers soon.

Based on my own experience of my children not eating (one couldn't, is tube fed for medical reasons, and one wouldn't) I would like to reiterate that a general paediatric appointment is critical as the first stop, rather than going straight to a specialist. Underlying medical causes need to be outruled, and appropriate specialist referrals can be made subsequently. This little boy does not have a diagnosis, and may never have one, but he needs the basic tests/work ups done to allow professionals have a baseline with which to measure future progress.

Don'tlaugh thank you for an alternative perspective.

My experience and that of friends has been that general paeds can be seriously lacking in knowledge about neurodevelopmental disorders and dismiss them out of hand, refusing to refer onwards, for totally inappropriate reasons e.g. your child cannot have ASD because he laughed or because he looked at me.

As ever, I guess it depends on the knowledge and skills of the individual practitioner.

We have had good paeds too

Laugh at me if you will but could he have an undiagnosed tongue-tie? It's not something a four year old can tell you about. They aren't often picked up by NHS staff these days, especially the posterior ones. Has he always been a bad eater? How did he fare with milk? Makes sense if his calorie intake and weight gain got even worse after weaning.

Here's an example:
milkmatters.org.uk/2013/07/12/12-month-old-from-eating-little-to-lots/

What doesnt make sense is why he is not hungry. Hmm

PLEASE don't go down the psychological route until a Paediatrician has ruled out any physical causes.
I say this as a CAMHS mental health clinician.

Actually I second getting tt ruled out and I say this as a mother of a DS with tt and upper lip tie. When I think back, at 4 he was very fussy. Did your DN have problems with weaning, especially getting accepting lumps in food?

I don't know where you are in the country OP but Addenbrookes have an incredible centre for paediatric feeding issues, we took DD there last year. We were seem by a team of specialists who could not have been better, lead by Dr. Salvestrini. I don't know if they do private appointments but we were referred from out of area to them through the choose and book system at the GPs surgery.

Why would someone reactivate a ZOMBIE thread in order to advertise someone's services?
For fuck's sake

That is so irritating!

I've reported the posts.

It's funny I was thinking I hadn't read anything from jilted in a while