My son who’ll be 7 in August, is a ’picky’ eater. As a result, I rarely/never cook meals for him anymore. As it's only the two of us, it's very frustrating to cook a time-consuming meal that he pushes around his plate. As a result, he now lives off a rotation of food I know he'll eat - fish fingers, chicken goujons, peas, baked beans on toast, pizza, pasta with pesto. If I make a baked potato, he may eat a little with baked beans and cheese but only with repeated coaxing. He eats fruit - Strawberries, clementines, apples, bananas. He’ll eat yoghurt. I buy smoothies for him. He likes his multivitamin which I give him daily. He still drinks milk if I give him some with a meal.
He's being assessed for ASD at school, which may explain some of his rigidity around food. I eat a good balance of food, love vegetables and fish and was a vegan before he was born so can cook quite well.
When he’s at school, I don't really notice the lack of variety in his diet as he has school meals and then just dinner at home. Now in lockdown, I'm increasingly despairing at the same cheese sandwich each lunchtime and the lack of options at dinner each evening.
He qualifies for free school meals so I'm receiving a BACS payment fortnightly now for him, which adds to the guilt over not providing him with a varied diet.
Does anyone have any examples of meals that they've been able to tempt ’picky’ eaters of their comfort zones? I'm especially keen to hear about other children with ASD, who’ve expanded their eating choices.