HELP! My ds won't eat....

[snowboo]

My ds1 is nearly six and refuses point blank to eat.
Today for example he has eaten:
One mouthful cereal
2 crumpets
Half a chip
One mouthful of chicken. Which he then threw back up as it was 'crunchy'
Two bites of a banana.

If i gave him a bowl of strawberries/blueberries/raspberries he'll scoff them down, spag bol he manages (on a good day) but thats mainly it.
We've tried the not feeding for three days (drs advice) he then refused to eat for 5 days. He is a bag of bones and i don't know what to do next.
The doctor/HV have been saying he'll grow out of it but thats been for the last 3 years!!!!
We're thinking of getting him refered as he is a worrier, something upset him, thought he dealt with it but i'm not so sure now...

Thanks for getting this far!
Any advice would be great.

I would ask to be refered to a paed dietician asap. If the doc will not, then ask to see another doctor for your referal.

Don't have any advice but just wanted to send you my support. Must be very stressful for you. Not that i know anything about this but it sounds more psychological rather than dietary. Has he always been like this?

Thanks. So i'm not being paranoid then? I have been told its all 'normal' for so long now but i'm getting worried.

Will see them tomorrow and insist!

Yep. Right from day one he has been a bugger with eating. I know he uses it when he wants attention but i can't see why! He was like it before ds2 came along so it can't be that but who knows with little people.
Thanks also tutt.

the dietitian would be able to suggest if he needs to see some one else, whether it might be psychyological or if he needs to see a speech therapist.

my dd was just the same we saw a pead and a dietician they gave her loads op tests to see wether it was physical dieticain told me to feed her eggs, sausages, add cream to full fat milk, butter to potatos (all the things we love but cant eat coz they will make us fat ) which is all well and good but how the bloody hell do i get her to eat them?

i gave up worrying and fighting with her in the end, well after four years, now i let her have a choice of meals most days but makew sure that she tries something new eats/ with the family at least once a week. i leave snacky things where she can reach them herself and she is allowed to help herself to them.

it was a bit worrying when all she would eat was pancakes and i mean that as in all she would eat, but i blended banana in with the batter mix and served it witg fresh fruit .

she is a lot better now that there is not so much fuss made over it, she is still underweight and small and still has bad days but is much better.

i would suggest if you want to be referred to some one then rule out that it is not physical first and then ask to see a therapist as a dieticain can only tell you what to feed him not how to get him to eat it

Thanks for that micci. He has been doing it again today.
Chocolate porridge (he loves it, he chose it) two mouthfuls then he threw up. Lunch was a disaster but he managed 5 spoonfuls of spag bol before he felt like throwing up.
So i think that is progress.
But he left his strawberries which is unlike him so not sure if he has really got tummy ache this time or still pushing us. .
Have appt for dr next week so we'll see if they are any more useful this time round!!!!

Good to know i'm not alone on this subject!

no definately not alone dd1 had a bit of a bad today it was dd2's first bday so she has been v jelous and over excited finally got her to eat something at the party then her cousin asked if she was going out to play oh well tommorrow is another day.

good luck with it and remember the more fuss you make the more fuss he will make i know thats how it is with dd1.

she also tries to make herself sick, i already know there is nothing pyhsically wrong with her, but it is definately worth getting your ds checked out even if its just for your peace of mind.

How old is your dd now?
Ds has been making himself vomit for a few years but we've not actually noticed it as such. I suppose because the dr and HV have made me feel like its all in my head we've let it get this far. But today was the last straw.
Have tried not to make a fuss. He seemed a bit confused at dinner when i said 5 mouthfuls was fine, didn't help that MIL was poking her nose in. (Trying to help in her own way....)

Well i feel better actually knowing there are other people with the same issues!

Hi, my son who is nearly 5 is similar but not as bad. He will be sick if anyone tries to make him eat and is very fussy. He only likes plain food with no sauces and all separate. His favourite foods are porridge, semolina, cereal and bread.

I don't think he has anything wrong with him - I sometimes gag on certain foods for example lamb and I think he just feels the same but about loads of things.

After stressing and trying to make him eat for a long time I decided to back off. I'm not saying that I think you should do the same because your problem sounds far worse. It's just that now I don't really cook proper meals for him and he is far more relaxed about food in general. I give him within reason what he wants to eat for example an evening meal could a bowl of porridge and a banana or egg on toast but I hardly ever give him the sort of cooked meal most children might eat.

At school he has cooked meals and eats about half of them so I know he gets sufficent nutrition.

Anyway I would suggest going to see your GP and a dietician and would write a list of everything he eats, just give him those things and every now and then try something new even if is a small bite.

I would be very worried if my child was eating that little and vomitting. I have a six yr old who used to be a slightly fussy eater but now eats like a horse, but is still quite skinny..so I think boys really need to eat a lot at this age just to maintain their weight and grow taller.

Have they tested your son for all food allergies?

If there are some foods your son likes and can keep down..i would give him as much of them as he can eat - eg. spag bog has most nutrients in it so would give it for lunch and tea until his weight goes up...you could discreetly add other things to it, such as grated cheese over time. If he can't eat large quantities of food try giving little and often.

Could you try porridge with the fruit he likes in for breakfast?

by the way I am only speaking as a mother and have no medical background..but your doctors advice of starving for 3 days sounds very dangerous and completely wrong to me.

I would try another doctor, get referred to a pediatrician, and maybe go and see a homeopath too.

I really hope that the health professionals will give you more support than you have had so far.

Anyway I would suggest looking at this website;

www.fussy-eaters.com

• not to try and worry you but it helped me understand the genuine fear that some people have about food and how it can escalate. It was after reading that site that I decided to back off.

A tactic I have been trying which works for me is for example - every day for a couple of weeks I ate bacon and eggs for breakfast without offering my son any. After 2 weeks he wanted to try it and now eats it regularly. That way I have also added other foods. For me the key is to let him eat what he wants when he wants within reason and not to make a 'proper' meal for him.

He is far more relaxed about food in general and has put on weight.

With the spag bol i put lots of veg in and blend it to a very fine ragu. But he its his fave food one day, next he'll make himself sick! Have given him some bread and butter just now aas he is starving, wolfed it down so i know he is hungry.
Cheese is a big no no. I grated some into his dinner not so long ago and he could taste it. So thats one of his definate hates. Always has been. But the rest is hit and miss. Depends what mood he is in....

Will check out the website as well.

Thanks so much for the helpful advice.

I hope that the website is helpful not scaremongering. I really think the best is to let him eat what he wants. It got to the point with my son where I'm glad that he'll eat chips! He not only refuses most meals but also only eats certain brands. At a restaurant recently he was sick all over the floor because the sausages weren't richmond - which was really embarrassing. But as I listed the foods he ate, I found certain combinations would work. The only meal we can eat as a family is roast chicken so we eat that every week at least!

I know how hard it is and how other people don't understand. Everyone thought he was ill after the restaurant incident and my childminder will only give him marmite sandwiches!

Anyway, I suppose I'm going on because I need to vent my own problems about this too!

Oh please do alice! I know, my friends have 'perfect' children who are doing everything by the book. But i look at my two and they are well mannered, polite and happy chaps. So one doesn't eat, the other eats anything so i guess they balance it all out.

But yeah i know about people thinking its something i've done, i now say if they've not been through it to keep their mouths shut!!!!

Roast chicken. My dream family dinner.

sorry snowboo, just caught your thread dd1 is for and a hlaf and has been a bad eater since birth she did not take enough milk she was about two and half once i was finally taken seriuosly i just kept getting told oh she will be okay, she is small but she will catch up soon, she will grow out of it and eat normally etc.

she sounds v similar to your ds one day she will love a food so you think great ill give her that again it will help put some weight on her, but no the next day she cannot even bear to look at it let alone put it into her mouth.

if we manage to get one meal into her a day i consider that to be a good day. funnily enough she loves fruit and most veg, its things that are actually going to put weight onto her that she wont eat. and there have been times where she wont even eat fruit.

not long ago she nearly had me sick with worry i swear over the course of two weeks she must have eaten what a 'normal' four year old would eat in two days! i try and hide foods as much as i can, i.e. add a bit of cream to milk etc.

and make food fun dd is a 'baby chef' at the weekends and helps prepare all her own meals, annabel karmel does a good recipe book for stuff that kids can help make and cbeebies website has recipes from big cook little cook on. she is more likely to eat it if she has helped make it. teddy bear picnics on the living room floor we do when dd is having a particularly bad week.

yeah but roast chicken gets a bit boring when you've cooked it twice a week for 3 years!!!

I think things are gradually improving for us - either that or I've learnt to not bother so much about it. Meals at friends houses are embarrasing but we still go.

Last week we went to a friends house where they cooked vegi spagetti bolognaise which I knew was out of the question. Anyway, they forced their two to eat it. I knew there was no point in doing this as my son would be sick (I would be if I was forced to eat lamb)plus it seemed like a really bad idea as that would put my son off forever. I just gave him the spagetti which he ate. I'm sure they thought he was being spoilt and not getting a nutritious meal but I gave up about a year ago trying to make him eat the impossible...

oh why haven't i thought of picnics????
Annabel Karmel. Will hunt it down.

We went down the school dinner route as we were told seeing his friends eating would rub off, it had the opposite effect and i ended up collecting him from school crying his eyes out. Felt very guilty.
He loved yogs, has now decided they too are yukky. I know about the eating as much in two weeks as a normal child eats in a day. My niece eats like a pig, she is the opposite that we have had to curb her eating, doesn't seem to get the 'full tummy' concept bless.

Worst part is he used to be quite a bit taller than his friends but has slowed right down. He is on a steroid inhaler for asthma but were reassured by the nurse this won't effect his growth.

Hmm typing this all down i'm thinking of so many times we've missed his crafty ways of not eating.... He is very good at distraction tecniques. (Must get it from dh lol!)

Ah alice. Thats the word. Spoilt. Rotten. Getting his own way again. Yep, heard that all too often unfortunately.

See for me i could eat roast chicken every day for dinner! Dh has put his foot down and makes the dinner now

another thing my son likes is breakfast in bed or picnics in bed! I bring a tray of breadsticks, cereal, cream cheese, bacon on to his bedroom and he eats it. It sounds like I'm indulging him but I'm just glad when he enjoys food and I think it takes the pressure off it being a proper meal. I also make lollies out of frozen bananas and milk smoothies and he loves frozen oranges cut in half.

I know it must be really worrying when it affects his growth and height.

I hope it improves, I think less mealtimes of a plate of food and more snacks of the things he likes might help whenever he feels like eating it.

snowboo - a bit of a long-shot but have you had him tested for allergies? Or has he ever had an allergy? My dd (nearly 6) was a terribly fussy eater for ages - she had the same meal every day between the age of 2 and 4. I used to give her various alternatives for the other meal of the day which she would always leave. When she was a baby she had quite a severe dairy allergy and I was told by a paediatrician that if they've had a bad reaction like that they often develop quite severe food phobias as they unconsciously feel food is going to harm them.

Having said that, since the age of 4 1/2 she's improved so hugely, there are now quite a lot of different things she will eat and she's not at all underweight. Last Christmas we had a huge trauma though as she went into anaphylactic shock after eating peanut butter for the first time. Her very restricted diet had meant she'd never come across peanuts before. After full allergy testing it turned out she had strong allergies to peanuts, sesame seeds, cashew nuts and a number of other non-food things. The dietician said that probably a lot of foods that we'd tried to get her to eat in the past probably made her mouth and throat feel unpleasant and that put her off trying new things.

Sorry for waffling.

Ok, lollies out of frozen bananas. Explain. Probably sounding like a loon but have no idea how to make them. I've started with frozen grapes, both ds's love them.
I've got images of bananas with sticks hanging out of their ends....

Thanks to the advice, its nice just to have someone else who appreciates where i'm coming from and not ready to shoot me down. Really really grateful.

Oh and there was a Supernanny programme last year sometime that featured a boy who sounds very like your ds with the vomiting. I can't remember what she did but it worked and he was eating quite well at the end of the session. I'm sure she didn't do anything a good paediatric psychologist could help you with?

It is very frustrating that people don't understand / think it's your fault etc. I feel for you.

Well he has asthma which gets worse with cats and dust.
Hoping the dr won't be useless this time. Third practice we've been to so fingers crossed.

I just liquidise bananas and milk (sometimes add a bit of ice cream or yogurt) and freeze them in lolly containers.