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Children's health

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Underweight

6 replies

bubblesxx · 19/05/2024 10:05

My 4 year old son has had feeding problems since I can remember. Only has a selected handful of safe foods. He's been seen by many services over the past 4 years that some have been helpful and some not so much. The last time he was seen in the hospital they wanted to do a scan on his stomach and the technician refused to do it unless he was sedated due to how distress he was. That day nothing was done and he was sent home without the scan. most of the time you are told the child is not a concern unless they are clinically underweight. My now 4 year old is 2.3st sitting on the 1st centile on the bmi chart. He wears 2-3 in trousers. Go back a year ago he was on the 30th centile and was a little fuller. I feel unheard. I've been begging for help for this boy for years and and it seems disgusting to me that they've allowed him to drop so much weight over years before anyone steps in and helps. If you have a child that also struggles with food and eating please feel free to share some advice. He's very stubborn if he doesn't want it he won't eat it no matter what you try, he gags and throws up when he's had enough, currently only eating pasta at home, although he's been having a lot of vomiting and diarrhoea over the past 24 hours so it makes my job so much harder trying to get food into him. Please I'm a mum watching her child struggle everyday there must be something out there.

OP posts:
delusjenelle · 19/05/2024 10:08

Really only the GP can help with this. If he has AFRID then there is specialist services who can help.

bubblesxx · 19/05/2024 10:10

delusjenelle · 19/05/2024 10:08

Really only the GP can help with this. If he has AFRID then there is specialist services who can help.

The gp has always been rubbish for him, maybe now it's gotten so bad they will listen 🤞🏼

OP posts:
BlackSwan · 19/05/2024 16:41

How are you managing at mealtimes? Are mealtimes calm or do you put pressure on him to eat? What's the atmosphere like?

bubblesxx · 19/05/2024 17:19

BlackSwan · 19/05/2024 16:41

How are you managing at mealtimes? Are mealtimes calm or do you put pressure on him to eat? What's the atmosphere like?

Over the years we have had lots of resources to help at meal times, there's no pressure, we all eat at the same time, he's not pressured to eat but no matter what we try nothing changes, he will play with food but just won't eat it

OP posts:
BlackSwan · 19/05/2024 18:10

That's really hard. I'm glad you're not pressuring him. I've been on the receiving end of pressure (understatement) at mealtimes and I ended up with an eating disorder.
There's a good book called 'How to Get Your Kid to Eat, But Not Too Much' -it's an old book but you might find it 2nd hand. The basic premise is that it's your job only to prepare healthy meals and you leave the child to it.

Have you tried doing fun things with food with him? Cooking/baking etc?

If he has vomiting etc then don't imagine he will eat anything at all. Just make sure he drinks fluids.

Hazelmaybe · 19/05/2024 20:47

Help, is it definitely behavioural? My child wouldn't eat and it was because of a problem with their stomach (delayed gastric emptying). It looked behavioural but wasn't.

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