Please help! Toddler won’t eat solids

[Anon0203]

So my 2 year old was a prem. He was on oxygen for a while as he couldn’t breathe during bottle feedings and also had sleep apnea. He is now off oxygen and is doing well. Occasional apneas when he has a cold. He did have a family floppy larynx they said should go by the age of 2. But he won’t eat solids. He won’t even try them. He gags if he sees me eating food. I have to sit him down and spoon feed him. He can feed himself with yogurts so I know it’s not that he can’t do it. It will take about an hour an hour an a half to eat 1 weetabix. I’m making numerous meals now to try and see if it’s just he doesn’t like the food. He seems to pant and choke a bit when eating solids. I say that, but at a different sitting he may be able to eat it. Which is a rare occurrence. He hamsters food in his cheeks he just won’t swallow. Yet if the food is runny with solids in he will swallow the liquid part and keep the solids in his mouth somehow. Like sweetcorn scrambled egg etc. yet he can and does eat crisps he might cough a few times though. And toast and bread he can eat. He used to eat sandwiches when he first started weening and pasta no problem. Yet as time progressed he kept keeping food in his cheeks so I had to take certain things out like the corn. He chews and chews but he just doesn’t seem to swallow. He might if I give him juice in between bites. He is reluctant to try new food. Feeding him is a chore he will cry he will turn away he won’t have it. It might take 5-10 mins for 1 bite to go down. We have had a referral to SLT but I’m just concerned and worried about him and it’s also stressful taking hours to get anything in him. He mainly lives off soup as no chewing and it’s like liquid. But I’ve also tried him with mash with gravy he cried and wouldn’t have it. It was blended and runny yet didn’t swallow it. So it makes me think he isn’t swallowing everything liquid maybe it isn’t a health issue but rather he just has food aversions. He is a healthy weight and everyone keeps commenting how well he looks and he was always 98 percentile. Yet they don’t realise the effort it takes to keep him at a good weight. But he is still missing many nutrients he needs and I know that. We went on holiday and tried the restaurants like pasta etc he wouldn’t touch it and starved himself all day until we got back at 8 to “force feed” him soup. That lasted a week. He’d happily live off crisps and milk/juice if he could. Anyone have any advice or experience?

Forgot to mention as soon as I mentioned to the doctor he was having problems eating he said it’s autism or adhd straight away as it’s affecting every day life. Yet I’d like to look at other causes. Surely there must be more than that for eating problems? To straight up say he has that without considering anything else is ridiculous.

anyone?

My cousin refused to eat solids.
She got to the point she could pour her own bottle of milk and put it in the microwave, aged about 5yo.
They tried adding flavours to the milk, treat food, ordinary food, food off their plate etc.
Not a crumb passed her lips.

Eventually what they'd do is for a meal they'd sit her down with a small amount of what they were having and let her play with it. She rarely even took it to her mouth.
She was perfectly healthy, just wasn't eating food. I think the doctors gave them some vitamins to put into the milk, but other than that, she had nothing except milk.

Then one day, probably about 3yo, we'd taken her to feed the ducks and given her the bread bag to hold. After feeding the ducks for a bit, we noticed that she had a piece of bread and was eyeing it up. Eventually she took this tiny little bite - and ate it.
Nothing was said, although I remember my uncle laughing about all the times they had tried chocolate spread/jam/anything and there she was eating a bite of stale bread.

That was the beginning of a very long process. After that she'd occasionally put a tiny bite in her mouth at lunch time. They wouldn't comment, just tidy up what wasn't eaten at the end. Then she was at a friend's house and they found something she'd eat. Smash.
For a few months she ate smash consistently. Not real mash, just smash.
Then she started having little bits of ham.

When she started school she'd eat ham, smash, chips and I think it was frozen peas. But very quickly she started eating more and soon she ate like any other 5yo.
She's now an adult, and I can say that she does not have ASD, or ADHD and eats a good varied diet. In fact, I can't think of anything she doesn't eat.