Great Grandaughter will only eat one thing!

[WittyFawn]

Need advice please, my 5 year old great granddaughter will only eat 2 things for dinner at night; pizza or fish fingers, she won’t even eat many chips. Will eat cereal for breakfast and some sandwiches for school lunch etc but only 2 things for every dinner meal whether at home, at our home or goes out to eat. She is tall but skinny and seems ok health wise. Her parents and my daughter - her grandmother don’t seem worried about this. Just curious to see if any parents have had similar experiences and can tell me do they try
more foods as they get older? Her older brother eats a good variety of food.

Google arfid and get help for her. It is possible.

I know this isn’t the point @WittyFawnbut can I ask how old you are

Just thinking how lucky your great granddaughter is to have so many caring people around her.

I don’t imagine I will ever live long enough to see my daughter as a granny.

Just find it all very intriguing!

@WittyFawn - is she old enough to get involved with making her own pizza? Get a ready made base, make a rich tomato sauce (with lots of hidden veg in it), then give her a selection of toppings - sauce, cheese, pepperoni etc - and you all make your own pizzas, then cook them. That would get some extra veg into her (in the sauce) while still being a ‘safe’ food for her, and would be fun. Plus she would see you having different things on your pizza, and that might encourage her to try something new - but as others have said, no pressure on her.

How is it none of her business? If great-granddaughter visits, great-grandmother has to make a special meal for her or everyone has to eat fish fingers all the time or if they want to eat out, they can't. If it affects her, it's her business, isn't it?

Your post is absolutely obnoxious.

This great grandmother has not shown any inclination to interfere. She simply asked
Her parents and my daughter - her grandmother don’t seem worried about this. Just curious to see if any parents have had similar experiences and can tell me do they try
more foods as they get older?

You should be ashamed of yourself, and so should several other posters who seem to have decided that OP is planning on telling her daughter and granddaughter what to do.

Sometimes I'm ashamed to be a Mumsnet member.

If you're still here @WittyFawn , I'm so sorry that you've had such aggressive responses.

Rude.

Rude.

Rude.

Sorry for multiple posts! Not for my comment...

Sorry for multiple posts! Not for my comment...

I would say that ARFID is unlikely in this case.

I have an adult DC with ARFID and he would go through phases of only eating one thing - usually for months.
He would eat oven chips for months.
Then it was dry Weetabix for months, followed by baked beans for months. We also had ice cream for months, too.

He never had a good range of foods like the child in this thread has. I'd have danced for joy if he'd eaten so many different things.

Nowadays, he lives almost exclusively on Huel. Now and again he has a vegan burger and chips.

Recently he's eaten chickpea curry, too. But he's nearly 40 and has survived all this time on his limited diet. He wasn't diagnosed with ARFID or autism till he was an adult.

This is a good idea. Re: making something different for everyone, when DD was going through this, we made sure there was something on her plate that we also had, so she could see us eating it.

Matching appearance/texture also works sometimes e.g chicken sticks for fish fingers or home-made fish goujons. It's all about slowly adding new flavour and texture in a way the child finds safe/stress-free.

If you're adding extra veg on pizza I'd add it after it's cooked so she can pick it off if she needs to, otherwise she probably just won't eat the pizza, whereas if she can pick it off, she will eat the pizza and might get brave enough to taste the extras.

Unless it's autism-related, in which case it's often safer to serve new things on a separate plate. Even to this day, DD cannot eat any food if an unsafe food has been on the plate with it.

Edited to say if you do swap flavour/textures for similar things, don't try to trick the child, otherwise you risk a previously safe food becoming unsafe. Be honest and tell her it is a chicken stick, not a fish finger.

I’m mid 40’s and only diagnosed last year. I like slimfast when I can’t be bothered with thinking what I can face eating so I understand huel although the texture doesn’t work for me fr huel!

has he had therapy? I tried cbt and it helped a bit

I am 78, I had my daughter at 18 and yes my GG I had lots of loving family !

I am so sorry, this sounds extremely difficult and yes puts into perspective my worries thank you and sending love

Thank you, there are some lovely people on here, ❤️

Is the a predisposition to neurodiversity in the family? Of course there are a lot of other reasons for restricted eating, just curious.

I ate nothing but weetabix and banana when I was very little. Then my parents were told they had to "be firm" and force me to eat more variety and I was punished for having anxiety about unfamiliar food, and the result is that as an adult I have a completely fucked up relationship with food, cannot disconnect food from emotional responses and am mentally and physically quite a mess.

My own child (who was diagnosed with ASD age 12 and with ADHD too at 15) ate a variety of foods during weaning but age 3-4 started refusing all but a tiny number of foods. We did consult an nhs paediatric nutritionist who told us not to worry because the list included at least one protein source, at least one carb soure and at least one vegetable. I've never forced eatimg or punished food refusal but the list has grown a little over the years. It's so much better to accept, love and support a child with a limited diet.

It's often based on extreme (disproportionate) anxiety about the unfamiliar so when she is at your house or you are at her house the whole environment is less familiar and the need for familiar food is stronger. When she's at home with just her mum and dad and sibling and isn't too tired or stressed or upset by other things she may sometimes have the resilience and courage to try an unfamiliar food IF noone forces her to. Thus across many years the list may grow, but facilitating that isn't something you can be involved in.

That is such a good supportive post, with plenty of generous advice in it.

Thank you and yes I agree very supportive post! ❤️

Going against the grain here it seems- I think this diet is really not good.No fruit or veg at all for starters.Maybe kindly encourage her parents to visit a dietician.It's easy to let kids slip into such habits but its certainly not okay or healthy.
Yes its not ideal to make eating a battleground but sometimes there has to be limits, with either stricter boundaries or medical support if it is sensory/fear related.

I was going to say earlier but forgot.

If the little girl in this thread drinks milkshakes then it might be useful to make the sort of milkshake I sometimes make for mine when he is going through a reduced eating phase. I make a full fat milkshake using chocolate complan powder, vanilla/chocolate ice cream and extra chocolate powder. gets the nutrients and fats in as possible. As he got older I could sneak in frozen mixed berries (but would have to sieve the seeds out). He still often has this for breakfast and I now add things like ground almonds, cinnamon as well.

I’ve been referred twice by my doctor and rejected both times despite my child having a bmi of 14, and not putting on any weight in a year. My child at times eats around 5 foods but still doesn’t meet threshold.