Parents of children with very low weight/anorexia, support

[PeaceOfWildThings]

Am Inthe only one?

I've looked on b:eat and there are no support groups for carers in my area. Am I the only one who could do with a thread where we can support one another here on Mumsnet?

A 3oz gain is a massive achievement. Reversal of the downward trend is the biggest step. big jumps up are a bad sign that the body is storing up fluids and fuel because of a perceived crisis/starvation. Small gains are better.

Peace DD seems happy. She's eating a little more......she seems to have developed a thing for granola and dried banana chips. I'm going with it.

For the last week breakfast has changed from a fruit smoothie to generous bowl of granola and a piece of toast with peanut butter very thin scrape though

Mid morning snack has changed from an apple to handful of almonds and 4-5 dates

Lunch her bloody wrap she won't take anything else to school so I insist on snacks

After school snack a cereal bar and loads of banana chips

Normal dinner, small portion, but will only have fruit for pudding.

She hasn't lost any more weight. I'm hopeful she'll have put on a bit more but at the same time concerned I know this will sound crazy that CAHMS won't take me seriously because she'll be on the 'healthy threshold' if she puts a pound on.

Calmit 3oz is 3oz. Goid that she's not lost any weight.

Dry, the granola sounds an improvement on smoothie although Im not very familiar with cereals.

Even if she is on healthy threshold, she has had a journey to get there and it should then be about improving and maintining. We had this conversaton with camhs today, they will not discharge her until they are satisfied she is at a good weight that she can maintain.

i know I should be glad about the gain but for the emotions she has had to face for the 3oz it is heartbreaking....dietician wants 1-2lbs a week.

Feeling pretty hopeless to be honest Calmit. Have spoken briefly to DD and reaction was pretty much as I expected - since the ED clinic are not going to work with her she says she clearly doesn't have a problem and refuses to discuss any changes at all. Also, flatly refused any discussion about family therapy. Partner is away for next few days so we have said we will talk about it again when he gets back. She has eaten one good meal today (before we broached the subject) but ate nothing up till then so I guess she's had about 700 calories altogether today. They don't do bmi for children here - we were just told her weight is in the 84th percentile. They said 85th is the point where they would keep someone off school/work. I've tried to look it up but the only chart I found showed 84th to be in the obese range so I guess that must have been percentiles the other way round or something. The NHS website puts her in the 4th percentile and If I use an adult bmi chart it comes out as 16.9. That was using the weight she weighed when she was fully clothed and after she had eaten reasonably well (for her) for two days so I suspect she has lost another pound or two since then. Not really sure now how underweight this is considered to be.

Clare, I feel for you, I really do.

Apparently "they" look for height/weight as more acurate than bmi, although I was told today that dd would be out of "danger zone" with bmi of 19, so who knows .

what did you say to clinic when they said they wouldnt work wth her

Calmit I pointed out that what they were saying was basically that we should follow the Maudsley approach but without and support and they said that the family therapy would be the support - but the family therapist is not an ED specialist. She just kept repeating that she didn't want to label her with an ED but that if things got worse we could always ask for another assessment. I think we will just have to try it on our own, and attend family therapy without her if she refuses to come. I spoke to another parent today whose daughter is exactly the same height and weight as my DD and who has just been admitted to an inpatient unit. It's really scary.

Clare, that sounds like madness! Do you have a date for family therapy?

Hope everyone is ok today.

Stumbled on this website earlier, australian family dealing with anorexia
mylifewithanorexia.com/about/

That's an interesting blog, CalmIt...remember seeing it last year some time.

I think we might be slowly turning a corner with miniWildThing. There are still behaviours (smearing, palming, concealing, crumbing as well as adding a lot of spice and sauce to any hot sauce she is permitted to. She still resists foods with carbs, sugar or fats, including smoothies. She doesn't want to eat still, but she does on school days.

She is still wanting to go to school. I've been getting worried about what happens when we get to the holidays, because the weekends are dreadful. She drags everything out so we seem to spend all day sitting at the table, and my husband and I get no time to spend together.

I'm concerned that we might get a whole summer like this, followed by going back to school in September weight restored but rebellious, and going back to having lunch at school with friends and eating next to nothing again.

This week she's been asking to get together with friends, and I've made it clear that she cannot (just yet) go out with friends every week where it involves mealtimes. We've been talking about all this, and struck on a couple of things we could try.

1. Fruit picking, because it is something she's been keen to try for a while, and we do eat quite a lot of fruit. This could be between meals, with friends.

2. A between meals sleepover here if we can have weekend meals getting eaten within 30 minutes.

1. A curry night with friends, which would be here too. This would take a bit of thinking through, so we are going to try a takeaway tonight. I've said she has to have a main, half a rice/noodle portion (or a main containing rice/noodles) plus a piece of bread/a popodom/some crackers, and try the shared side dishes. If she can get to the point where she can manage to do this, she can try having friends around, and eat similar amounts with them.

That sounds really positive Peace. I love the way you are thinking of things to help with the holidays ahead of time so you have the chance to work towards them. Eating with friends sounds really positive too as that something lots of youngsters struggle with. I might borrow you're fruit picking idea - we definitely need to do more as a family and that would be a good one.

That sounds really positive Peace. I love the way you are thinking of things to help with the holidays ahead of time so you have the chance to work towards them. Eating with friends sounds really positive too as that something lots of youngsters struggle with. I might borrow you're fruit picking idea - we definitely need to do more as a family and that would be a good one.

I keep posting twice - sorry - it's my natural impatience coming out - if something doesn't work straight away hit it a few more times! Will try to just do this one onece.

Peace, how did the takeaway go?

Clare, how are things with you

We are desperately short on calories every day, I'm going to have to get tough

The takeaway was OK I guess. DD1 did eat her main and a chapati and tried the tiniest amount of most other things (less than a teaspoon). Its more takeaway than she's ever eaten before. DD2 had a small side dish and tried a very small amount of most other things. I over ordered so that we could try more. DH and I over ate!
DD2 said she wouldn't order the same thing again herself as it was too oily, she doesn't like anything else as the other dishes were all in a sauce. Tandoori chicken might be a possibility next time, but she is pushing for a starter sized portion, not a main. So not sure we have made any progress, and def not ready to have friends round to eat. (She tried to avoid eating the chapati for as long as possible).
This morning she cooked an egg again with 2 slices of wholemeal bread. I've bought white bread but she's resistant to eating it. I had to insist on 2 eggs and she tried to pretend she had used 2 eggs for her eggy bread. (DD1 was there and she made noises that she agreed it looked like 2 eggs which didn't help). There was only one eggshell...DD2 said she had put it in the bin. Not there. So I calmly insisted on her adding another egg or me finding something else. She added another egg. I am pretty sick of being the food police. I had to keep my feelings on all that in, but they came out unwittingly in an argument with DD1 about something else. I hate being lied to. I hate always being the bad guy and feeling so alone with doing this.

Hi Peace, sounds like the takeaway was a good start, main and chapati. The breakfast thing sounds all too familiar.

DD says she feels ill from eating high cal food, I am so damn tired of all of this and like you Peace, I feel alone.

Dinner was yet another travesty. It was fried/ steamed veg, sweet potato and peppered steak. I got the timings wrong and was sorting out the undercooked sweet potato while everyone else had their food on their plates. DD2 decided to pour the juices from meat and veg from her plate onto the table, with much protest and a threat of 'spanking' from DH. I made her eat outside at the table in the garden. We took her phone. Gave her two slices of bread to replace the wasted food.

Then DH discovered his steak was chewy, and he couldn't eat it. DD1 wouldn't even touch hers and went to bed. Mine was OK. DD2 eventually ate her veg and one slice of bread, drank her smoothie, cut up the meat into tiny pieces and chewed and spat out a few bits. No, we're definitely not ready to eat with friends!

After a while she came back in and we all hugged, we all apologised (DH and I overreacted badly) then made a bonfire and cooked tiger prawn kebabs outside. We also made paper aeroplanes from her notes of the GCSE she's just done and burned them.

We did manage to go fruit picking which was nice. This morning I replaced the usual breakfast bar with a bowl of fruit and sugar. the sugar got all shaken off, fruit put on the table or out of the window behind her. [shock So another behaviour is developing now: openly discarding food.

Peace, I wonder how you carry on sometimes, all so draining.

Is dd in school today

Yes she is at school, as she ate all the food (replacements for wasted food were given.)
On the plus side, her end of year exam results are stellar so far, including a couple she was fretting about. At least I know she has done that without over doing it. She's been with me for some of each day for the last few weeks and so not driving herself to revising at every single opportunity.

Hi Peace, how are things

I really sympathise with you peace. It's being the food police that I hate too. I think about food 24/7 - it's so exhausting - but then I guess that's how DD feels too. I still can't get my head round starving yourself when you're surrounded by food. You sound like a wonderful family - I love the burning of the GCSE notes.
My DD is managing one reasonable meal a say which feels pretty good but she won't be gaining weight on it.

Mexican stand-off at the OK coral here over potato and onion in an omelette. (I've told her to take that one up with Mexico and Spain.)

hi peace, handing over a large glass to you.

Going off on a tangent,....we have hospital tomorrow in a city that had two "possible terrorist threats" today....ok, thanks for upping my anxiety grrrrr

Clare, I think about food all the time as well, from when I wake trying to calculate how many calories I can get into dd.

Went to CAHMS meeting today.

On our home scales she's put on 2lb but according to GP and their weights she's put on nothing

This morning I was wondering why we were going and expecting them to say we were a waste of time and exaggerating when there are girls with much lower weight I'm in denial aren't I?

Anyway, the nurse ? was lovely. Hard hitting, spelled it out (" my job is th keep you out of hospital") told DD nicely that if she doesn't put on weight then she'd have to stop all the sport/gym.

She also understood that DDs has a horrible friendship group, who are also obsessed with diets etc, and this is the real cause of her unhappiness. Funnily enough things have been getting a little better with the girls recently and DD has even said she'd like to audition for the school musical next year which would really boost her self confidence.

Although some of it was hard to hear I left feeling pleased that I'd acted early and positive that DD will gain weight, even though she doesn't really want to.
Next appointment will be with the nutritionist and her councillor/the nurse.
Back to Gp on Thursday. I'd actually like to see just the CAHMS lady.

I want to thank you all for telling me to take her to the GP at the start of the thread and making me feel normal.

I can also sympathise with the "food police feeling"