Help, 8yr child suddenly won't hardly eat

[Katy85]

I'm at my wits end and if anyone has any advice it'd be much appreciated.
My 8 Yr old son has never been the best eater but he eats enough. This past week he's developed an irrational fear of choking, so he's hardly eating at all now and when he does take a bite he chews it for 5min!! I've tried giving him smaller portions so he's not over-faced, but he's barely eating a quarter of what I put down, even his favourites. He could demolish 6 slices at pizza hut a few weeks ago, on Friday he barely ate two and even that took him 45min. Tonight I dismissed him from the table after 45min (during which he ate half a chicken dipper and half a fish finger) and 20min later I realised he was still chewing the fish finger, I'm not kidding 20min!!!
What the hell do I do? I was going to get onto his GP in the morning, but this is a serious psychological issue that he seemed to develop overnight, the GP might prescribe some nutritional stuff to make up what he's not eating, but I can't see them doing anything about the psychological problem.

The first thing to check is any physical causes:

constipation
sore throat
stomach pain (uti?)
acid reflux

Has he had a change in bowel movements or sleeping habits, is he having any urine accidents?

Completely misread your post, sorry.

No physical signs of anything wrong. It was like he just woke up one day and won't eat much, he's over-chewing every single bite, like his brain is telling him he's going to choke otherwise. On a Friday he gets Nutella toast for breakfast as a treat, it took him nearly an hour to eat two slices whereas a week ago it would take him 5-10min. If I don't constantly tell him to stop chewing and just swallow he literally just sits there for several minutes chewing the same mouthful

Is he drinking fluids normally? Will he eat soft foods like yoghurt or puréed fruit at a normal speed? Have you asked him why he is afraid of choking - has he read something or watched something online?

My child had this a couple of years back, it was awful and probably a byproduct of anxiety. I fed her whatever she felt she could eat and supplemented with pediasure. At one point she was down to two things she could swallow - porridge and chicken broth with minced chicken to and tiny soup pasta.
We just followed her lead about what she thought she could eat and she came through the worst of it in a couple of weeks.

I would contact the school and ask to speak to the school nurse. They will have seen this before, and can advise/,refer on to a community paediatrician if necessary. School need to know in case be faints,or refuses to eat there.

I would also speak to the GP.

In the meantime I'd give him some food that's easy to swallow, but don't mention that you're doing it if that makes sense?

So for breakfast could you do him some overnight oats that will be really soft in the morning? Loads of recipes online, a favourite with mine is a couple of tablespoons of oats, with a mashed up banana, some peanut butter and cocoa powder.

Or a banana smoothie bulked out with some oats and peanut butter (tablespoon of each in thr blender with a banana and some milk).

Soups for tea etc.

Give him space to relax with foods and maybe he can tell you what's up. Sounds very hard OP.

Drinking water or smoothies is fine, I put frubes in his packed lunch and he seems ok with that too. Just anything remotely solid he's taking forever to chew. He was asking a few weeks back "what would happen if I swallow a jellybean whole, or an m&m" and I just told him it might hurt his throat going down but it wouldn't do any harm. We keep asking him where this has all come from, why is he so suddenly afraid of food, but he just won't say anything, we've tried talking to him calmly and reassuring him that he isn't going to choke on his shreddies or a fish finger, he only needs to chew for 5-10secs max to make it safe to swallow but he just can't seem to get it out of head. I cant think of any other tactics to make him get over this sudden irrational fixation.

I’d see a GP to also rule out there is nothing physical causing this. Has he explained why he is feeling like this? Has he lost weight, feels ill, change in bowel habits etc?

Our 6 year old went through something similar recently. He had been ill, and so hadn’t had an appetite, but even once he recovered, he developed a completely irrational fear of eating again. He was barely eating a thing for day, his skin was grey and his eyes began to look sunken. As a consequence, he was absolutely exhausted. It was horrible, so you have my full sympathy.

The only thing that worked for us was him going to stay with my parents. Not being around me seemed to break the cycle. As soon as I came back, he started saying he wasn’t hungry, so wouldn’t be eating etc. Although it was incredibly difficult, I just ignored his comments as I could see it was totally psychological and he just started eating normally again.

NightmareLoon thank you! That sounds kind of similar, just a sudden irrational fear of solid food. I'll have to think what I could offer that's soft enough until he snaps out of it, he's lost all enjoyment for his favourites. Obviously I'm stressing about how little he's consuming, so I'll ask his GP about pediasure, it will make me a little less stressed if I could at least get some nutrients down him.

YellowHpok yes I will definitely let school know tomorrow, don't want him struggling through the day and them not knowing why! He's so fussy with what foods he'll eat anyway, oats will be out of the question for sure. I'll have to have a good think tonight what he will try

123wombles nothing physically wrong that I can see, no pains or changes in anything else, he just suddenly started over-chewing everything

The2Omicronnies that sounds awful, God they don't half put us through it! He went to his grandparents during the week for tea and they got his favourite in, he did the exact same thing there, chewing for several minutes every single bite. He camped out with his friend over the weekend at the school fair, same problem during the day, he would normally destroy a hotdog, he managed about 3bites in 15min, so even big distractions aren't changing things.

You can pack a lot of calories into a smoothie if you need to. Get some cream, full fat milk and coconut cream in. You can do things like add cream to rice pudding to make it more caloric, or add a dash of coconut cream or just cream to a hot chocolate (coconut tastes great in this). I know it’s all saturated fat but if you need to do it to keep his weight at an ok level while he works through the psychological issue then it’s likely a good idea. GP should have some ideas too.