Autism and no diet (4 year old)

[pinkmarshmalloww]

Hi. My son is being assessed for Autism on Thurs so I will be given support on feeding but in the meantime thought I would comment here for other in similar situations.
I have a 4 year old boy and his diet is so poor and consists of..
Cheese sandwich cut into 4 and he only takes 1 bite of every square.
Munch bunch yoghurts.
Pancakes.
Billy bear ham.
The rest consists of Wotsits/Skips/Quavers and chocolate.
I'm extremely worried about his health and what this must be doing to him 😭
I've tried everything with the help of a health visitor and nothing is working.
He would rather starve than eat a new food 😭
I'm really struggling with Vitamins also as her won't eat gummy's and the liquid in juice smells vile and he knows. So any recommendations with that I would be grateful. He won't have the shakes either

'he would rather starve'
Let him eat what he's comfortable with. Autism comes with many sensory issues. You could try your GP for access to a dietitian, but they will likely say, as long as he is eating something, then let him carry on.

I understand it's worrying, but choose your battles, there's enough you must fight with autism (such as just getting a diagnosis in the first place), he is eating, and that's enough for now.

I wish you all the luck in the world for Thursday.

The thinking at the moment is to let them eat what they’ll eat and somehow they’ll get their nutrients.

Do keep offering different foods of course but on a different plate with no pressure. Let them play with food if they will. Never, ever hide foods in other foods or for example, hide a different brand of cornflakes in a Kellogg’s box because they’ll know and then maybe stop trusting that food.

Crunchy and chewy foods can often fulfil a sensory need, so things like carrot sticks are a good thing to try to introduce. Although more expensive, pre-packaged foods are often preferred as they always taste the same and the packaging in recognisable, so for fruit for example, he may like dried strawberries and a little packet or yoghurt covered raisins. These things may take a while for him to accept though!

I just wanted to point out quick that I've never ever kept him from his safe foods hoping that he'll try something knew if he's hungry. I just know that he would most likely just not eat at all if he didn't have them.
Thank you for everyone's comments 🙂
I think my main aim for the moment is at least trying to get vitamins into him at least

Have you tried meal replacement bars or shakes? I know they're marketed as diet products but that's not their primary function. They're designed to get nutrition into people who cannot eat normally. My dad got them on prescription because he had Parkinsons and would otherwise only eat boiled sweets. A friend also got them on prescription when she was recovering from anorexia.

Read up on ARFID and the recommendations for
helping your child
https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/get-information-and-support/about-eating-disorders/types/arfid/

Try the vitamin suspension in the yogurt. Might have to try a few different brands to get one blends on enoth tast-wise.

Could you try branching out gradually with variants on the safe food? Maybe pancakes with a different topping or with fruit puree mixed into the batter?

Strawberry flavour yogurt, to yogurt with Strawberry puree, to half & half mix, to trying little bits of Strawberry?

Don’t do this, and I don’t mean to be horrible to you @Sprogonthetyne as you’re trying to help, but if you mess about with safe foods you can end up losing it as a safe food and then his diet becomes even more limited.

My friend's ds is similar. She has to introduce one new food at a time. Nice a month I think it is. He's nine now so there is some discussion involving him. It's alongside what he eats, not instead of.

She has two ds and they were both poor eaters, the older one just sort of grew out of it. I think it was school peer pressure but the younger one hasn't.

Op, my now 32 year old son had a horrendously restricted diet when young and it was only when he was put on some medication for one of autisms
co-morbids that his eating improved. It did something to alleviate his sensory issues to some extent and although he is still on a very restricted diet he at least gets 4 portions of fruit and veg a day and he eats very good quality proteins.

My sons diet was very similar to your sons except my boy would just have toast and butter. And people used to say oh but he’ll eat that Thomas the Tank cold meat and he’ll have a kids meal but the point they were missing was that those foods never changed and he needed the safety of them. I can even recall at one stage we had to try and toast each slice of bread to as uniform a colour as we could get.

I used to be worried sick because way back in the day there was very little information out there and parents of the time were like the blind leading the blind. Then one day a book called Can’t Eat Won’t Eat was published and once I’d read it I relaxed a bit and hoped for the day my son would eat more.

And it’s strange because my son was never sick, he was in fact an advert for good health and vitality and today he’s about 6 foot 4 inches tall and all muscle.

I still wish he’d eat a bit more variety but it is what it is and who knows what even tomorrow will bring.

Would I play around with his safe foods? No. Absolutely not. And not just because I very believe that there are children amongst our loved ones who would starve rather than try something new if safe foods became unsafe.

I would ask to be referred to someone with a specialty in eating disorders amongst those on the spectrum and I’d have no qualms about going private if need be and the money was available. I think the quicker you get help with this situation the better.

You’re doing a great job by the way. ❤️