Party food for son with ASD

[KeiraDaily]

Hi
We're having a small birthday party tea (just family) and I'm wondering how to make it look/feel special given the extremely limited range of food my ds eats. Does anyone have any ideas?
I will lay out his favourite food plus some other stuff for everyone else to tuck into but at the moment it will just be sandwiches, crisps and cake. In my head I'm visualising cheese & pineapple hedgehogs, sausage rolls, party rings, cupcakes etc but he won't eat any of that and I really don't want to waste food.
Any ideas gratefully received!
Thank you

"Sandwiches, crisps and cake"

is that what he eats?

You could cut sandwiches into fun shapes, I have a double dinosaur cutter which barely wastes anything but crusts.

Serve everything on tiered stands, like a fancy formal teaparty, you can get card ones in Homebargains.

Cake? You then mention not accepting cupcakes, you could have the cake he enjoys as well as a stand full of cute cupcakes, perhaps find paper toppers of a cartoon he likes or suchlike.

Crisps could be put out in lots of different small bowls, or segmented trays to serve.

Or, at the end of the day, if he just enjoys the food he is happy with, it's still special to share time with family, and you can just make enough additional things for however many that is and enjoy it whilst he enjoys his safe foods.

If he's old enough would he enjoy helping make or set out foods that maybe he won't eat but his guests would like to have? Also even a bowl of crisps can be pimped up with decorations of some type, some of the sandwiches could have little flags.

Are there any snack foods he'll eat on cocktail sticks? My mum used to do cocktail sausages, pineapple chunks, cheese etc (back in the 80s, LOL) and if he doesn't like foods touching he could have his own that don't.

He eats about 10 different foods inc weird things like salmon sashimi and grapefruit but, yes, in terms of party food it will be one specific type of sandwich, one specific type of crisps and one specific brand of cake.
Thank you for the ideas of how to present everything. I think cutting sandwiches into shapes, colourful flags and cocktail sticks will look great. I’ve got lots of colourful tableware, balloons etc too.
He’s just not interested in good but hopefully all the decorations will make it feel special!

How old is your DS? Does he want it to feel special? Or would he be happier with his ‘safe’ foods the same way he always has them?
Just giving another perspective on things. Are you trying to make it feel special because birthdays “should” be special or because he likes it?

Rather than viewing your son as the one with limited eating (not suggesting he isn't limited, just offering a different perspective from an autistic person), how about you lay the table with all of his favourite foods and everyone else has to eat what he eats and enjoys?

That way, it will be 'special' to your son as he'll be able to eat everything and not feel limited in what he can/can't eat.

Making sure there are no surprises about what the food will be or how it will be laid out.

My Ds is turning 11. Sorry probably much older than you were expecting but he will still love sandwiches cut into shapes - maybe not dinosaurs!
He was assessed for ARFID but didn’t meet the criteria.
He’s not remotely interested in food so perhaps focussing on the presentation is the way forward.
If I serve what he would like, we would all have a bowl of cereal. Which is fine but the party tea would be over quite quickly and the rest of us would still be hungry! I take your point though @Clarice99 it is his day after all.
In terms of making it special - I’m not sure why I want to. I just want to make a fuss of him and show him how loved he is.