eating

[hplay]

My 5 yr old autistic daughter will only drink babies formula milk and refuses all other food. does anyone know of a flavourless food supplement that i could disguise in her milk. She is highly sensitive to tastes and would detect anything with a slight flavour. She needs to gain weight.

Gosh that sounds hard! I've no idea really, have you asked the pharmacist what flavours proplan come in? There might be a flavourless or vanilla type one?

Are you getting any help with her diet?

This is very tricky. My ds1 has always had massive issues with food. We used to use a product called fortisip which is available on prescription. They are probably the right consistency. He used to drink strawberry flavour, but I checked the website and they do one called Neutral that might be your best bet. Each little bottle has about 200 calories in it. I suppose you could try adding a bit to her milk to see if she will cope with it. They are made by a company called Nutricia. Our GP prescribed them for ds1 when he was at his worst.

Hi hplay, my dd1 was still drinking formula at 3 but would eat some foods (not many).

Have you tried baby rice? you could start with adding a small amount to her milk (it is quite bland).

I hope you manage to find an answer, it must be very worrying for you. I get worried about my dd1 as there are not many foods she will eat but she has improved a lot in the past year (she's now 6.9).

As already said there are prescribed drinks which have all the nutrients a child needs - fortisip already mentioned comes in 200 ml bottles that give 300 calories. There are many flavours and there is soalso a juice type(fortijuice but Im not sure if this is a complete food) and other brands that are a powder to mix up. Additionally there are also various prescribed supplements that can be added to baby milk. Im not sure if your gp would have the necessary expertise or if he/she would refer you to a dietician. We have tried lots of different one with DS and the main problem is the taste! They all synthetic and some are very oily.

hplay, you definitely should not be on your own trying to work this one out - my DS2 with dx of ASD had a lot of eating difficulties and was falling off the bottom of the centile chart for weight. He was referred to a paediatric dietician who tried a number of supplements and we also attended a special feeding clinic at our local CDC who were also helpful with suggestions re what we could try. GP would be the point of first referral on this I think. Also they are all prescribed so you shouldn't have to pay for them. I know how awful it is to struggle with food all the time with a child - my DS is now 6 and eating more but still v slim, good luck with it all.

I think you must get a dietician referral quite urgently. Most of the big time supplements, My DGS is on them, have to be prescribed and the GP wont do it without a dieticians report. There is procal powder, which is flavourless and can be mixed with milk, but it will probably alter the texture - its something that is good in food as not detectable there, but the formula milk thing must be a nightmare. Does DD accept vitamin drops etc. ?

thanks - I am waiting for an appt with the dietican, but we have to wait several weeks so I wanted to be armed with as much info as poss before we go and see gp to get him to prescribe something. If we wait for dieticians appt i fear that a) dd will fade away and b) I will go mad with worry

Has she always just drank milk, or has she gradually just stopped eating?

I would push for an emergency appointment. TBH, a dietician might not be the best people to speak to, does your DD have an EP? If you are seeing a dietician, I uld say they'd need to be specialist in this area, rahter than a standard one.

I would second the feeling about a standard dietician. The one we saw with ds1, gave me some leaflets about healthy eating!! (just in case I didn't know about vegetables...)

I know my nephew had something called Maxijul which has no taste and I am sure you can buy from some pharmacies.....hope that helps