constant grazing

[cerealmother]

DS4 (11.2) constantly grazes. He eats enormous amounts and constantly looks for food, getting quite distressed when it is denied him.
Dietician has advised smaller portions, as what he eats is fine. This just made him steal our food from our plates and the bin! and he got very agitated.

Anyone else have any experience of this?

DS askes about once an hour for food, but we have no choice to say no or he wouldnt eat dinner at all, sometimes like school holidays I give in a little more as meal times can change and it ok but its very difficult, I feel incredibly guilty saying NO when i know he doesnt eat much.

Ds2 (8) asks for food about once every hour or so too. He usually has a snack mid-morning (plain crisps), lunch, another snack mid afternoon (toast or biscuits), dinner, then more toast and sometimes fruit before bed. Overall this is quite a lot, but I think it helps to keep his blood sugar stable
( obviously the crisps and biscuits arent great though). He also gets very agitated if denied. Sometimes I think its hunger, sometimes just routine/control issues. At school they give him a snack at break time (grapes) and then another one about an hour before lunch ( rice cakes) or he will ask for 'lunch ' repeatedly from about 11 onwards! Having said that, his TA is convinced that its sometimes just a way of trying to get out of school work and I agree with her on this. He does it much less at home if hes really involved in and enjoying something.

He always finishes his meals btw, or I wouldnt give him the snacks.

Dd3 has never learnt that it is ok to be hungry, she wants to eat little and often, she has always been the same.

The problem is that if she is hungry she will go on and on and on until she has something to eat.

She also gets very stressed if lunch doesnt happen and 12 clock on the dot but not so bothered about tea.

She will snack on anything and has been known to eat herelf sick on a few occasions.

DS is 6 and he constantly asks for food from the moment he gets up every 20 mins or so. He still eats good meals on top. I keep crisps and crackers but have a fridge full of things like carrots which he likes peeling himself or he has a bowl pf peas in pods to dismantle as they then take longer to eat or dried cereal to nibble on.

Oh I do wish DS would snack on vegetables coff. He too is 6 and wants to graze all the time. He also goes from "not hungry" to "starving" in a nanosecond - the same with thirst which I understand is a sensory thing.

Yes Ben10 there is no alarm to getting thirsty here either. He constantly has a drink with him all the time. He wont touch water on its own either and I had a hell of a time with school. But managed to get them to let him have flavoured water with a hint of whatever in it. They soon saw the benefit of him having it as opposed to a dehydrated whirlwind

He will tuck in to any fruit or veg apart from oranges as they sting his mouth (mine too) which is great. On the other hand we cant just do the normal sandwich here as he is so fussy on what goes in it and hates butter, hates food in sauce, hates pastry so will eat sausages but not the roll bit! No it is a case of non stop snacking. I do make a lot of jellies with fruit juice in maybe you could try that with DS?

Thanks Coff

He will drink juice and eat soft fruit and some apples. It is just vegetables that he wont touch and I have given up TBH. We can put veg into blitzed sauces but not too much otherwise he will know. I have to make a ham and mayonnaise sandwich (but not Aldi mayonnaise as too tangy . I am lucky I think that there are lots of (what I consider to be junk) foods that he will eat but I struggle to get him to eat a normal home cooked meal unless it is one of the things that he accepts, ie lasagne, cottage pie, chilli con carne (mild).

Theres nothing wrong with a good cottage pie! Try carrot juice in an orange jelly. It is kind of disguised with the orange tangy taste. The bonus is he eats fruit. My dd NT is 10 and the only fruit she will eat is an apple peeled. She wont eat any veg unless it is pureed and put in mashed potatoe and would live on a chicken nugget or pasta and tuna for life if I let her. They are really both so opposite it is unreal!

Coff33... interesting what you said about thirst, Dd3 is a nightmare with this, we have to carry water everywhere [luckily she will drink water].

She gets sooo stressed if we are out and she needs a drink, she is 8 now but she is no better than she was at 2, if she needs a drink she has to have it.

I have talked to the people at CAMHS about it but they didn't offer any ideas to help.

We tried a social story to help her to understand that nothing will happen to her if she doesn't have a drink striaght away but she refused to even look at it.

The only thing I have found to help is never to go anywhere without a drink.

I wish I understood it.

goodness if only I could get ds to eat anything half that decent he hates the colour the taste and smell of everything and textures often so never got him to eat any of those things.
he even complains about crisps even if the same make if they have added too much salt and vinegar he wont eat them , he can taste if ive put anything puree into his dinner and at the moment everythings so dry there is no way of doing that.
he wont even contemplate jelly that would be fab cos you could add puree fruit into that if he did , Im at wits end tbh
Hes always thirsty and hungry hes getting to old for this awful diet he needs more substantial food now he is nearly 12

with the water thing ineedalife I think its like a security thing. When ds was small it would be his dummy he would holler for. He lost both dummy and water bottle at the same time and went on to sports bottles. As soon as he is stressed out he yells "I need a drink!" They use similar bottles at school so I think the sensation of putting the top bit in his mouth and sucking the water has a soothing effect

water bottle should be baby bottle!