Ben ds will eat
breakfast - dry cereal (no milk) cereal has to be brown or biege and sweet. So i can expand from choco hoops to honey hoops for example. We have more success with sweet food.
lunch - dry roll (no butter and no spreads and nothing inside it) salt and vinegar crisps, and mini pack choc chip cookies. Again i can expand on the choc chip cookies, but not the bread or crisps (this is his packed lunch, so he doesnt actually eat it, he wont eat in school. He sometimes eats the sweet thing)
Dinner - 1 fish finger, 3 star shaped potato shapes.(fish fingers are currently in favour, but can disappear at any minute, they may return 6 months later or 6 years later, like chicken nuggets did or never again)
Snacks inbetween, dry bread, crisps and ice cream and will eat certain other sweet food, such as biscuits.
He eats the same thing, day in and day out. Has done since he was weaned, with the odd one or two foods going in and out of favour ie chicken nuggets and fish fingers and sausage rolls were in favour about 5 years ago too, they havent returned.
CAMHS have said he restricts his diet as a defence against feeling overwhelmed, he feels so out of control, that food is the only thing he can control.
OT has said its a sensory thing, he is orally defensive, which ties in with what CAMHS have said really. He also has sensory processing disorder, so cannot regulate his response to food. So the message being sent to his brain, is constantly changing, so he experiences food differently everythime he eats. Which obviously must be very confusing.
I am convinced that if his other difficulties where dealt with his feeding and general anxiety would improve.