ASD and food refusal - please help, am desparate!

[zen1]

One of DS's (3.8) biggest problems is tactile defensivesness. He has always had huge problems with food (won't try anything new unless it is a different type of crisp) and won't touch or eat anything wet, slimy or soft. He is happy to finger feed himself dry foods (e.g breadsticks, ricecakes), but has always refused to feed himself anything with a spoon.

Until recently, this wasn't affecting his diet too much as he was happy for me to feed him a blended meal of protein and veg at lunchtime. So, he would have weetabix/readybrek mixed with a fruitpot for breakfast, a blended meal and a yogurt for lunch and at tea time he would have his selection of not particularly nutritious dried foods. However, for the last 6 days he has refused his lunchtime meal, not even accepting one mouthful.

I don't really know what to do now. He is eating nothing nutritious all day apart from breakfast in the morning (and he doesn't always eat that!). The only protein he has is the yogurt. He doesn't eat bread or toast, cheese, fishfingers or anything normal at all. The only drink he will have is orange squash. People have suggested I should let him eat what he wants, but that would be crisps and dried food all the time and I don't want him to learn that he can always get what he wants. He cannot be bribed with anything.

Would be very, very grateful to hear of anything that's worked for you

When you say dried food what do you mean.

When Dd3 was 2.5 ish she had a very restricted diet and the HV suggested keeping a food diary over a period of a week or 2 rather than thinking what he eats in a day.

You might be find that he eats more variety than you think.

In the meantime I would let him eat what he will eat and try not to make food a battleground.

Good lcuk

The only food he is eating at the moment is:
Ready Brek
Weetabix
Puréed fruit pot
Organix goody bars (dried fruit/oat bars)
Stage 1 baby jars (only fruit flavours)
Bread sticks (sometimes)
Marmite rice cakes
Humzingers compressed fruit sticks
Goodies cheese crackers
Crisps
Chips
Biscuits (but I haven't been offering these since he stopped eating his main meal)

And that's it!

Does he have milk on his weetabix and readybrek??

I can see that there is no protien in there so I can see why you are worried but there is fruit and some carbs.

I can sneak some Abidec multivitamins into her orange juice, they are orange flavour so maybe you could get some into his squash.

I am no expert and I hope someone with more experience comes along soon.

There are some folks on here with Dc's with very restricted diets so keep bumping your thread to the top of the board to try to get someone else to help.

What about fish fingers or chicken nuggets or sausages? Finger food is fine. I suspect that the refusal to eat the blended diet is probably due to having personal space issues ie not wanting you to feed him. DS4 hated that. He is very fussy. Ate loads of things for ages and then went off them. We try to work around his likes and make stuff rather than rely on shop bought stuffing I can, but sometimes McDonalds is what he wants!
We find when we go away that the first thing to suffer is food. Last week all he would eat for the first four days were apples and chips. I try to get frubes down him and cold ham just to tick the food groups where possible.

Thanks Ineed. He does have milk on his breakfast, so that and the yogurt are his only sources of protein.

Sally, I can empathise! We are mainly veggie (don't eat meat, only fish), though he wouldn't eat fish fingers (have tried loads of times). He will only eat dry, crunchy food or fruit puree (from jars). He is fine with me feeding him yogurt and breakfast, so I don't think he has a problem with that (he often says "mummy do it"; he's phobic of holding a spoon). I just don't know where to go from here - his diet is getting narrower and narrower

Hi Zen. I can completely sympethise with you over the food issue. DS2 was the same from 2 yrs old onwards and his list of foods got smaller and smaller until he was eating just 4 items of food.

My advice, which I was given from this actual board, is pick your battles and don't let food be one of them. Let him eat what he is eating at the moment, because at least he is eating something.

From your list it looks quite healthy. I'd increase hi yoghurt and perhaps remove the stage 1 jars as there can't be much nutrition in those with them being small portions.

DS2 is 6 now and eats a lot more than he used to. Diet is still not great, he is a carb refuser except for wraps and tinned spaghetti bolognese, but he eats a damn sight more than 4 items.

You an ask to be refered to a SALT dietician if there is one in your area. I know there is one in my area who worked alongside the EP to help with food issues.

Lego, that is good advice - thank you. I'm afraid I haven't been choosing my battles, I've been getting very stressed out over this, even lost my temper a few times, which I regret. I have tried everything. Today he asked for a pkt of Pom bears so I bought him some knowing how much he likes them, but I told him they were for "after dinner". At dinner time I let him hold the crisps and told him he could have them as soon as he'd finished. He said "no", so I opened the pack and let him hold one, saying he could eat it after one spoonful. He still said no and handed back the crisp.

I don't understand why he has suddenly started refusing food that he has been used to for two years. With regard to the stage 1 jars, he is only still on then because that is the only consistency he will eat of anything that is non-dry. He also likes them because he recognises them. When one company changed its branding he screamed when I tried to give him the stuff in the jar because it didnt look the same as usual.

Anyway, it is good to know that your DS has improved over time. Did you keep offering a range of foods or did he just decide one day that he wated to try something different?

Hi, I have lots of food issues with my child as well, his diet probably wasn't much more varied at 3, he preferred finger food as well. Over the years he has gradually added more and more, sometimes it's a case of school/social pressure encouraging him to try something, other times it's case of perseverance by us, and a strong sense of what is realistic for him i.e. to know when his stomach is genuinely turned by a texture, and when he is playing up. By that sort of age DS refused the jars/blended type foods - he couldn't really articulate why, but I do wonder if he perceived it as babyish?

I agree with picking your battles for the most part, but keep on gradually trying him with new food, even if all he does is accept it being on the plate without actually eating any! My DS isn't all that keen on home cooking, he seems to prefer the consistency of texture/appearance of prepared food/restaurant food. A few good veggie things that might be worth trying your DS on - hummous, quorn sausages, quorn burgers, quorn sliced meet.

Thanks TheLightPassenger - I don't normally buy the quorn type things, but I think my DS also prefers the appearance of prepared food so anything is worth a try! He won't eat home cooked chips but will happily guzzle them at McDonald's . Won't touch their fish fingers though!

He is starting at a special needs nursery in sept where the kids stay for lunch so I am hoping that he will see other children eat more variety and want to copy them!

We got him eaten different things by putting a tiny bit of it on his plate. Sometimes he eats it sometimes he doesn't. Can take ages for him to try it though.

Today actually we have had a huge breakthrough. We have had pasta bolognese (made from scratch) and he actully ate it, whereas he usually would kick up a fuss and eat a tin of spag bol. He wolfed it down

We had major problems eating out, he wouldn't eat anything when we were out, which proved hard as a family. Getting better though, he will eat certain things when we are out, as long as they are chicken nuggets and beans.

Does she eat the puree out of the jar or do you put it in a bowl before he eats it?

*he not she

Weetabix, mashed banana and yogurt was all ds2 would eat for the first 5 years of his life then he regressed further and drank nothing but milk (2 pints) and ate nothing but yogurts (about 12+ a day) for nearly 18 months when he was about 6/7 great ormond street consultant said he would never eat a solid meal but 10 years on he eats a sunday roast just like the rest of us.

Do talk to your GP so they can keep an eye on his growth/weight. When ds2 was young the cut off point for intervention was droppping through 2 centiles on the weight chart or flatlining on the growth chart. Try too to get some maxijul from boots or paediatric seravit from gp to make sure he is getting some nutrients.

ds2's growth was stunted for many years but once he hit adolescence he caught up and is now at 16yrs the same height as his brothers waist 27/28 inside leg 29/30. When it gets bad you do what you have to do to keep them alive and if that means having a standing order with sainsburys to make sure they don't run out of yeo valley and a spare fridge in the garage to store all the yogurts then thats what you do. I got so angry with the people who said he'd eat when he wanted to - that relies on them understanding cause and effect - that's not always something that comes easily

Try and get hold of this book. It has all sorts of suggestions and advice from other parents who have been in the same situation. (ds2 is case No 8)

Wishing you all the best

Tiredness, that is very reassuring! My DS sounds very similar to yours in the types of food he likes (he has also never drunk cows milk; only has it on cereal). That's a good tip about the soya yogurt - I didn't realise it had more minerals. I think I would feel better if he ate bread or toast - until he was about 2 he would eat cheese on toast, toast and marmite, fish and lentil burgers but he just stopped one day and never went back to those foods. Sometimes he eats the crusts off DH (yes DH still leaves the crusts!!) plate if he has toast, but that's about it. I often ask him if he wants toast and he says yes, but then doesn't eat it when I've made it.

Lego, congratulations on your pasta bol breakthrough! You feel great when something like that happens.

WRT the puree, he eats it out of the jar. He wouldn't like it decanted into a bowl!

eatyourveg, thanks for posting about your DS. I can't imagine mine ever getting to the stage of eating a roast dinner (a yorkshire pudding, maybe. Lol at yeo valley - my fridge is permanently stocked with the stuff! As it is only recenly that DS has started refusing his main meals, I don't think he has lost any weight yet, though obviously he will if this carries on. He is a tall boy and was on 75th centile for weight and 98th for height.

Funnily enough, the book you mentioned was recommended by the SALTS on a recent food & social communication difficulties workshop I attended and I am going to order it. I will pay particular attention to case no 8 .

What is it with kids and weetabix? It's all DS2 will eat for breakfast! Has to be warm milk, even in the summer months.

Yes, my DS will only have warm milk on his too

DS had a beige diet for a long while. It took 3 attempts at a food programme with ABA specialist before we cracked it, before that he would literally throw the food across the room than taste a tiny speck.
We were reassured weetabix and milk and fruit smoothie was a balanced diet.

You can try similar foods e.g. a different cereal and broaden out that way. It can be behavioural and not sensory (it was with DS). It was all about control. So we gave him a tiny bit of something similar to something he already ate and then he got rewarded with a preferred food (e.g. biscuit) if he ate it. We also worked up so he had to touch the new food, put it to his lips, then on his tongue, then in mouth, then swallow it and got rewarded at each stage (did this by imitation). So just build up slowly - can take days or weeks to get to putting it in mouth. Try and withhold favourite things e.g. biscuits and keep as a reward just for the food programme.

You could try a tiny trace of something new on a bread stick and build up - again rewarding if touches / taste / eats it etc.

You just have to not make it a big deal. Use first / then and you demonstrate and if he doesn't do it just take the treat away without a fuss and try again later.

I also would work on either expanding the range of foods or on eating at set times, but not both. When DS would eat little I would just leave some dry shreddies or crackers around and when I wasn't looking he would help himself and nibble on it through the afternoon so i knew even though he hadn't had lunch he could not be that starving. We would do the food programme wherever he was comfortable, I wouldn't make him sit at the table. We just worked on expanding the food then worked on where and when we ate.

Its still not perfect, he is still picky but will eat much more. He will eat anything for the ABA team and far less for me which is interesting its totally related to who and where he is rather than the texture of the food. Maybe he just knows I cave in easily.

You might be able to find some ABA food programmes on youtube.

I am trying to think of crunchy high protein snacks ( shame you don't get complete dry food for children like you do for cats ;) ). Some ideas:

Home made cheese crisps - grate mild cheddar and pile on a baking tray in small heaps and cook until they turn into crispy " biscuits"

Roasted nuts?

Popcorn chicken cooked until really crispy

Salami crisps up when you cook it.

Crispy bacon

Oh just noticed you are veggie, sorry, ignore meaty suggestions.

Agnes, thanks for your advice. I think with DS it started off as sensory (there was a lump in one of his blended meals), but now it is behavioural. When I say "lunch time", he runs off laughing. He is generally very controlling which is why I don't want to give in to him and offer him only the foods he likes. Yes, small steps look like the way forward. I'm going to try with teeny tiny bits of food and offer a reward if he eats it.

I have tried to be more chilled today. I even cooked him a plate of chips but he didn't touch one, though if we had been in a cafe he would have demanded them.

Wiggly, thanks for the tips. Complete dried food for kids would be great for DS! I've been thinking about crunchy high protein foods too, but have drawn a blank (reluctant to introduce nuts as one of my other DS's has a severe nut allergy). I like your cheese crisps idea - they are baking in the oven as I typ!e