I give ds all this to eat and i dont give a crap!!

[redbull]

he has
tea in the morning and before bed
bovril
pizza (everyweek)
chips (everyweek)
crisps everyday
chocolate everyday
fruit shoots most days
sos rolls in his push chair
chinease once a week
billy bear meat
bernard matthews dinosours
youngs flipper dippers
yazoo milkshakes
i dont care if i have to bribe him with chocolate to eat i dont care if he drinks all this crap as far as im concerned with his sensory problems its a blessing he eats this

And I read the title and didn't realise it was in special needs.

Im over the moon when my ds2 eats spagbog, he used to only eat the meat, but now he eats the spaghetti as well. he eats everything with his hands but i dont care as long as hes eating something and enjoying it, it doesnt matter.

I think that's true www (and my last post wasn;t aimed at you- just a follow on from your post iyswim). Although we do get told off for saying that, when you are living with a child who can't talk, won't eat, won;t ever cook a meal themselves, then the mission each day becomes to get them to eat- what they'll eat doesn't even come into it. IN ds1's case I've spent the last few years worrying each day that he's eaten enough in the way of calories to ensure he doesn't spend the next 3 days with a migraine. Getting him to eat something healthy just wans;t possible.

I have said it repeatedly on here, and I have said it repeatedly to the school, and I have said it on every single form I have fiulled in for the LEA recently- I am immensely grateful for the time and effort the school have spent (and continue to spend) on helping ds1 to expand his diet. It is a huge argument for the continuation of special schools with a sufficently high staff ratio to allow this sort of help. Our whole food struggle wasdocumented daily in ds1's home school book, and I know his teacher in recption/year 1 is very proud of his achiemevments. And I am hugely grateful to him for the time, effort he put in - and the care he had for ds1 to do this. I know how incredibly difficult it was!

This is an extract from his home school book written by his teacher around easter:

"Has eaten a meal of meat balls, baked beans and waffles which he ate independently- no crisps in sight. Did I tell you he had Iriish Stew yesetrday? Unbelievable. I wish I had taped the process from beginning to end in a time lapse. Irish stew from such smalll beginnings. Runny irish stew at that combined with all the veg that goes with it".

Then the next day:

"Cold meat beans and chips for lunch and it's a sign of the changes in him in respect of mealtimes that I had to stop and check what he did have since it just disappears now with hardly a crisp in sight- most times most times".

He had a little step backwards after this, but is back on coourse now.

jimjams that made me well up I bet you were so pleased

well it was a very slow process- and in fact my entry under the first extract was 'Irish stew is amazing. We're way behind you on food at hoime but I'm sure we'll get there".

The really lovely thing was that a lot (not all, but a lot) of the food issues have transferred from school to home. He really is beginning to generalise. I remember the first time his teacher got him to eat some crisps when they were on a trip (usually he wouldn't eat at all) he was so excited (the teacher). this summer he had some chips in an outdoor beach cafe- which would have been unithinkable only a year ago.

I'm sat here with his home school book flicking back through the entries: things like "chicken attempted in his crisp sandwich today but ds1 quite dextrously nibbled his way all around the small bit that was in there and left it untouched" PMSL.

"another good lunch- usual affair of chips and beans- but when you explain to someone who doesn;t know him how much progress that represents the you really do realise that- how much has been made in terms of eating skills and range and tolerance for different consistencies and tastes".

Actually reading back through his book does make me well up- it's the fact they all care so much and they all understand just how big it is. If he'e eating an Irish Stew at 30 I'll still be sending silent thanks to his first SLD school teacher.

i agree with alot of what has been said, but also agree that the original post was written in an aggresive manner.

perhaps to cause a debate such as this, which surely is at least educational. or perhaps just coz the poster was fed up and grumpy! it happens - HOWEVER......

those of us with kids on the spectrum DO have alot of trials and tribulations to face BUT i feel it is our duty to our kids to get informed. ALOT of foods exasperate our childrens problems, and careful use of certain vitamins/minerals etc CAN help. see this for example ... www.bestsyndication.com/?q=081206_autism_diet.htm

lifes WAY too short to be comparing who loves their kids best because they have xy znd z for tea - what we should be doing is sharing our knowledge to try and help each other along what can be a very difficult path.

That comes up page not found.

I used to give ds1 supplements (and used a very good nutritionist- nutrilink- recommended them on here before for being very knowledgable about autism, although pricey), but then ds1's sense of smell kicked in and it became impossible to get anything into him. I used to hide supplements in food, now he sniffs them out and eats around them.

Donna Williams gioves a lot of good food/diet advice as well.

JJ - crisp sandwiches are such a good idea! Am going to try with DS2 from tomorrow. Having said that he has got SLIGHTLY better at trying new things since going gf.

Will I see the Boden trousers in Woking?

oh probably- its a special (no children) occasion

The whole point i did this was because i was getting a bit tired of seeing threads along the lines of if you give this to your child to eat you are a bad mother, it gets you even more down when you see this as every day we are judged with our children,

last night ds had on his plate slices of roast chicken, 1 baby carrot, 1 little brocolli and about a spoonfull of mashed potatoe with gravy over it all, well all he had was the chicken and drank the gravy, he then had a bowl of gravy with 2 slices of bread and had the whole lot, if the carrot,brocolli or mash had been touching his chicken he would of then rejected the whole lot.

Things arent black and white in this world so when you see threads on food that is only black and white it gets my back up and makes me angry, so in future think about others when you start these so called threads.

"There are lots of helpful informative supportive threads about food on Mn and there are plenty whch are steeped in judgmental stuff and people dealing with very very stressful situations with their children perhaps find it a bit wearing?" oh hear hear Blu, I am so tired of mumsnet. Roll on next week

and when were the thread title police elected?

redbull i dont think you come accross as agressive at all, frustrated and irritated maybe, like alot of us

thankyou fio

I think you have to do what you have to do my oldest with Aspergers likes beefburgers bu not home made ones!! no form of mince at all and no food that is mixed together

I didn't read this as an aggressive thread/title at all. Redbull really doesn't give a crap. Food threads on the rest of MN tend to include advice such as:

• keep offering the healthy stuff and they'll eat it eventually

• don't have non-healthy food in the cupboards and your child won't be able to eat it.

• don't give in to them.

That's great for the majority of children but not for mine or many other children with SN. That's why this thread was started in the Special Needs section. As Jimjams has already said, there isn't any help out there for a child who has a very limited diet. Ds2 is weighed and measured each time he has an appointment at the CDC. The staff are happy as long as he continues to grow. The real help and support for these issues comes from places like the SN board. It's all we have.

coppertop, i do give the advice below but for NT children. with dd2 i stick to the healthiest options that i know she will eat. today dinner is shepherds pie, with finely grated carrot mixed in. i will tell dd2 again that the mince isnt meat, its just funny coloured potato. and i will still spoon feed her till i am satisfied she has eaten enough. she is 4 years old.

dd1 however is just stubborn and fussy(NT). she refused to eat dinner the other night just because she didnt want to. dd2 had tried and gagged, so just ate the rice. dd1 just refused to try it (sweet and sour pork). got her to try it (took 30mins) and she actually luiked it. gah!

today dd2 too 90mins to eat a bagel. i refused to take her on the school run untill she had eaten. i know she likes bagels, its the one thing that will get polished off at breakfast. it was a white one as well, just a smidge of butter. very bland IMO. i felt awful walking out of the door as she was kicking off, but i knew that peter and his carer would cope. I came back and she had eaten. i broke the routine, and she is still edgey now.

Fair play to you redbull
My son is asperger and he eats this....

speedy snack beefburgers
bernard matthew turkey ham
jam
cheese and tom pizza
chicken breast dissected for bits
one pale underdone roast potato
spoon of cabbage
weetabix
hash browns
tomato ketchup
meatballs in tom sauce
hot dog sausages in bun
white bread
processed cheese
cake and biscuits not containing nut

It must not be over cooked or on the wrong plate or in the wrong position he will have a meltdown, noone but me is allowed to touch his food and noone can eat anything he dislikes the smell of if he is in the room he will vomit

i too am sick of justifying my sons diet to everyone and am glad i get him to eat these things.I cook everyone else homemade food and my other to children eat a balanced diet.So it isnt down to parenting or what the rest of the family eat . My son isnt fussy or a picky eater (i hate those terms) he finds other foods physically repulsive and discusting.
For anyone who isnt in our shoes would you think it was the easy option
to cook seperate meals every day
not be able to eat out
to have this stress every mealtime every day for the majority of your lives
I think not

I am going to write to JO today- to congratulate him on the success he ahs ahd so far BUT also to urge him to consider the needs of Sn children within his campaigns,suggesting that whilst children with SN (as opposed to SN schools) should be encouraged to eat healthily, the reality is that this is unobtainable for many, and as such eating at all should be encouraged.

At the end of the day, I can't send Sam eith apples, tomatoes, etc etc etc simply because of the salicylates: no amount of healthy eating education is going to change that, and as the salycylate removal milds down his violence at home slightly, then there is no way i can risk reintroduction either. Rasins are the biggest no-no there is!

besides, if I sned Sam with a bag of mango, pineapple, pear he'll eat it. Not going to sort out his low weight problem is it though?

best thing anyone could do for us, would be to make decent brand soya milk available on prescrition- blinkin expensive! The only one he will drink is 40p a serving (comes in individual cartons), I dread them cancelling ds3's prescritopn for dairy free formyula, no idea where the extra is supposed to come from. I just go without and have donw for years bevcause of the cost; well aware that osteoporosis is a possibility but I have to be able to afford to live that long to worry about it first.

Trying to get my ds to eat anything that resembles a healthy diet causes so much stress, that there have been plenty of occasions that I've offered him food that would make others gasp. He won't eat breakfast, rarely eats any lunch at school, and will often go from 8pm till 3.30pm with nothing in his stomach, and I would happily make him a packed lunch of crisps, cheese strings, dinosaur processed meat etc if it means that he'd at least have something in his stomach. We go through days of ds only eating pasta at dinner and chocolate slimfasts. It's been such a concern with his lack of varied diet that he's currently under a dietican, which I know I'm fortunate to get this sort of help. Can totally understand why Redbull started this thread, it's depressing reading other threads slating off mothers who put turkey twizzlers, or choc mousse or whatever in there packed lunch boxes, they haven't a clue how bloody hard work it is just getting a child to eat something in the first place. Just for the record, I actively encourage ds to have Macdonalds, at least I can guarantee he'll eat the chicken nuggats.

here here macwoozy
i too big up macdonald

I think it is the patronising tone of the posts on some of these threads that upsets us so much. Posters say "well if you had done such and such, as we did, you DS would eat a varied doet" etc. Well, I am afraid that is just not the case, as has been made plain here. My own DS started on home cooked food and everything seemed fine-but then he gradually started dropping things from his diet. Eventually we were down to cereal and milk, and strawberry milkshake. As others have said, as a family we eat healthily-I have 4 older DSs and my DH and I never allowed any "fussiness"-they either ate the one meal we prepared or went without. They always ate it. But then DS came along and that just does not work with a child with AS, because he would go without for days if you let him.
His diet now is a lot like the others on this thread. He has:

Cereal and milk
Dairylea sandwiches
Ham sandwiches with cucumber (the one and only vegetable he will eat)
Plain pasta-no sauce
Boiled eggs
Strawberry milkshake

Oh yes- Mcdonalds cheeseburger (and I too was delighted when he started eating this as it is the only meat he will eat. But he will not eat the fries!)

I see the food cranks are out again in force

my ds2 is tube fed through his stomach

the only thing he will really have (apart from his liquid diet) is angel delight

Yes i have tried other things but he would choke on healthy eating
but when a severley disabled little boys feeding window has shut
except for angel delight
you are eternally thankful
and i dont give a monkeys fart how much crap is in it
as long as my ds is tasting something

redbull as long as your ds is eating
it doesnt matter
and well done for starting this

some of the posters dont even know what you are talking about as they have no kids with sn

Enquiries, P.O. Box 51372, London N1 7WX.

Contact details if you want to remind MrOliver that SN exists

Oh I might do that the banning of potato waffles was a major pita. I could send him my thread form the time if I can find it....