ASD son (5) and very poor diet

[Toni29]

Hi I was wondering if anyone here had managed to get their child to eat a healthy diet, my son won't eat whole fruit or veg. He does get veg through homemade pasta sauce but he doesn't have pasta every night. I just wish he would eat one or two whole Vegs or fruits, feel like I'm not giving him a healthy start. Thanks

I used to feed mine new and healthy things whilst he was entranced by the TV. He'd graze without actually thinking about it.
He was also very keen on cooking, and very slowly, eating things became part of that experience.
I wouldn't worry too much, unless you can actually see signs that he isn't managing well on what he eats, your pasta sauce is a good strategy.

My son hasn't had fruit or veg for at least 10 years, he is nearly 13. When he was 5/6 I had him referred to a nutritionist.I had to keep a food diary for three weeks, weigh everything he ate and weigh his plates before and after meals. She then crunched the numbers in the computer. Amazingly she said his diet was perfectly adequate. My son hates the texture of fruit and veg although he will drink fruit juice.

Toni, it has taken me over a year to get my ds to eat veg. He has just started eating peas, sweetcorn and raisins.

I have constantly put these items on his plate with other foods and I could not believe my eyes when he picked up that pea, dipped it in ketchup and put it in his mouth! Same with the raisins, I leave little bowls lying around the place. He played with them for months, them rubbed them on his lips and smelt them and eventually he tasted one and decided he liked them and shoved them all in his mouth at once.

Don't get me wrong he is still very fussy. I never force him to eat anything he doesn't want but I persevere with trying new foods with the hope that one day he will try it.

Pasta is a saviour to us too, mashed up cauliflower or avocado into the sauce seems to work and either tinned tuna or chopped up ham.

I also give him kiddylicious snacks which he likes, they are freeze dried fruit which melt in the mouth and count as one of your five a day.

He also likes baked beans on toast.

I also juice a carrot everyday and put it in with his juice and he doesn't notice.

Do you give him a multi vitamin, mine take Wellkid liquid (also goes in the juice) which is suitable up to 5 years Chewable tablet after that I think).

Good luck I know how you feel, I recently attended a restricted feeding workshop which was really useful, it was run by the Occupational therapists at our Early years Centre. Could you see if there is anything like this in your area?

DS2 eats dried fruit - raisins (by the bucketful if he got chance) and things like fruitus bars with apricot in.
He loves warm fruit puds - crumbles etc, so long as the bits of fruit aren't too big. He doesn't even mind the odd strong flavour in there, like the blackcurrants that we grow, or rhubarb. He'll also eat fresh blueberry muffins. He went through a phase of liking raw apple, but it went straight through him.
He always has a piece of banana bread, carrot cake, courgette cake, date & walnut etc in his packed lunch.
He likes a little bit of tomato sauce eg on a pizza or some tomatoey pasta sauce on his chips or clinging to the outside of meatballs or chicken. Pasta's a no go, though - he's actually tried many times, but can't cope with the texture.
He likes baked beans, but gets fed up of them if they're served more than once a week.
He loves houmous, so I occasionally buy him some of that to put in sarnies or on toast.
And he's rather partial to peanut butter and having that, every day, has probably helped to counteract the fact that we're lucky if he manages 5 portions of fruit and token bits of veg per week.

Thanks for all your replies it's given me some hope that we are not the only ones!! Thankgoodnessforcheerios does the well kid liquid taste strongly? Was just wondering if I could sneak it into juice? Good idea about juicing a carrot! Not feeling too bad after reading all the replies, I guess my son does have a carton of orange juice everyday and does enjoy banana bread, maybe I should make more of an effort to make it more often! And he does like baked beans as long as it's not all the time. He's just eaten pizza with homemade hidden veg sauce so I guess I'm not doing too bad getting some, if only small amounts, of veg into him. :)

The Wellkid is orange and vanilla flavour however i find it does have a strong taste to it, I think its the iron in it. My two don't mind it though, one has it off the spoon and the other it goes in the juice. And it always seems to be 3 for 2 in Tesco's ! Goodluck