My dd has stopped eating......HELP!

[mulsey]

My 3year old dd has stopped eating. She has always been a poor eater and last year was put onto to Fortini drinks - high calorie suppliment. We have stumbled through the last year, and she has eaten most days. However, in the past few weeks shes stopped eating again. We have had to up the fortini, to prevent weight loss.
She is still undiagnosed, but basically has hypotonia and a global developmental delay. She does not finger feed at all and still drinks from a bottle, she will only drink milk.......anybody got any suggestions or similiar experience?
It really is a worry when your child stops eating, especially when you know that it might end up with tube feeding of some sort!!!!

Poor you, mulsey, I really understand where you're coming from. Our dd2 is undiagnosed and has global dev delay and is a poor eater. She is just 3 and weighs about 10.5 kg. She wouldn't drink the Fortini, so has a juice called Enlive. We're not supposed to give her more than a carton a day, in case it replaces her solid food. In our case, our dd will only finger feed, but not spoon feed! She isn't gaining much at the moment, and I was only just this evening feeling worried again.

Hope you have a helpful and supportive paed/dietician. How long will they wait before they consider tube feeding? Does your dd move around much and/or suffer from constipation (this affects dd2's appetite)? Sorry, lots of questions, but your dd sounds quite similar to mine - a few people on here have experience of tube feeding and they say it's not as bad as it sounds and in some cases can be a miracle!

I wish I could advise. Wishig, hoping that someone thinks of something. It mut be horrible for you. We all know the feeling when our child refuses one meal, but to have stopped eating... blimey, you must be exhausted with it.

I don't know enough to know all the reasons why she has stopped etc so excuse my ignorance and perhaps pointless and stupid comments...... is she perhaps a bit constipated? Ummmmmhave you literally been through all the old favourites......have you tried making her smoothies out of milk and fresh fruit? How about homemade lollies with fresh fruit and their juices?
Like I saud sorry if these are useless and stupid suggestions.

Thx for all your comments and kind thoughts. Dd has been on medicines to help her go to the toilet for a couple of years now, so I dont think that she is constipated - we're pretty good at judging the amounts of the medicines she needs to keep everything regular.
I must admit that it is really starting to get me down, and I think that Ive started overeating to compensate for her undereating!!! We were in Macdonalds the other day and I was the only parent there, who had to try and tempt their child to eat the icecream mcflurry....(which she didnt)
I think that part of the reason that she doesnt finger feed is because shes not interested in food at all, she wont even hold her bottle to have a drink.
Anyway, who knows - she may be on steak dinners by next week.........

mulsey my daughter is 4 and has an undiagnosed global development delay and hypotonia! We encountered similar problems with our dd when she was about 2 and after a bout of pneumonia she lost so much weight she was reffered to a dietician. We were given fortini drinks too. DD was a pain though and wouldnt actually 'drink' them, so i had to mix them in with yogurt etc to get them down her. We also had to do a high calorie diet because if they only eat small amounts it should be the most fattening possible. Pies, chips, sausages, chocolate, lots of pudding etc You get the drift Also add butter and cream to EVERYTHING!!!!! We used to add double cream to dd's milk without her noticing. Let her drink alot of milk if she wants to, it is fattening in large amounts. Also add sugar to things. Like mashed banana with sugar, always went down well in our house - but brush her teeth after!

Last point - DONT STRESS. Try and ignore it if you can. You stress they eat less, been there done that. My daughter actually eats very well now and looks very healthy. I also think eating with other children at nursery has helped because it encourages them to copy and eat also. HTH

PS have we 'chatted' somewhere else before? Does your name begin with a P (ignore me if I have the wrong person )

Fio2 - Im not who you think I am.......

Oh!

mulsey, my 3 year old is a really fussy eater, and has periods where he doesn't eat anything. He doesn't have any other problems, is just fussy! My mum recommended Minadex child tonic, which we started him on last night - it's just vitamins and iron, and she said it always used to be recommended for increasing appetite in children. We shall see! I know what you mean about trying to get them to eat ice cream - the day before dd was born, I will always remember taking ds to the zoo, getting him an ice-cream, and then trying to persuade him to just have one lick. We didn't manage!

Hope things improve for you - it's really scary isn't it!