2.5-year-old with worsening restricted diet and sensory aversions, next steps?

[RainbowSparkleGardener]

Just looking for reassurance and I suppose some suggestions what has worked for others.

My toddler (2.5) has a restricted diet. We suspect she might be autistic. We are a neuro divergent family, so it makes sense.

However, her diet is extremely limited and it's progressively getting worse. She will only eat half of the item she is eating. Or she has such strong sensory preferences that the things she will eat are incredibly limited. Recently I decided to stop going shopping in person as it causes her distress to want to try food but then be unable to eat them.

GP and HV is involved but dismissive due to her looking healthy and her blood work was within normal range despite being on the cusp.

To make matters worse her safe food has been discontinued near us.

I'm not sure where to go from here and it breaks my heart to hear her cry from hunger but not eating anything.

Hi OP, we just wanted to let you know we've moved your thread to the SN Children board where you might get more responses.

Go back to the GP &/or HV and request a referral to paeds and dietetics. DD looking healthy and bloods being normal doesn’t prevent a referral. If they still won’t refer, if there is a different GP in the practice you could try, do that. If that isn’t possible or doesn’t work, complain.

Also look at OT. Not all OCBs commission sensory OT now, but if your area does, you might be able to self refer. Does DD have other sensory needs?

Some people have success with food chaining.

Has DD been referred for an autism assessment yet?

Does DD attend nursery?

Thanks for this.

We are in the UK, and the earliest I can get her on the right to choose is 3yrs old and a year wait minimum once on. So we have to wait a little bit.

DD is starting nursery next month and her key worker is a senco, so hopefully she'll be able to pick up any areas that DD needs extra support for.

I'll look into food chaining. I have an appointment next week with GP, mostly to have. A paper trail but I'll try asking for an OT referral.

DD has sensory issues in both avoidant and seeking in several areas, food and non food. The two areas I'm mostly struggling to support her is food and with regulation as she's extremely anxious.

Whoever has told you RTC only applies from 3 has given you incorrect information. Not all providers assess before 3, but some do.

At DD’s age, you would be better going down your local community paeds route, IMO.

OCBs in my pp should say ICBs.

Would she eat or drink anything fortified? At 2, my autistic son was still on formula only. We then got lucky that he liked Nestle Cheerios, his first solid food and still his main food. Then at about 4 came McDonalds chicken nuggets, peas, apples and plain bread and recently, aged 8, he added ham and McDonalds cheeseburgers. All in small portions, often only eating half his plate. He's physically healthy though (apart from DCD and related issues) and a normal weight and height. My son had bottles with formula till he was maybe 7. Did your daughter ever drink from a babybottle? Luckily my son doesn't have a fast metabolism, and does little sport, so a little food goes a long way and he is hardly ever hungry, but he likes to have the same food every day on the dot at the same time. I never worried about his diet, because when he cried or couldn't settle because he was hungry, the babybottle with formula always did the trick until he was about 7, and now he eats enough solid food, and still drinks almost 1 litre of milk each day.

I BF till she was ready to wean at 20 months. She ate reasonably well up until she hit 2, although it was always creamy food otherwise she would just pick. She loves to try food and gets upset that they just aren't in sync with her sensory issues. She will also only drink weak squash, I've tried everything but she can tolerate anything else.

She also people pleases and will take a bite, say she likes it and will then leave it untouched. She is a very active child but is sleeping a lot recently which is very unlike her as she refused to nap from a very young age.