Under 3's Food Calculator

[glittery]

thought this might be of interest, you put in what your dc has had and they tell you how balanced it is, says its for under 3's but goes up to age 5
tot-it-up

rather unsuprisingly ds who is tube fed is having too much milk!

I imagine it will tell me that ds2 is having too much crap

yeah i did it for a laugh to be honest but was suprised it wasnt telling me off!
it was quite encouraging really in a sort of "well you're doing great but glitteryboy could be having more (insert just about anything here! )in his diet"

I know I should try ahrder at expanding his diet, but I just can't fac ethe battles at the moment

Heh-Heh - apparently DS has too much milk and not enough bread and spuds!
Oh, and I must remind him to do some physical activity too

thats pretty much what it said for ds too!

sneezecake jr should be doing more physical actvity, he has cp so its a bit hard!

Did it out of interest, in all categories i should 'watch out'. Ds's diet of the last 5 years consists of bread, dry sweet cereal, potato waffles/chips and diluted blackcurrant juice and certain cakes and biscuits.

claw your ds's diet sounds like mine!
lots of bread, dry special k, chips, dilutey vimto and a few other things....must lose weight!

Glittery, its so difficult to make even the smallest of changes isnt it? He is so resistant to change, he would rather starve or not drink, than accept a tiny change.

Ive tried everything, but no luck yet. We are awaiting an appointment at a feeding clinic, so i will keep you posted if we have any success.

Ds's weight is on the 75th centile, when i say his diet is extremely limited people expect to see this skinny little thing!

Does your ds take any supplements?

lol, no thats my diet not ds's!

although ds's is even more limited but hes mostly tube fed now so luckily thats got all the vitamins and minerals in it.

he was way off the bottom of the centile charts beforehand, he is ridiculously stubborn and refuses most things and as you say will starve himself rather than eat or drink something he doesnt want!

his diet at the moment is chips, wedges, curried rice, jelly (but only at school ) and he has recently re-introduced chocolate after about a year of not eating it. he is now almost at the 30th centile!

i keep trying things that he used to eat and new things that he might like so i tend to cook several choices "just incase" then end of scoffing them myself so theres no waste.
i'd hate to think what centile i'd be on!

ooops Oh right i have found ds's soul mate in you, not your ds then! From off of the chart to 30th is good news.

Luckily, ds manages to eat enough of what he does eat to keep his weight up, all carbs and sugar though, although he is dropping centiles, he was born on the 98th! He was severely anemic, so took iron supplements for years. They have recently taken him off of the iron supplements, although his diet hasnt improved, his iron levels and reserve were getting high due to supplements. He also takes calcium and vitamins supplements.

Unfortunately for me, ds and the dog are the best of friends, so i dont get any left overs the dog does!

Glittery, out of interest does your ds have a food phobia?

Sorry that sounds incredible nosy! its just ds is fearful of any food that isnt on his 'ok' list.

incredibly rather, looked like i was calling you nosy! my brain and fingers are not connecting today, i give up

Too much milk and not enough bread/spuds here too!

Not nosy at all!

im not sure if its a food phobia as such, he is also really stubborn but to be honest most of the food issues started when his dad flung us out, before that he ate just about everything.

we had a lot of upheaval, had to move house 3 times in two years and it just got steadily worse to the point where we tried all the different supplements to no avail and the dietician said he needed a feeding tube.

the doc reckoned the eating/not eating was a control issue with him as because he is so severely disabled eating/not eating was one of the only things he could control (he used to make a point of not eating for his dad after he put us out)

doc reckoned after he had the feeding tube it would take the control away from him and he might start eating again, a lot of kids with ds's level of disability cant eat very well but ds can eat fine he just doesnt want to!

the feeding tube has actually made things worse as although he is now putting on weight nicely, he now eats even less as he's never hungry, he will only eat something if its on his current favourite list and then he will eat loads but its like the rest of the time he couldnt care less as he knows i'll stick something down his tube anyway!

dietician and docs arent bothered as hes getting all his calories and nutrition thru the tube and i suppose i should be happy that now hes only eating things he likes therefore getting pleasure out of it rather than it being a battle but its still soooo frustrating!!

Glittery, thanks very much for sharing, its sounds like its been a very difficult time for you guys.

With ds its a bit of both, they say he likes to control, he has lots of sensory issues and the world must be a pretty confusing place for him, so he controls where he can. He is also fearful of other peoples food going near him or touching his skin and of food not looking 'right' or having 'germs' on it. Ds also has his 'ok' list, where foods come in and out of favour. Usually if one food comes into favour an old one has to go out! So he never actually adds to the list. The list is getting shorter and shorter.

I worry that a feeding tube might be the next step if things dont improve. At the moment they are having trouble control his iron levels with supplements, he has been taking them for 4 years. If his levels get too high, it can damage internal organs, so they are basically waiting for his reserve levels to drop again, then start with the supplements again.

The Dietitian has told us there is nothing more she can do as its not a physical problem causing ds eating problems, she has made recommendations for the feeding clinic. We just see dietitian to keep a check on his height and weight.

It is frustrating isnt it, fingers crossed i suppose!

yep ds's ok list is getting shorter too!
Mcdonalds chips have been replaced by KFC chips, mashed potato by roast potato and pizza and garlic bread by chocolate and jelly!
ds had a problem with salt levels being too low even on supplements when he was younger so i think thats why he craves the high salt fast foods.

the feeding tube has been great from a weight point of view but part of me feels that they were telling me what i wanted to hear so i would go for it rather than addressing his eating problems.
although to be fair as he's pretty much non verbal it would probably have been near impossible to address them from a psychological point of view.

the feeding tube takes away the battles so it has made things easier and ds is delighted that in order to keep up his eating skills he only now ever eats things he loves!

Wow, their eating habits are so similar!

ds will only eat McDonald chips and potato waffles have to have salt on them or he wont eat them. His food texture has to be crunchy or solid, he has a fear of mashed potato! The taste has to be either salty or sweet (OT told me sweet is the most tolerable taste, followed by salty)

Ds is verbal (limited conversation skills) but i think its hard to address even psychologically, as he doesnt know why he feels the way he does if you see what i mean. All he ever says is 'its disgusting' or 'yuk' if shown a food not on his 'ok' list.

Over the years ive tried, you are not leaving the table, not making his usual food available, taking him shopping and letting him choose, timers, making it into a game, faces, patterns, letting him help me cook, rewards, bribery, putting a little bit of a new food on his plate or on the table or anywhere near him, making menus, visual sequence charts, making small changes etc, etc.

No success, he did once eat a chicken nuggett a few years ago! He also has problems with drinking.

Im all out of ideas, i have to constantly prompt him to eat or drink even the food that is on his 'ok' list, if i didnt he just wouldnt eat or drink at all. Hopefully CAMHS or the feeding clinic will offer some ideas to try.

Im just grateful that he is eating/drinking anything at all, im a parent who is happy that ds is eating sweets!

Sounds like your ds is making great progress, chocolate and jelly!

yeah ive tried all the bribery too, sometimes it works i think he does it just to humour me tho, on holiday in Scarborough last year i told him we were going shopping but noticed the time so stopped into the fish and chip shop first for some lunch.
he totally refused the chips...very unusual, so i said if you eat two chips we'll go shopping so he started eating and i thought great until he stopped after the second one then refused any more...should have said 10!!

he very rarely wants to try new stuff but the other week in Tesco he got all excited at the end of the fruit aisle, again very unusual!

turned out grapes, cherries and blueberries were on offer and he was shouting and smiling and indicating that he wanted grapes...he never eats grapes!
i asked him several times and each time he confirmed that he wanted them and looked up at the blueberries as well so we got them and he was all excited at home as we washed them and i cut them up for him, i thought oh my god are we going to have some progress here!

no such luck! the minute they touched his tongue he screwed his face up and spat them out, god knows what he thought they were but he seemed a bit shocked at the taste and needless to say he now totally ignores the fruit aisle!

Fancy that, DS2's diet is carb city.

Actually, even though it claimed he wasn't getting enough dairy or meat/fish in his diet, I've totted it up for myself from other sources and he's getting plenty. He's only had one of his 5, today, though and that was fruit puree mixed with his ready brek. He's full of cold and finding his customary banana rather icky.