Sould I just let 11 yr old ds live on toast and croissants?

[VerityBrulee]

He has always been a fussy eater and we have tried many different strategies with varying degrees of success. He would make progress, eat a wider range of foods and then regress

For example this morning he had 2 slices of toast, a croissant and 2 mini pain au chocolats. His brother had porridge and his sister had pancakes and fruit salad. For his packed lunch at school he had a plain bagel. That's all. When he came home he was hungry and usually has a raw carrot while I cook, but when I gave it to him he tells me he doesn't like carrots anymore and could he have some bread. I explained that everything he had eaten today was wheat based and he needed to have something else. I offered him whatever he wanted from the fridge but he refused. Consequently he was in a huff with me and so refused to eat his lunch. I know this is a power thing.

He's a smart kid, he knows all about nutrition as I have been droning on about it for years, and he has been learning about healthy eating at school. He is small for his age, very pale and looks malnourished. Trying to feed him well is the single most stressful thing in my life, but I am banging my head off a brick wall.

So, should I just let him eat what he wants in pursuit of a quiet life?

attila thanks for that really interesting post. I had suspected something similar a few years ago. As it happened we had to see an ed psych as ds needed to be assessed for dyslexia. I was talking to her afterwards and mentioned the eating so she gave me a huge questionaire to fill in and we went back for another session to deal specifically with eating. She didn't think he had sensory issues, she felt it was a matter of control and she gave us a very detailed strategy to increase his range of foods. We followed this through and it worked to an extent but the bottom line is that he is eating because we are making him eat rather than deriving any pleasure from food, let alone nutrition.

The idea of fear certainly has some resonance for me. Intellectually he understands why he needs to eat but something is holding him back. He hates 'messy' foods - sauces, soups etc, I think partly because he can't see what's in them. Involving him in cooking doesn't seem to help. He wouldn't dream of eating shepards pie or casserole, but will eat steak and potato. One of his favourite meals is chicken ramen, I think because he can see exactly whats in it IYKWIM. If I put it in a blender and pureed it he would not eat it.

It is very wearing to live with as it is such an effort to keep his blood sugar level, his behaviour really deteriorates when he needs food, I know from experience that when he is on the edge of a 'meltdown' that I need to get food into him, but he will insist that he's not hungry and won't eat. Aargh, it's like dealing with a toddler. OTOH he is a really bright and perceptive child. He is the most complicated of my children!

Sorry to analyse in such detail, but it's useful to write it all down. I shall certainly do some reading on the subject and look into a referral. Thanks again

I'm coming to this late but reading your posts is like reading about my own son Verity. He is now 7, and like you, I have tried all those approaches to nth degree. Every person you meet thinks that it is going to be complete news to you that 'they'll eat if they're hungry'. D'huh really? Gosh having dealt with this for X years, that NEVER occurred to me ...

It is like any food apart from those particular items he will eat are not food at all, or are poison. I can sit in front of him eating a Mars Bar and even if he's starving he won't say a thing. It is like he's not even registering it as food.

My son is mostly texture based in his resistant eating. It is the texture he calls 'slime' he can't take. So no butter, or cheese, or caramel, or foods that turn to a slimey texture in your mouth like marshmallow. The list is incredibly long.

I also love the comments I get regularly along the lines of 'oh well my child is a really great eater, tries everything, probably because we fed him/her all the foods we were eating right from the start'. Really? Do you honestly think I fed him just a couple of pureed foods or something until he was 2?

Sorry rough patch at the moment and needing to blow off steam. Have been trying to find a place to chat to parents of other resistant eaters but haven't found one. Except here.

Just read this thread and my ds is nearly 15 and very similar.....but he is nearly 6ft and has a 38 in waist!
He lives off nutella and toast, pizza and pasta.....oh and crisps and scrambled egg on toast and sometimes sausages!
He drives me insane with this......he just will not eat a dinner that we eat and as money is very tight I refuse to serve him up a meal that will go to waste.
He's been like this for about 2-3 years now...before then he would eat almost anything, ESP when he was a little boy!

arggghhh just typed long reply and it disappeared!!

ds 12 exactly the same, Verity - no advice from me I'm afraid, we've tried all the approaches suggested here to no avail but it's good to know we're not the only ones struggling with this

ds extremely thin and we also find that keeping his blood sugar levels high enough to avoid meltdown is tricky especially as he doesn't recognise the feeling of hunger - he's always amazed that his mood miraculously improves within minutes (or less) of eating something, even though it happens every single day!!!