OT - PDD and food phobic?

[Ali]

Anyone have any luck in getting kids to eat? I have tried to deal with it, let him eat what he wants, have been told to starve him, been told to just make him the same food I am eating and if he doesn't eat too bad, have been through an ABA feeding treatment plan in home where DS didn't eat or drink anything but water for 5 days because he wouldn't eat the spoonful of applesauce he was required to eat and I wasn't allowed to give him anything else until he complied. He is average weight and very tall so his pediatrician told me to back off. His psychologist tells me to have a scheduled meal and snack time and ofer him one new food every meal and take it away at the first sign of anxiety towards it, so he doesn't feel the anxiety and cause more problems. Thus making every meal time unpleasant and rigid for me.

DS is 5 now - and he eats Trix raspberry rainbow yogurt, Juicy Juice purple juice boxes, buttercrisp round crackers, polly-o sting cheese, graham cracker sticks, gerber baby square vanilla crackers. Note the specificity of brand names -there are no exceptions and no substitutions. All I am looking for is an increase in the foods he will eat so I don't have to send a cooler to kindergarten with him to keep his yogurt and cheese cold enough so he will eat them and his being able to drink juice in a darn cup and not a box!!!!!!!

So - advise me of how to get him to not be scared of food because I certainly don't have any more ideas. I am radically changing how he gets food, have restricted how much yogurt he can eat, and have cut of the juice boxes so he has to be hungry. I am constantly telling him he has choices and he can make a choice to eat a different food or to be hungry. He tells me his BRAIN is telling him he can't eat or drink anything else. How do I reason with a 5 year old autistic brain?

Alicia

 

[Rosie]

Alicia it is so hard.

My own DS is now 11 and still afraid of food. We are considering paying for hypnotherapy for him - although I am waiting for advice from an Autism specialist on this at the moment.

Things that have helped my DS have been all tied up with his obsessions. He loves to play Runescape on the PC, characters on that game cook and so I cooked their foods and he tried them. Whatever my DS's obsessions have been over the past six years or so have had a food element somewhere. When he was obsessed with ancient Romans we tried some very strange food! He has not always liked the new foods and I really try not to pressure him (although it is very difficult not to). Would you believe that he recently tried Seaweed becasue a recent obsession is with Sea Creatures and oceans.

Good luck Alicia - there are many of us going through this torture. I would say that it is good to listen to others and try new ways but you truly have your child's interests at heart. Keep trying and you will come up with ways to improve the situation.

 

[sadeeyore]

Alicia, thanks for posting this question , I have been thinking about asking the same .

My DS is 10, he only eats croissants (good quality ones not the cheap looking ones), Mcdonalds fries, which he struggles with in Orlando for the first few days of our holiday as they are slighty different. He will also eat toast (certain brand of bread), pototo chips (called crisps here in the UK), and a couple of types of candy. I'm sure I haven't missed anything .

My DS hasn't enough speech (or maybe understanding) to tell me why he won't eat anything else. I'm not actually sure he ever gets really hungry .
If he doesn't get the food he wants, he doesn't look for any other food. If for example the toast isn't done just right, he will throw it away, but won't look for more.
My DS would have eaten lots of different types of food when he was little, but when he was around 2 1/2 years old, that just stopped.

Sorry, I can't be more helpful Will be interested in others replies.

 

[BlondeAlligator]

I'm not sure if this will apply to any of you, but my DD has Autism and we are in the process of putting her on a Gluten Free/Casein Free diet. A lot of informal studies show that kids with Autism can benefit from this diet because of the ill effects that gluten and casein can have in their systems. One side effect of the diet is that once the gluten/casein is out of their system, they are more open to trying new foods.

If anyone wants more information about this diet, PM me & I'll give you some websites to look at.

Other advice I have been given is to just try one food at a time, say peas for example. At first you just put a pea next to your child's plate & the rule is that the pea has to stay there for the whole meal. Once kiddo is comfortable with the pea being there, then kiddo has to touch the pea at every meal. Then put the pea to their lips, then put the pea in their mouth, then chew it & eat it. It's a long, slow process, but it has worked a couple of times with my DD.

Good luck with everything & hang in there!