My Child Won’t Eat

By hopekaibear

I can’t believe I found this. If you’ve ever wondered, or cared, or judged, what it’s like to have a child who has oral aversions, watch this. It’s a series of 5.

4 Responses to “My Child Won’t Eat”

  1. kalen Says:

    wow… chocolate for every meal? i’m surprised that they don’t eventually form aversion for their “safe” foods, actually

  2. hopekaibear Says:

    That girl is very extreme. Very. That is a problem that kids who only eat certain foods burn out on those foods and then you’re in trouble. Autumn goes through phases where all she wants to eat is a certain kind of yogurt. Then after a while she won’t have anything to do w/it. Fortunately she has enough foods that she can do that. Autumn actually eats well – yogurt, string cheese, milk, pb&j, apples, and bananas are really her staples. Vegetables are what I worry about most. But still it’s better than eating McDonald’s and hotdogs all of the time. It’s just always stressful to get her to eat.

  3. kalen Says:

    well just keep going – it looks like they’re starting to make progress in this area. as technologically advanced as we are (or think we are) it always surprises me that we’re so behind in some places medically. strange.

    thank god that autumn has some good staples in her diet, though! that’s really good news… <3

  4. raisingsmartgirls Says:

    I just caught the first three minutes of it and it makes me sad for that chocolate eating child. I know my oldest had aversions to eating foods. Her diet consisted of pb and j, mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, plain pasta, pancakes. She never liked hot dogs either. Fortunately she did eat fruits and vegetables and will tolerate some beans.

    She started when she was about 15 months rejecting foods, and for a good 2-3 years had to bring pb and j sandwiches every time we went out, because she’d never eat anything on the menu or at anyone else’s home. She never ate anything with a sauce or a dressing on it.

    It got so painfully embarrassing to hear my family members make comments about what she would and would not eat. They thought she was just being stubborn. It was so hard to tell them otherwise. When I tried to “force” her to eat, she’d react badly, choke and cry (this was from my otherwise compliant child). I knew she wasn’t doing it on purpose.

    I ended up making lots of protein pancakes (whole wheat pancakes made with whey protein powder, blended up oats for added fiber, and wheat germ for added b vitamins). I would also make a topping out of blueberries and raspberries cooked on the stove a little bit with a bit of sugar.

    I also added protein powder to fruit smoothies (yogurt, frozen blueberries, strawberries and raspberries). You don’t have to use whey protein, there’s egg, soy and rice protein powder available too.

    When I found Barilla Plus pasta, I realized I could get more nutrients in her with that as well. It’s made with chickpeas and other good things, but the texture is more like semolina pasta when it’s cooked. It helped to make me feel like she was getting more nutrients into her.

    Slowly, using gradual exposure (and I mean it took like a year and a half) of getting her to place a bite of meat (like baked chicken), holding it there for a little bit, then allowing her to spit it out, then chewing for a few minutes, then spitting it out, to actually swallowing one bite, I got her to increase her diet to include plain chicken. Then eventually, we moved on to beef.

    She finally enjoys cheese pizza, even though it has a tiny bit of sauce on it. We make it at home with pre-made crusts.

    Now at 7, she still grumbles at the idea of having steak or chicken for dinner, will take about an hour to eat 6 bites of meat, but she does do that. Now I can take her anywhere and be relatively satisfied that she will find something on the menu she will eat.

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