Aspie food issue or typical 4 yr old BS...

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ellemenope
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28 Aug 2014, 2:17 am

I know I am not the only one here who is dealing with kids' food issues and sensitivities. I can especially understand some of my son's difficulties because I have my own strange food issues I've only just come to recognize are probably due to my own AS traits. Most of my issues have to do with making food decisions. For example, even when ravenously hungry (especially when ravenously hungry?) I find it extremely difficult to choose a restaurant or menu item. It's like I'm so hungry that I can't stand thinking about the choices and almost would rather not choose and just continue to be hungry. My husband and I used to travel a lot and it was a common problem. Since having my kids and needing to think about their meals before my own, I've relaxed on it- and when I can't settle my mind on something that I can stomach eating, I just let my husband choose and I eat whatever he picks. I also sometimes can not feel like eating or forget to eat (when absorbed in something) until I'm painfully hungry and then have the same problem of not being able to decide what I should eat.

I see my son experiencing very similar problems so I do try to be as understanding as possible. He used to eat almost anything when he was younger, but around 2.5 started with pickiness that got more and more extreme and the foods he would eat became more limited. The thing that I am having trouble with is that there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to his refusals. It's like some days (or for a period of days or weeks) he will want to eat a certain fruit all the time (lately it's nectarines, throughout the summer it was strawberries and blueberries) and then he will suddenly just refuse to eat it. Or he will only eat a certain food like grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch every day then one day NOPE, no more. And then it's back to trying to find something he will eat. I really really can work with him if he decides he wants to eat something and it's healthy- I'm totally happy making grilled cheese sandwiches every single day. Sometimes we get in a good groove where there a good number of foods he will eat (our latest good period it was roast chicken, hot dogs, french fries, berries, apples, one brand of cereal, and a few snacks like popcorn, pretzels, cookies- those are easy but we try to limit). It's the sudden refusals of foods that he has previously loved that is starting to drive me nuts and really leaves us in a lurch when we've bought a cupboard full of his cereal that he now won't eat or a fridge full of berries. And over time, although he does rarely add a new food to his repertoire, the actual number of foods he eats is growing smaller.

I do always offer some of what the rest of the family is eating and he sometimes does try a taste (we start with a lick and usually it doesn't go further than that).

There are a number of reasons I question whether some of his behaviour is bratty 4-yo BS that I can push back on a bit rather than Aspie issues that we should work around. My son will often ask for a number of things and quickly refuse those foods when we try to confirm what he's requesting or (more frustratingly) when we have prepared it and brought it to him. It does seem like a typical kid game or power play in these instances. We aren't bringing him foods he doesn't like or isn't familiar with and we are bringing him what he ASKS for. But he will grow very upset and often end up eating nothing at all. This is kind of similar to my issue above...or is it? I don't know. Either way, he doesn't ever see or hear me struggling with food decisions- I keep it to myself and it doesn't happen often at all anymore, so I don't think he's learning this from me.
Also, after refusing all of his preferred foods, he will constantly just ask for junk food that he knows he cannot have at meal times.

Lately he has been refusing to eat and then complaining about wanting to eat and being so hungry. And obviously his hunger has a domino effect on the rest of his behaviour and mood. And his sleep- he has been waking up at night saying he's hungry and often still refusing to eat. Sometimes if we are at the end of our rope and we give him a hard time about it (like at 3 in the morning when he wakes up screaming about being hungry after we tried to feed him every last one of his preferred foods for dinner and he refused) he WILL give in and eat. But we usually try not to lose our sh*t with him over food because we don't want to make it into a bigger issue than it already is becoming.

But I just don't get it. I've read a lot of the posts about food/eating issues and it seems that a lot of the other AS kids' issues fall in line with certain sensitivities to textures, colours, food not touching etc. THAT MAKES SENSE. My boy just seems to pick his choice foods and on a whim then refuse them or change his preferences. Maddening! AND he does a lot better when out at other peoples' houses or restaurants- he is more open to trying new foods and even complete whole dishes of new things. Not at home, not with mom! :evil:

Now my 1.5 year old is following his lead and learning to arbitrarily refuse even choice foods, demand other things etc. If I can get her to eat seperately from him she does so much better. But that's not realistic- I'd be spending the whole day just feeding them at staggered times.
Meal times are such a stress- I'm so sick of feeding my kids. :roll: I feel dread and panic when it's time to go into the kitchen. During the day I don't even prepare food for myself- I just eat everything the kids are refusing otherwise we have a bin full of wasted food everyday (we still do anyway).


So... does this sound familiar to anyone? What is going on here? Is this a power struggle with typical 4-yo behaviour or is this Aspie stuff? And what to do?
I wish I could just set out a trough of soylent green for these kids in the morning and be done for the day. :lol:



zette
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28 Aug 2014, 6:30 am

DS9 is an aspie and his food issues sound similar -- very restricted list of foods he will eat and then every so often BAM an old favorite suddenly becomes unacceptable. It started around age 2.5 and got progressively worse until about age 6 and since then it's slowly getting a little better. Occasionally now he "regains" a food he used to eat. I was so excited when chicken nuggets came back, and doing back flips when hot dogs and mac and cheese became acceptable. He's willing to take a small taste test of most things, but almost always spits it in the sink. Forget hiding veggies in spaghetti sauce for this kid -- he won't eat sauce period, nor spaghetti noodles!

I also have a DD4 who is on the picky side, with definite strong likes and dislikes. With her I don't get the sense of a power struggle, and she does not go on food jags or suddenly lose foods she used to like. She just doesn't like something and it's only a power struggle if I make it into one by forcing the issue. She will take a bite or two with prompting, and sometimes that's enough to get her over the hump and eat it.

So to me it sounds more AS than typical 4yo stuff. Hang in there!



Last edited by zette on 28 Aug 2014, 7:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

Waterfalls
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28 Aug 2014, 6:57 am

I can't always do this, but both my kids are picky, one has AS, the other does not. They are MUCH pickier around their father (who eats only a few foods) or when I am stressed, they eat much better when I eat with and in front of them with enjoyment. But not if I'm so hungry I only pay attention to the food. They definitely seem to pick up on subtleties, though, so trying to hide that I'm ravenous or disinterested in food doesn't work. When the food is background they eat best, any agitation about eating and they get much more picky.

I think it's a mistake though to blame ourselves as I think the pickiness maybe is inherited and just expressed to greater or lesser degrees in different kids at different times. Only thing you can do is try to be relaxed about eating, role model what you want, and there are some books I've found helpful, got from the library. One in particular I remember recommended a rotation rule where you give the child power to choose ahead of time from preferred foods so they feel in charge of eating, but the child can't have the exact same food two days in a row (for extremely picky eaters the author recommended even cutting the item in different shapes or other subtle distinctions to reduce anxiety about new foods). But the whole idea seemed to be to make eating normal, healthy, positive and help steer away from anxiety and power struggles. I didn't implement much but that idea about what the goal is really stuck with me and I've noticed how moving worry to the background and encouraging even the slightest variation helps overall. Gently encouraging the grilled cheese be cut in a square instead of diagonal or vice versa, sliced apple versus chunked, orange juice in a mug versus in a glass even, anything to gently at a tolerable level preferably acceptable to the child (meaning not a surprise) has helped me. Accidentally cutting the grilled cheese differently used to be a disaster, but asking about it first as a positive experiment worked much better.

Was I able to make sense?



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28 Aug 2014, 7:33 am

Sounds like 4 year old BS.

(Have you seen soylent?)



Both of my kids do this type of thing. My son used to be awful, but he is a great eater now. My (NT) 4 year old sounds like your AS one with food habits. I always longer for my kids to have a CONSISTENT food preference. I could work around that. But neither really ever has.



This is what I do to stay sane:

Limit the availability of the obsessive food preference (it prolongs it as a favorite)

Provide balanced meals that includes at least one thing each person likes (when I'm not sure, I will often let one or both kids choose one side--typically the fruit and/or vegetable).

I don't fuss about my kids eating vegetables or not. I only put a tiny bit on their plates if I don't think they will like it. I don't force them to eat anything, but I keep a chipper attitude about it and frequently tell my kids that it takes many exposures to some foods before you start to like it. My husband and I may recount how we began drinking coffee (we both hated it for a long time first).

I had to stay firm on this, and announce it (once only): "this is dinner" "we don't snack after dinner" "dessert comes after homework and only for those who eat enough protein" (that's our personal house rule, others may have different requirements) and "breakfast is your next meal". And then follow through. It will take awhile to *get* it. Nagging makes it worse (often makes mine more oppositional). My kids are very well aware of this process now.

They (probably) won't starve themselves. (you are watching)




Bringing up Bebe is a book you might enjoy.


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I have been diagnosed with Aspergers and MERLD
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ASDMommyASDKid
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28 Aug 2014, 9:02 am

My son had his biggest issues between 2 and 7 or so. At the time we had the same issue in that it was hard to get enough calories into him. That was the biggest stressor b/c I could not even think of trying any method that involved him not eating and waiting for the next meal. He would just not eat, and that would have been very detrimental. He did drop favorites here and there and pick up new ones but it did not seem as regularly as you are experiencing.

It is possible that your son is testing you if he can sense how important it is to you for him to eat. We did not have that issue at your son's age, but later he would hold out for specific foods he knew we bought like if we bought chips or something. I think we didn't have that problem mainly b/c he was not exposed to too much junk food and fruit was his main preference. By the time he tried that he was older sand his caloric intake was better and I could deal with it in a better way like making him eat real food before the treat.

The best thing that worked was for me to project calm and act more relaxed about it than I felt. I know this is not necessarily recommended, and my son drinks too much juice b/c of this now, but we would give him juice when he would eat nothing else, as he never rejected it. I know juice has a bad rap, and if your son does not require it in a juice box you can also dilute it. I always felpt more comfortable knowing I could get juice calories in him if need be and then that enabled me to be relaxed enough to do what I needed to do to get real food into him, too.



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28 Aug 2014, 10:07 pm

As a kid I didn't like milk or fruit, but I liked milkshakes. So my mother would put bananas, milk and ice cream or yoghurt in a blender and feed that to me. If you find food of the right color you might even sneak in vegetables. Orange + carrot juice for example. I didn't notice many vegetables in the foods you listed, which isn't strange since almost all children will resist vegetables and prefer junk food or sweets. I don't get the feeling he would eat mashed potato, but you can mash vegetables through that as well (carrots+onions for example).



ellemenope
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01 Sep 2014, 11:11 am

Waterfalls wrote:
I can't always do this, but both my kids are picky, one has AS, the other does not. They are MUCH pickier around their father (who eats only a few foods) or when I am stressed, they eat much better when I eat with and in front of them with enjoyment. But not if I'm so hungry I only pay attention to the food. They definitely seem to pick up on subtleties, though, so trying to hide that I'm ravenous or disinterested in food doesn't work. When the food is background they eat best, any agitation about eating and they get much more picky.
Yes- they eat better when distracted. Like in front of the TV. :roll: I would really like not to make that a habit though, so it doesn't happen often at all. And yeah they definitely pick up if I'm stressed or pissed off about it.

I think it's a mistake though to blame ourselves as I think the pickiness maybe is inherited and just expressed to greater or lesser degrees in different kids at different times. Only thing you can do is try to be relaxed about eating, role model what you want, and there are some books I've found helpful, got from the library. One in particular I remember recommended a rotation rule where you give the child power to choose ahead of time from preferred foods so they feel in charge of eating, but the child can't have the exact same food two days in a row (for extremely picky eaters the author recommended even cutting the item in different shapes or other subtle distinctions to reduce anxiety about new foods). But the whole idea seemed to be to make eating normal, healthy, positive and help steer away from anxiety and power struggles. I didn't implement much but that idea about what the goal is really stuck with me and I've noticed how moving worry to the background and encouraging even the slightest variation helps overall. Gently encouraging the grilled cheese be cut in a square instead of diagonal or vice versa, sliced apple versus chunked, orange juice in a mug versus in a glass even, anything to gently at a tolerable level preferably acceptable to the child (meaning not a surprise) has helped me. Accidentally cutting the grilled cheese differently used to be a disaster, but asking about it first as a positive experiment worked much better.

Was I able to make sense?
[b]
Yes. Thanks.



ellemenope
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01 Sep 2014, 11:28 am

screen_name wrote:
Sounds like 4 year old BS.

:lol: I did suspect this was at least partly the case. My boy seems to take all the typical challenging behaviours for his age to very extreme degrees.

(Have you seen soylent?)
Yes I HAVE SEEN THIS. :D I would love it if I could feed this to my family. It's actually quite sad- I used to love cooking and eating different kinds of food. Now I dream of simply ladling out fortified slop to my kids and having that be the end of it.


Both of my kids do this type of thing. My son used to be awful, but he is a great eater now. My (NT) 4 year old sounds like your AS one with food habits. I always longer for my kids to have a CONSISTENT food preference. I could work around that. But neither really ever has.



This is what I do to stay sane:

Limit the availability of the obsessive food preference (it prolongs it as a favorite)

Provide balanced meals that includes at least one thing each person likes (when I'm not sure, I will often let one or both kids choose one side--typically the fruit and/or vegetable).

I don't fuss about my kids eating vegetables or not. I only put a tiny bit on their plates if I don't think they will like it. I don't force them to eat anything, but I keep a chipper attitude about it and frequently tell my kids that it takes many exposures to some foods before you start to like it. My husband and I may recount how we began drinking coffee (we both hated it for a long time first).

I had to stay firm on this, and announce it (once only): "this is dinner" "we don't snack after dinner" "dessert comes after homework and only for those who eat enough protein" (that's our personal house rule, others may have different requirements) and "breakfast is your next meal". And then follow through. It will take awhile to *get* it. Nagging makes it worse (often makes mine more oppositional). My kids are very well aware of this process now.

We have been cutting out snacks for a few days now (we grew very liberal with snacks over the summer to give ourselves a vacation from the whining, and this added to the problem of him not eating dinner then demanding other foods later)- and he will often still refuse his preferred foods and then complain of hunger constantly until the next meal. And the next meal he will eat a bit better, but it doesn't seem to be making that much consistent difference. We'll stick to it though.

They (probably) won't starve themselves. (you are watching)
He won't starve...he will come pretty close to it though. He dropped weight last year and he's tall without much extra meat on his bones to mess around with. He started actually looking a bit skinny, and we relaxed a lot on food just to get him back up to weight. There were a few months when he was eating cereal for almost every meal just to get something in his stomach.

Bringing up Bebe is a book you might enjoy.
[b]
I think I've read about this. Something about how the French give their kids adult food from the start. Yeah... Are there French Aspies in that book? :wink:



ellemenope
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01 Sep 2014, 11:36 am

ASDMommyASDKid wrote:
My son had his biggest issues between 2 and 7 or so. At the time we had the same issue in that it was hard to get enough calories into him. Yes. This is one of our concerns. That was the biggest stressor b/c I could not even think of trying any method that involved him not eating and waiting for the next meal. He would just not eat, and that would have been very detrimental. Yep. This is what we are dealing with. He did drop favorites here and there and pick up new ones but it did not seem as regularly as you are experiencing.

It is possible that your son is testing you if he can sense how important it is to you for him to eat. Definitely. He is challenging me more and more every day... We are not getting along very well... I think we're too similar. We did not have that issue at your son's age, but later he would hold out for specific foods he knew we bought like if we bought chips or something. I think we didn't have that problem mainly b/c he was not exposed to too much junk food and fruit was his main preference. By the time he tried that he was older sand his caloric intake was better and I could deal with it in a better way like making him eat real food before the treat. He still doesn't get it when we say DO THIS FIRST, THEN YOU CAN DO/HAVE THAT. It is a really huge issue because it affects everything. Everything. I am constantly looking for ways to build this understanding. :( He sees what he wants and it's like tunnel vision...nothing else registers even as a way to attain what he wants!

The best thing that worked was for me to project calm and act more relaxed about it than I felt. I'm so horrible at this. I need to do this about food, about EVERYTHING. We have real problems with him picking up on my emotional turbulence...well, the problem is my own emotional regulation. It's my problem. I'm working desperately on it but I've always had anxiety and trouble in these areas. I know this is not necessarily recommended, and my son drinks too much juice b/c of this now, but we would give him juice when he would eat nothing else, as he never rejected it. I know juice has a bad rap, and if your son does not require it in a juice box you can also dilute it. I always felpt more comfortable knowing I could get juice calories in him if need be and then that enabled me to be relaxed enough to do what I needed to do to get real food into him, too.

[b]We do have many things that aren't healthy that we know he will most always eat if it comes down to it. He really won't ever actually starve- if we just give him cake, cookies, whatever fruit he's demanding, and yeah, juice.
:(



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01 Sep 2014, 2:13 pm

Quote:
I think I've read about this. Something about how the French give their kids adult food from the start. Yeah... Are there French Aspies in that book?


No, there is no mention of neurodiversity (etc.) in the book. If that is what you need right now, then it wouldn't be helpful. Adult food from the start isn't really the heart of the book. It's mostly about an American living in France and the differences in parenting noticed. A lot of it happens to revolve around food. I thought you mentioned elsewhere something about "living abroad", which I understood to mean that you were an American who isn't currently living in America. I may have misinterpreted that, though. Both of those aspects together made me think to recommend the book to you.


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btbnnyr
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01 Sep 2014, 2:44 pm

Let him eat nothing until he gets so hungry that he has to eat something.
A real food sensitivity would be like if the child starts gagging as soon as seeing the food and crying inconsolably at any hint of eating the food.


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ellemenope
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01 Sep 2014, 9:56 pm

screen_name wrote:
Quote:
I think I've read about this. Something about how the French give their kids adult food from the start. Yeah... Are there French Aspies in that book?


No, there is no mention of neurodiversity (etc.) in the book. If that is what you need right now, then it wouldn't be helpful. Adult food from the start isn't really the heart of the book. It's mostly about an American living in France and the differences in parenting noticed. A lot of it happens to revolve around food. I thought you mentioned elsewhere something about "living abroad", which I understood to mean that you were an American who isn't currently living in America. I may have misinterpreted that, though. Both of those aspects together made me think to recommend the book to you.


No, no you were mostly correct- I'm Canadian and I am living abroad. Sounds like an interesting book- I remember the media fuss about it. I don't know the last time I read a book that was not about Asperger's/Autism. No time.



ellemenope
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01 Sep 2014, 9:59 pm

btbnnyr wrote:
Let him eat nothing until he gets so hungry that he has to eat something.
A real food sensitivity would be like if the child starts gagging as soon as seeing the food and crying inconsolably at any hint of eating the food.


:( Did you even read the whole thread? This is the kind of flippant advice I get from clueless family and know-nothing parents of NT kids that really pisses me off. Not helping. And, FYI, this is basically what ALL material you will read about this problem say NOT to do.



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01 Sep 2014, 10:33 pm

ellemenope wrote:
btbnnyr wrote:
Let him eat nothing until he gets so hungry that he has to eat something.
A real food sensitivity would be like if the child starts gagging as soon as seeing the food and crying inconsolably at any hint of eating the food.


:( Did you even read the whole thread? This is the kind of flippant advice I get from clueless family and know-nothing parents of NT kids that really pisses me off. Not helping. And, FYI, this is basically what ALL material you will read about this problem say NOT to do.


Yes, I read the thread, and I stand by my suggestion.
You were the one who asked the question if the problem was real food issue or "typical 4 yr old BS".


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02 Sep 2014, 1:44 am

Will he eat peanuts? That's a healthy snack, very high in calories, protein, fiber and contains a bunch of different vitamins/minerals.



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02 Sep 2014, 1:46 am

If it's typical 4 yo BS, the expert is supposed to be Ellen Satter who wrote Child of Mine about picky eating. Basically her advice boils down to: don't make a power struggle out of it, present food family style (always including something they like), and let the child pick what and how much to eat.

If it's sensory, the books to read are Food Chaining and Just Take a Bite, that describe the Sequential Oral Sensory approach used by OT's and feeding therapists. We tried SOS when DS was 6, and I found it to be geared toward preschoolers. DS was not amused and the therapist let him go as a client after 3 months of no progress. I wonder if it would work for him if it was done age appropriately now that he's less stressed.

Then you've got the folks who swear by gluten and casein free (GFCF) diets, or paleo, or Feingold, etc, the theory being that if you correct the diet the kid will be hungry for the right things. Haven't tried these myself, as I'm not convinced and the diets tend to be too much work.

Writing this post reminds me that I want to take another look at Eating for Autism by Elizabeth Strickland. A friend attended her seminar and recommended it. She has a chapter on feeding issues, although I don't recall getting any gems from it the last time I looked at it, and I was put off by the inclusion of GFCF recipes.

My hope is to try a kids cooking class, if I can find one that is actually cooking real food and not "let's make caterpillars out of rice crispies and gummy worms". :roll:



Last edited by zette on 02 Sep 2014, 12:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.