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

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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".

My 4yr too is a very picky eater. He like many of your kids was a great eater until 2/2.5yr and then went radically down hill. His is mostly texture, dry crunchy things w/o any flavoring(think bbq chips) on them or extra texture on them(think chocolate chip in cookies, he will eat chocolate chips and he will eat cookies but not together). He eats a few different dry cereals, crisp french fries, very crispy bacon and microwaved turkey peperoni. Besides that it is a handful of snack options(popcorn, almonds, pretzels, lentil chips, fruit gummies) and a few candies and plain iced sugar cookies. He eats very browned grilled cheese as long as we are specific about his cheese and bread. We get his fruit and veggies in with V8 fusion which sneaks a full serving of veggies with the serving of fruit. I have also had luck mixing 50% tangerine with 50% carrot juice.

You might think this just a texture issue, but there are weird exceptions and quirks. He won?t eat anything not crunchy, not even cake or ice cream, however somehow my husband went a got a doughnut from the local shop and he offered him a bite(we always offer even if we know he won?t, just in case) and he ate it. He won?t eat doughnut from anywhere else and I even made homemade doughnuts and he wouldn?t even try them. Also he like gardetto?s but he won?t eat the squiggly breadstick but will eat the straight breadstick. He begs for a drink of my coffee, but won?t drink milk. He has lost and gained a few preferences in his crunchy menu, but nothing quite as extreme as your child.

I don?t think either is being a bratty 4yr, but I do think being 4 doesn?t help. Around 2/2.5 when food started being a really issue we had a problem with pizza. He liked the Trader Joes cheese pizza, so we would get one every weekend. He would happily hold it the rest of the trip and we could barely get it out of his hands to get it scanned. Whenever we went to TJ he would insist on getting one or we would have a meltdown. Suddenly he refused to it eat pizza(tj or real pizza) but the need to get it stayed as we were slowly stacking up pizza faster than my husband and I were willing to eat it. I started picking a different pizza I liked better and then distracting him down the isle and after about 6-7 months we no longer had a stack of pizza in our freezer. There was clearly some conflict in him between what he wanted and what he would eat.

We just started a novel food program in ABA. We are starting with apple slices since it was one of the last foods to drop off, also it is crunchy. They made us ID a food he really liked that he would only get during novel food training. He has to interact with the food and then gets some treat, 10 times then he gets his full snack. It is going touch the apple, pick up the apple, put apple to mouth, take a bite of apple. We are to pick up the apple stage and it has caused a bit of stress around it, but he has no trouble touching or picking up the apple slice. I think he gets where this train is moving and isn?t pleased, but is willing to do the silly task to get Apple Jacks(our target treat). I really think the mouth is going to cause some behavior, but I honestly doubt there is enough junk food in the world to change his mind about putting something he doesn?t want in his mouth. It seems as distressing as when his shoe falls off, a big issue in our world. We are both willing to listen to experts and try, but are not expecting a miracle. I mean if this worked why wouldn?t everybody be doing it.

Luckily his is growing really well, is healthy and takes his vitamins so I have allowed myself a break on this.

Hang in there with your picky eater, you are not alone. I like the thought that it will get better at 6 or 7. If this ABA thing works, I will shout it to the rooftops and share.

double post

I am not going to read every word here but both my kids are like this. The one on the spectrum mostly east bread and rice though he will at least taste new stuff. And like you said sometimes a favorite will suddenly get refused for no apparent reason.

Kid #2 (no diagnosis of anything, age 4) is infinitely worse and will only eat things that are PLAIN except for mac and cheese. He can't explain why, just says other stuff is disgusting. I remember being like this as a kid...for example I always wanted a burger with only ketchup. Then one day (I think I was in the 6th grade) I was so starving I ate a burger with other stuff on it and guess what, it was fine. Other things I didn't like because of the texture...I still won't drink milk or eat anything creamy. I can't stand the texture. Bleah