Getting REALLY picky kids to eat (LONG)

[Guest guest]

Hello all,

I just wanted to pass on some information that has helped tremendously for my

son and hope someone will find of use, since the picky eater question comes up

so often.

My 4 yr old has been GFCF for about 10 months and on enzymes for 3 months. I

could never get him to try any foods, even after following the suggestions from

fellow listers. He literally lived on potato chips, pear juice and french fries

for about 3 months and after being sick last winter and not eating anything for

several days I offered beef stew. After that he would ONLY eat Dinty beef

stew, french fries, pear juice, and orange juice.

Finally his ABA team who work out of the local Children's Hospital were able to

do a " feeding program " with him. At least one of his therapists was here for

every meal. At first all his meals were eaten in his therapy room in the

basement and he was sitting in a highchair so that he was unable to get up from

the meal. Each meal was 30 minutes long and they were at 8 am, Noon, and 5 pm

each day, with NO snacks. This was so that he would come to understand that if

he did not eat at the meal, then he would go hungry until the next one. He has

always been sort of a grazer and probably was not experiencing the kind of

hunger that he did on this program.

Most of my son's problem with different foods was textural, not taste. Many

things made him gag, especially smooth and/or slimy textures, (i.e. mashed

potatoes, applesauce, fruit). I was told to prepare meals that had 3-4 items

with varying textures. The first couple meals were pretty rough getting

anything down. The therapists would make him taste something or if he would not

then they would slip a small bite into his mouth. The goal was to have him keep

at least one bite of every food down. Sometimes he would gag or spit up, but

after the first couple meals he was eating some things on his own and it just

kept getting easier.

I should also note that for the first 3-4 days my husband and I were not present

during mealtimes. This was to make his therapists the " bad guys " and not his

parents. By about the 4th day, we were sitting with him at his meal but it was

still in his therapy room and then they gradually moved his meals upstairs at

the kitchen table. The therapists made sure that I was able to sit with him and

have him try different things at each meal. Once I knew what some of his

preferred foods were, I tried to have one of those at each meal and then some

other different things to try.. That way we could use the food he liked as a

reinforcer to try something else. If he ate a green bean, he would get to have

a bite of chicken (which he now loves along with most other meat).

It is still somewhat of a struggle to get him to eat different foods. He still

tries to narrow his range of foods to just a couple things, but it is MUCH

better than having the same exact foods at every single meal, every single day.

His food repertoire now includes any kind of meat, including sausage and bacon,

GF pasta with marinara, green beans, corn, kiwi, banana, applesauce, rice cakes,

broccoli, peas, potatoes in any form, Terra chips, Gorilla Munch and rice milk,

Hain Superfruits jello!, and probably some other things I can't remember. He

has many food intolerances including soy.

In our town, the Psychology Dept.of the Children's Hospital oversees the

" Feeding (or Eating) Program " which not only helps kids with autism, but also

anorexics, kids that are on feeding tubes, etc. I would think a similar program

would be available if you live near a university or children's hospital. We

could have also done this as an inpatient at the hospital.

If nothing else this program has taught me how to go about trying to get him to

eat something. I really was at a loss.

If anyone has any questions about this please feel free to email me. For those

of you at GFCFKids, I am only reading posts at the website so you may want to

post to my private email at: momotrons@....

Thanks,