Food and children, no matter what we do we are going to get in wrong when thinking about the judgement of other people. Feed them what they will eat, well then they don’t have a balanced diet and you are just giving into them and ultimately they will rule the house. Don’t feed them what they will eat and you are starving them and causing eating disorders. Do a mixture of both, well you are indecisive as a parent and how will your children ever learn to navigate the world.
I am so past this now. In the last few weeks something has snapped in my head. I am not going to lie. I have been in quite a dark and twisty place mentally and when this happens I find myself making changes to my and my family’s life. I look at how our everyday life can be improved.
And this time I have found a lot of my stress is coming from the judgement of others and generally by this I mean society as a whole.
Recently I have been concerned that I should be providing well rounded meals. That the meals should follow a rigid format, meat/veg/potato. Riley hates potatoes in any form (yes including chips) which makes meal planning hard.
He eats very little meat, preferring salmon.
I have tried blending veg and adding it to a sauce as if you have a ‘picky’ eater, this is all the advice given but apparently it changes the texture of the sauce and he then won’t eat it.
I have had fridges full to the brim of fruit and it just rots away, just because you provide it does not mean it will be eaten.
We have tried smoothies, which Riley will have but only very specific ingredients and must be blended to a liquid, no texture. However I am thankful it is a way of getting extra nutrients into him.
Meals can and usually do take an hour, he picks, twists and pulls apart his food. Nibbles at the edges but as long as we leave him alone and don’t nag he will generally make his way through it. It just takes patience.
I will add here that we do not have food aversions with Samantha, quite the opposite. Samantha does not get the usual feedback/sensory input from food. She does not get full, she will eat/cram foods without really tasting them or feeling/noticing the temperature of it. She doesn’t really have food preferences as long as there is lots of it. Our struggles with Samantha are very different to those usually discussed in terms of people and autism although very real and very problematic. I will cover this however at another time.
We get Riley to try new foods with time and patience. He has a small amount of our food on his plate but he doesn’t have to try it. This did not start easy. We had meltdowns every night, having that small spoonful of food on his plate created a lot of anxiety for him. But slowly he became used to it and through not pushing it as an issue (no encouragement to try it) he began to poke at it and then after many attempts on his plate would try it. Most times he doesn’t/wouldn’t like it but the fact he was willing to try it was huge. As a result now Riley has a much more expanded variety of foods he is willing to eat providing his anxiety is low otherwise he will revert back to his safe list.
There are weeks where Riley eats very little. It always concerns us when this happens as he does not have the weight to lose. We leave his favourite foods around the house, to take away the demand of eating, we let him have access to what he wants when he wants but ultimately he isn’t interested. What we have found is after a none specific amount of time (sometimes it’s a day, sometimes it’s weeks) he will start eating again and will generally make up for the calories he didn’t eat. We have found that stressing about it, and making an issue of it just makes matters worse.
I have very recently come to the conclusion, It doesn’t matter what Riley eats as long as he eats. No matter how much we force food on him or leave him to go hungry it won’t make him eat something he is adverse to. I have recently learnt to stop stressing if he wants a sausage roll with plain pasta and grated cheese so be it. If he wants a plain chicken wrap with plain white rice then that’s what I am going to give him. I am of the opinion that as long as a child is eating then that is a win. We need to stop looking at outside sources for approval. We are the ones who know our children the best, we know their likes, what they can tolerate, and who they are. We don’t need others to reassure us we are doing a good job (or more likely tell us we aren’t), we have this (at least this week!).
