Food Aversion - Hampton,VA

Work with the therapist. Otherwise the only advise I can offer is that you are the parent. It is your job to provide healthy and nutrtious food. If the child doesn't want to eat it, don't force them. How does your child feel about the move from Germany? Perhaps this might be her way of protesting or showing she's stressed. As a military wife I know there isn't always money to cater to your kid's picky eating habits let alone your own, and that so long as you're offering food you would eat don't worry. Not everyone wants to eat at every meal time.

My son chose to drink his dinner opposed to eating quite often. He figured out early that if he did not eat he would not have to go the "backway" to the restroom. Simple fear I guess, outgrew that. Now he's 14 and eating me out of house and home!

My daughter is almost 3 and has some fairly serious food adversions as well. She has a trach so she has never had a bottle and she has been in therapy now for almost two years. She is getting better but still fights some foods. I would just wait it out and see if things improve over a few months or so. If you have any questions I would take to your daughter's therapist and find out things that you can do with her at home to help further what they do during therapy. Its all about repatition and constancy.

Hi C.,

My seven year old has ADHD and many food aversions that go along with it. He has several sensory issues that developed as a toddler and that is when the food aversion began. Connor will not eat anything with a too soft texture. No mashed potatoes, no white rice, no pudding, no dairy or anything else that seems "mushy". He likes meat so he eats a lot of chicken, fish, hamburgers. With veggies we keep it simple. Nothing on his plate can touch and you can certainly forget about a casserole or anything that blends two foods together. The only expections to this is spaghetti and pizza. And if pasta is over cooked you can forget it he wont eat that either. We did not get therapy but I just kept at it. Small amounts of food at a time, nothing to overwhelming. Simple things, such as some crackers and a piece of apple. Peanut butter and jelly worked great when i cut the sandwich into fours and trimmed the crust. Good luck!

I had the exact same problem with my daughter. Matter of fact, when my ex and I moved back from Germany (she was 13months old) she did not gain weight for 4 months! Don't force her...that will only make things worse. She might be just trying to adjust to the new surrounds as well. My daughter was only 35 lbs when she was 6 years old, and now at 10 only weighs 50 at the most. We learned to just make things she's familiar with and that she will eat, and if there is something new, just make sure it's served with things she does like.

My suggestion is to offer her less during meal time. I have a daughter who is currently 5 1/2 yrs old She will be 6 in Oct. She has always been a bad eater. Even when she was really little i couldn't get her to eat more than a 1oz bottle from the hospital and never got down a full bottle even during and after weening. So i feel for you. But what i have come to realize is if i offer VERY little at meal time she will eat it. So I've been doing this for about a month. After the first week i started offering her just a little than before. I started off with about one spoon of each food. So if i have three items on her plate i had three spoons. I require her to eat it all. I don't let her up for 1hr if she hasn't eaten it by than i let her up but she gets nothing to eat until the next meal. Not snacks or drinks except water. Now since I've been doing this for about a yr. She's Eating better. I'm not saying it's great but it's better. Now she's starting kindergarten so we will have to see if it transfers to school.
But i believe this is all based out of what WE as parents expect a child to be able to eat and it's not realistic for the Size of the child. I think we put to much there and it over whelms them and so they don't eat any.