Coincidentally, my kid asked to try mustard today. It did not go over well, but that there has been something new tried every week is fantastic. I really put that on me not pushing, keeping it simple. One of these days we’re going to try something new that is good.
I didn’t express it well. I meant, autistic kids can’t tell you why they are rejecting a food, opening the problem to a possible simple solution (example: I knew one kid who would not eat orange Cheddar cheese, but would eat white Cheddar, from the same company, and they tasted the same to me, and to his parents, so we were pretty sure it was the color, and we knew for a fact he did not like the color orange), but there is nothing about autism that makes it difficult for a child to eat-- some studies of kids with Asperger’s syndrome have suggested a correlation with IBS and Crohn’s disease, but all the research isn’t in, and it seems to happen with high-functioning forms of autism-- anyway, there’s nothing physically wrong with autistic children as a whole that makes eating difficult. They have idiosyncrasies, like everyone, only more so, in many cases, but can’t communicate them.
We had the peanut butter sandwich rule - but only once they were old enough to make their own sandwich (which was around four). You can eat what Mom or Dad made, or you can make yourself a peanut butter sandwich - including cleaning up.
A friend of mine has a nephew with a lot of labels - perhaps too many labels. He had real food issues from a young age - but they also catered to them because of his labels - so he learned pretty quickly how to manipulate the adults in his life. When he was seven or eight he ended up on vacation with us and ran into the peanut butter sandwich rule - peanut butter sandwiches were one of the few things he would eat - he didn’t know how to make one.
If your kid is going to have food issues, its really important that they learn to deal with them. And four is not to young to start learning. My daughter has a friend who at 13 still eats maybe two dozen things (including beets and brussel sprouts, but the traditional Kraft Mac n Cheese and chicken nuggets as well), but she is also food independent - she eats before she visits, is very polite at the dinner table, even if she simply moves her food around a little on the plate, and on a long overnight, comes with her own snacks. That is far different that my friends nephew, who is about the same age and throws a tantrum when the food in front of him is not on his few foods list. Plus making their food issues their problem as much as you can for their developmental stage can separate out the true issues from behavior that is merely manipulative.
Oh my god, I love this so much!
I am not a parent, so I won’t offer advice here, but I will offer this probably-useless anecdote.
When I was about 7 and my sister was maybe 5, we stayed with my asshole grandpa for a night. He determined that we were to eat asparagus. We refused. He insisted. It ended with my sister getting spanked, sobbing under the table, and me eating the damn asparagus. I didn’t touch it for 20 years after that. My sister still won’t eat it. My dad’s parenting style was much-informed by his father’s. I ended up being almost-anorexic as a teenager, and a horribly picky eater until I controlled my own food choices as an adult.
Now, at 33 I’m a bit of a healthy-food nut and a very adventurous eater. But there were a lot of negative attitudes about food growing up. A lot of talk about “fattening” foods from my mom, and “you’re going to eat this because I said so” from my dad. They both meant well, but…the effect was not quite what they were going for, I think. None the less, I’ve turned out better than most in terms of food, so I guess kids will end up being who they are, in the end. Regardless, I think pbbth’s approach might have saved us all some grief.
Thanks!
Sorry to hear about your family’s food issues. My family was much the same way. I have memories of being forced to sit at the table for hours after everyone else was finished, staring at a piece of broccoli or whatever until it was time for bed. I vowed I would not do that my daughter and so far our approach seems to be working splendidly so I feel like I am doing something right. Last night we had chicken with mac and cheese, creamed spinach and fruit salad and when I finished eating my daughter stood up and clapped and cheered for me, saying, “Good job Mama, you eat all you fruit!” I was overwhelmed with happiness to see her reacting so positively to food and being so supportive of other people. She has learned not only that food is a joyous experience but that everyone deserves support and should be rewarded for making good decisions.
My nephew at that age was seemingly only eating penne pasta with the sauce on the side so he could dip it. Put the sauce on it and you might as well have served him a plateful of hornets. I assume he sometimes ate other stuff since he didn’t perish from malnutrition but he was a super picky eater.
He’s since sort of grown out of it (age 9 now). He’s still picky and won’t eat pizza with anything but cheese on it and won’t eat hotdogs and stuff but he’s at least expanded past penne pasta with sauce on the side. He’s otherwise fine and normal – plays league soccer, got all A’s last year in school, socializes well.
My older son ate damn near anything and still does but my three year old is a bit picker. We’re lucky enough that he has groups of foods he’ll eat (pretty much any chicken, etc) and most of our worries just comes from regular “eat your veggies” type stuff.
I just got internet back after an ISP outage only checking stuff using a cell phone, thanks to the suggestions and I’ll try to read the thread and reply individually…
Oh and the toddler thing is probably a local language issue I have picked up, people call kids up to five babies heh.(that start public school at age 2) Which sounds ridiculous to me, but then I do think I have a toddler.
I’m not upset at all by the autism suggestion, it is something I suspect. He talks but prefers not to, he calls the milk and tea mixture tea so yea he brings it to me and says tea which makes his intentions clear. He has also made it himself when we refused to try to introduce more foods.
This kid liked GOAT CHEESE during the eat anything phase.
If you suspect it, then try to get the diagnosis confirmed. This way, you can get help with the food issues from people who know how to deal with autistic kids, and have dealt with food issues before. They’ll have techniques that have worked before, and know when something is working, and when to back off, and your insurance will pay for it. If you don’t have insurance, there are different kinds of public funds you can tap into.
There are excellent therapies for autistic children. The earlier they start, the better the outcome. If you suspect autism, have your child evaluated for it immediately.
Yea I just didn’t want to fall into the everything is autism thought, because I know this is something most kids go through in one way or another. Hell the worst picky eating kid I’ve ever known was never suspected of autism, and for years he would eat one item which was Mcdonalds chicken nuggets. I asked his mom how she broke that habit, she said it took three years and he just grew out of it.:eek:
Hah yesterday it took all day but we got him to eat rotisserie chicken at least(NOT from KFC) finally near bed he got up and asked for the chicken he had been refusing since lunch 
I’m open minded to trying lots of stuff, I just keep in mind not to be punitive if it really isn’t working and I don’t think he is at fault.
Again, picky eating, even when to uncommonly severe degrees, does not an autistic child make … the issue is the allusion to other issues that together might make up more of a complete picture that warrants concern.
If so, if communication skills have been slow to develop and/or atypical, if social skills are off, if play development is atypical, or if he in other ways exhibits large degrees of behavioral rigidity or is prone to meltdowns when routines are not kept … the list goes on … heck if you just have your gut sensor going off with some concern even if you can’t articulate what that concern is exactly being triggered by … then raise the concern with your child’s doctor and decide together if a comprehensive evaluation is warranted.
What he said.
Also, speaking from some experience, it’s important as a parent not to let media stories about over- or under-diagnosis of something affect how you handle your children. Maybe the rest of the world does think “everything is autism.” So what? You’re not parenting the rest of the world. You’re parenting your child. If you have developmental concerns, find out if those concerns are warranted or not. You don’t want to wait until he’s a third-grader and having serious difficulty managing school and friends and then realize, oops, we should have addressed this five years ago but we thought we were overreacting.
Let me re-echo the people telling you that if he is showing other signs of autism, you can add this to the pile of “things that make us think it’s worth evaluating Junior.”
That said, I cannot recommend this book enough. The recipes in it are OK but nothing great, but the explicit philosophy of feeding and instructions on what to do when and in what order are really, really useful.
Good luck. I know that it is really tough.
-Mom of a kid who regularly eats nothing but one brand of bread for dinner
Not much to add, except try not to refer to him as a picky eater. We made that mistake with my son and it sort of became self-fulfilling. Now we say he’s a cautious eater – he likes to take his time before trying new things and is more comfortable with familiar foods.
(He’s 8, and for a while wouldn’t eat anything but buttered noodles or chicken nuggets. Those are still his favorite things but he’s branching out some.)
Interestingly. I’d heard of head size but not overall height. My son (“Dweezil”) is an Aspie and has a larger-than-average head, or at least did as a child; I haven’t measured it lately but it was a problem buying shirts for a while. Of course that runs in the family (I can NOT buy women’s hats and even most men’s hats are a bit small) and arguably I’m not autistic. Dweezil is average height and always has been.
My nephew (far more severe autism) IS taller than anyone in his family.
Back to the OP: I imagine that food alone is NOT a reason to suspect autism, though of course it might be taken into consideration if he had any other signs. The usual advice others have given are all good things to try. I do know that there ARE kids who will refuse to eat “wrong” foods to the point of endangering themselves but I gather that’s fairly rare and most kids won’t go more than a day or so.
You could always “run out” of at least one favored food and see what he does with a substitute.
Also try giving him his usual stuff, while you and the other family members have something else and make lots of “yum, best stuff ever, too bad Baby doesn’t want any” noises.
I found the studies because I looked for them… Back when I was just out of college I worked with two little boys on the autism spectrum and they were both tall for their ages - one of them was 5 and only a foot shorter than me (according to height charts he was as tall as the average 10 year old boy). Then I got lent to the other kindergarten program for a couple of days mid-year and observed that the boys with autism in that class were all tall for their ages too. So I wondered if there was a connection and lo and behold, I’m obviously not the only one who noticed since there are studies about it.