How a Stranger’s Advice Helped my Autistic Daughter Overcome her Eating Issues

My daughter has always had struggles with food. From the moment she was weaned she has refused, spat out or thrown food away. Her weight has always been a concern yet no-one seemed to take me seriously.

That was until she was diagnosed with autism just before her 5th birthday and on her diagnosis letter they wrote about her limited diet and sensory avoidance with food.

I was so excited a year later when we finally received an appointment with a sensory trained occupational therapist for children with autism.

I was sure this professional would help us.

We tried everything she suggested. We did so many different ‘desensitisation’ activities like messy play, baking and play doh. We had fun with plastic food and real food and we looked through recipe books together.

Yet her eating remained as restricted as ever and her weight continued to drop.

Eventually the appointments drew further apart until there was nothing left to suggest.

If anything we had dropped foods and my little girl was living off small amounts of cows milk, licks of chocolate sandwich spread, peppa pig spaghetti and cheesy pasta from a well know pizza restaurant.

Then at 6 years old she became very ill with pneumonia and stopped eating altogether. It was terrifying! By this time I had managed to get her to drink one brand of orange squash to keep her from dehydration but then the manufacturers suddenly stopped making it and I broke down on the phone to them. (https://faithmummy.wordpress.com/2015/04/17/to-the-woman-on-the-helpline/)

I was watching my own daughter starve herself.

Miraculously we got through it but her eating was as restrictive as ever and we had an urgent referral to child and adolescent mental health. By urgent they really mean three to four months by which time things were at true crisis point. There was no fluid or food consumed the entire school day at this point and very little at home either.

We did everything that was suggested again. We dished up what we were having on a side plate but ignored it if it was refused. We lessened her anxiety by allowing technology at the kitchen table and gave basic food choices. We tried being strict. When that failed we tried being lenient. Nothing changed.

A year later child and adolescent mental health withdrew too.

We then saw a dietician whose plan was supplementary drinks. My daughter refused to drink them.

There were no professionals left to try.

We did everything the professionals suggested and still we could not get my daughter to eat.

Then one day I was chatting to an editor of a site I write for. She asked if I would write a blog for the site but she had a radical suggestion that changed everything. She asked if I could ask my 8 year old daughter why she didn’t like to eat.

A stranger suggested something simple but incredible: ask the child.

So I did. And she told me this: https://autismawareness.com/the-reason-i-dont-like-to-eat/

The site published the piece and it went viral. Thousands upon thousands were touched by the private thoughts of an 8 year old who struggled with eating.

Rachel had never met my daughter. She has no professional training in autism or eating disorders. She is not sensory trained nor a child phycologist. Yet her advice was so simple but life changing. I will never be able to repay Rachel for saving my daughter’s life.

It’s now seven months since that blog was written. When my daughter wrote that she only ate a tiny amount of foods. Her BMI was less than 14 and her weight was on the 0.74 percentile. In other words she was not even on the chart and she was dangerously underweight! She was pale and ill looking with dark circles under her eyes. She had no energy and her mental health was poor. There was a whole lot of talk about feeding tubes.

Naomi’s post reached over 282 thousand people just on the one site. Most importantly though it reached down into my heart. I read and reread her thoughts and radically changed how I fed my daughter.

I took meals to where she was.

I let her eat in whatever way she felt comfortable.

I made sure food never touched.

I stopped nagging her to eat.

I bought and cooked what she liked the way she liked it.

We stopped eating at the kitchen table and let her eat while watching you tube or TV.

Seven months later and no-one is talking about feeding tubes anymore. Her BMI is now 15.4 and she is on the 4th percentile on the chart for her weight. She now has twenty items she will eat compared to four seven months ago.

My daughter still has an eating disorder. She still has autism. But we are making progress thanks to one stranger’s life changing advice.

What can we all learn from this? Listen to what the person you are trying to help is saying. Really listen. What works for one person is not always right for another.

Oh and always be open to advice…even if it comes from a stranger!

Rachel holds a very special place in my life. She was the stranger who helped my autistic daughter overcome her eating issues.

There is no payment or thanks ever enough for something like that.

The reason I don’t like to eat

My beautiful blue eyed girl has recently been diagnosed with an eating disorder. Three years ago she was diagnosed with autism. Last week I sat with her and we talked. This is all her own words. She asked me to share so others understand.

 

Sometimes bedtime is the best time. It is the one time people leave me alone. They stop asking things like ‘are you hungry Naomi?’, ‘would you like a drink Naomi?‘, ”are you sure you don’t want a snack?’
Why do people eat and drink so much anyway? I have things I much prefer doing like watching you tube and playing my own games with my toys.
How am I meant to eat or drink when I am doing something else?
Sometimes people even want me to change rooms to eat.
School do that.
Why?
I am comfortable and happy and then you make me move and my brain is thinking about where am I going, did I leave anything I might need, what if things have changed when I get back? What is someone touches anything?
Those things scare me.
You want me to move to somewhere, sit down and eat what you have made.
But I didn’t ask for it. I did not know it was happening. No-one told me I would smell different things, hear different voices and touch different stuff and now you want me to even taste things?
It is too much so I just freeze.
I can hear you but everything is fuzzy.
I am so scared. I am scared that people are looking at me. I am scared everyone is going to talk to me. I feel sick.

Why do people eat funny things? People eat things with bright colours and I can’t understand that. My body is a pinky beige colour. That is a safe colour. Like a light brown sort of colour. If my skin is ok then things that colour are ok too.

You want to know why I still sometimes don’t eat things that are my skin colour? Well it is just wrong. And my brain is all upset about food. When I play with my toys they look the same, they stay the same and they act the same. Sometimes I eat something and it tastes nice, it is the right colour and it fells nice and soft in my mouth. But then some days I eat what you tell me is the same and it isn’t the same. It is not the way I saw it the time I liked it. It does not have the same softness and I get upset. You ruined it. Why do people do that? I order my toys in lines so when I look at them they look the same. I feel safe like that. But you don’t let me do that with food. If I put it in order it makes sense. I want to know it is ‘right’ and I need to check it. What if it is wrong and it goes inside me? That would hurt me.

That is why I have to have one thing then another. My brain tells me ‘this is nugget skins’ and I remember what they taste like. You damage it if it has sauce or potatoes on. Then it is not nugget skins but some weird thing my brain does not know. So all nuggets are dangerous. And I get scared again.

I like soft. When I chew sometimes I get a little tiny bit to swallow and sometime a bigger bit. That means it tastes different and it does not make sense. Nibbling is safer. My teeth don’t want to touch stuff because then it tastes of teeth not what it should taste like. Teeth is not a nice flavour. You know that because no one makes anything teeth flavour do they?

I feel sick sometimes. Mummy says it is hunger but I don’t get it. My tummy makes me feel sick and people say it needs food when it already wants to get rid of what is in there so why add more? That does not make sense to me.

I don’t think people like me sometimes. They shout at me and keep making me eat. I get scared and sad, Please leave me alone. I like it best when mummy puts things I like near me when I am playing so my toys can look at it and tell me it is ok. I know my world is ok then.

All day long people eat eat eat. And I get scared scared and more scared. I eat at breakfast and then you want me to eat again for lunch or snack at school, then dinner, then supper.

I want it to end some days. That’s why bedtime is the best for me.

Mummy asked me if I dream about food when I sleep. No way! I dream about trains. Thomas tank engine is brilliant. He never eats and I like that!

This article first appeared here

 

She is NOT a ‘spoil brat’ she is a child with serious food aversions!

Have you ever joined any food groups on social media or watched food programmes on television? I have to say I usually avoid them as someone who generally has little time to watch TV and who struggles to cook.

However I was chatting to a friend today who had been watching TV recently and heard a famous chef on prime time TV talking about ‘fussy eaters’ and saying that it was all down to the parents ‘giving in.’ She felt she had to say to me as she knows the struggles I face daily with my daughter.

Just minutes later a fellow blogger posted how she was outraged having read on a huge Facebook group relating to food that a professional was advocating ‘starving’ fussy children until they gave in and ate!

I should be used to this by now but it still hurts. People feel so open about judging my parenting and my cooking and even my mental health because I happen to have a child who has serious food aversions and struggles to eat.

It is a daily battle for me to remind myself I am not to blame!

Every parent wants to feed their child. It is fundamental to their welfare and brings us so much satisfaction to know they are happy and nourished. My daughter was a wonderful breast feeder and despite having low birth weight, she was settled, happy and growing on breast milk. Then I began weaning and suddenly everything changed! From the very start she refused solid food and eight years later we are still struggling.

We have seen paediatricians, dieticians, health visitors, mental health nurses and psychologists and we are still struggling.

If I put food in front of her and tell her ‘it is this or nothing’ she would starve.

If food touches she has a huge meltdown and stops talking and interacting. It traumatises her beyond belief.

Every single day is a struggle. People say it is my fault, like that helps. People say she is controlling us, like that will make her eat! The worst ones are those who say she is a ‘spoilt brat’ when in fact she is a child with extreme anxiety and food aversion! It is heartbreaking.

We have a few foods she will eat and those are saving us from the added trauma of a feeding tube (a trauma that could result in no food or drink ever going in her mouth again). She has only two things she will drink. Her weight is a serious worry as is her health as she walks a fine balance between being ‘well’ and ‘we may need to intervene’.

We have days she will eat and days she won’t.

Her food aversion and eating issues are complex and related to many things and not just ‘fussy eating’.

If I am to blame then why does her twin brother have no issue with food and in fact will eat anything out in front of him?

There is no history of eating disorders in my family.

My children are not fed on junk.

My daughter is not a spoilt brat and neither will I allow her to starve. That is known as abuse!

Food aversion and eating disorders are REAL. TV personalities should know better. Professionals should know better. Ignorance is rife about this matter and it is destroying children and families everywhere.

Please stop judging!

My child is NOT a spoilt brat! She is caring, loving, gentle, beautiful and kind. She also has food aversions and an eating disorder.

Unless you live with this it is hard to understand. Ignorance from professionals and TV personalities is not helping.

Food aversions and eating disorders are no laughing matter. How would you feel if it was your child or someone you loved struggling?

 

A version of this blog first appeared here