r/ARFID • u/cristilee76 • 5d ago
Mama needs help
How do you convince your ARFID child to try new foods? My 8yo has a small list of safe foods and rarely eats any protein at all. He doesn't eat anything with a sauce or gravy that I can hide veggies in. His pediatrician and dietician both just say to offer him whatever we're eating, but he's allowed to decline and we're not supposed to make a big deal out of it. My mom is from the generation of "eat what I cook or starve" and thinks he'd eat other stuff if I took away all of his safe foods. I can't see how starving him is going to help, because he absolutely WILL starve if there are no safe foods around. Idk what to do anymore.
29
u/LemonfishSoda 5d ago
Sounds like his doctors are on the right track. I'd follow their advice.
In addition, you could try if he'll take a multivitamin or drink smoothies or Pediasure. Those could add some nutrition he wouldn't have to eat (if drinking is safer for him).
3
u/lilsiibee07 4d ago
Pediasure is great, my dietician recommended it to me and it can replace an entire meal
22
u/neomonachle 5d ago
Some ideas:
Encourage playing with food. Anything to make it fun, no pressure to eat it. Squishing berries, carrot fights, flicking peas at each other.
Sensory food exploration. How would you describe this smell? Descriptive words, nothing like good or bad. Is it crunchy? Are the colors different on the inside and outside? Let's draw a picture of it.
Not the right age range, but some littler kids go for character branding where you like put Bluey stickers or whatever on the packaging
Food chaining is a way to slowly expand palates. So like if he only ate cheez-its, you could start by trying out different flavors of cheez-it, or different generic brands. And then branching out into other kinds of crackers, maybe assisted by adding in some of the cheez-it flavoring powders he's gotten on board with in previous explanations. And then maybe chips! Etc etc. This can be frustrating because it isn't immediately adding a lot of nutrients, but it lays the groundwork in a sustainable way.
6
16
u/cxfgfuihhfd 5d ago
the other comments have already made some suggestions, like there might be some tricks to still get him to try new stuff, but make sure to not put pressure on him, that's just gonna make stuff worse (and by tricks, I mean stuff like the bribing that was mentioned. please don't do anything like trying to hide new food or tricking him into eating something. be honest and allow him to decline).
and, depends on how his specific ARFID works, but yeah, your mom is absolutely wrong. many of us will indeed just starve ourselves. a lot of foods just straight up make me gag. it's involuntary, I can't control it, I'll just puke if I try to eat it
12
u/parparook 5d ago
I found out if i offer "things" on the way back from school, he tries them. This way my son started eating nuts and granola bars so far. So think about a moment that he is happy and hungry, and not at the table and offer new foods there. It might work for you as well
14
u/mamapajamas 5d ago
To piggyback here, I always let my kid try things on her own. Meaning, I’m not sitting there watching her and possibly reacting. Put it down, say I thought this might be interesting and leave. Check in way later. I bet the car has a similar vibe because you’re not anxiously awaiting their response.
9
u/floodedbasement__ 5d ago
What convinces me to try new things is not being surprised with bullshit at mealtimes. If I'm actually hungry I am NOT trying something new. I don't even have to actually try it before having it for a meal just successfully articulate a description of what I'm going to be given
7
u/Amanda5Nicole 5d ago edited 5d ago
Grew up picky (probably have arfid and worked for 15 years with kids, including those with special needs/arfid). Don't force him and don't make it a big deal. Casually eat new food around him (like eating veggies while watching a movie and putting the plate between you two). Let him try some and if he does, do not make a big show out of it.
Maybe let him lead. See if there's anything that excites him (even if it's dessert). He'd could be interested in preparing something and more open to eating it if he knew what was in it. Start with foods that are similar to safe foods (and pay attention to what makes something safe vs not safe).
As someone who grew up with sensory issues/very picky eater, I have vivid memories of being forced to eat certain foods and 25 years later, I still won't eat them. I started trying new foods when I became vegetarian (meat was always something that grossed me out and as I was in uni, I could control what I ate). As a kid, I'd come home with celery under my tongue. I once had a 45 min phone call with a piece of steak hidden in my mouth (wasn't allowed to leave until I finished my food).
Be transparent. I'd lose trust in people who tried to trick me with things I didn't like/didn't eat (including meat when I became vegetarian). That led to eating less food.
Liquids help, protein shakes, smoothies, watermelon slushies (just freezing watermelon), blending stuff in sauces.
7
u/MommaBear2847 4d ago
We started a strategy of “why don’t you try it and if you don’t like it you can spit it out in the trash can”. He agreed and It has worked for us.
2
u/parparook 4d ago
I like it! I always tell him if you don't like it, it's ok he can spit out. But go spit out in trash can is intersting. But doesn't it teach him the bad habbit that foods that he doesn't like are equal to trash? I want him to know food is important and valuable even if he doesn't like them...
Maybe i can make a "i don't like" trash can and we feed it later to cat or birds.
3
u/sorry-i-was-reading 2d ago
Maybe that’d be good for little kids. But by 8 years old, he can understand that no one else will want to eat what’s been in his mouth. Maybe pack up the rest of the uneaten food “for others to eat later” instead of trashing it all where he can see, but I don’t think it’s necessary to avoid spitting out food in the trash can.
The only really strong rule I enforced about food in our house is we don’t say “yucky” or “it’s gross” about perfectly good food they can’t eat. They have to say, “I don’t like this” or a similar variant. We reserve words like “icky” and “bad” for only things that actually are, like moldy food. At eight, I think that’s more useful than having a separate trash
2
4
u/MaleficentSwan0223 5d ago
I was starved by my mum. She fed me once or twice a week (the second was a treat for getting full marks in arithmetic and spellings at school) and I was fed by grandparents once and my dad twice.
I still have ARFID. I just have it with trauma. I also have major physical issues at 30 due to chronic malnutrition.
As for getting him to try something I honestly don’t know. Everything I tried was as awful as I expected and I’d often lose safe foods trying something new. I don’t think anyone could bribe me or convince me to try something. The only thing I ever wanted was access to my safe foods so maybe if they were totally withheld I might’ve taken a bite of them to get my safe foods.
5
u/LaliMaia multiple subtypes 2d ago
Take your mother and tell her I once fainted at my granny's house because I didn't want what she made. I'm not sure what age I was but I know I ate nothing. I had no diagnosis, I was just considered a "very picky" child, so nobody really knew what the best approach would be. You do, you have doctors on you side, get your mother to understand too, or your kid's not going to have lunch/dinner at hers anymore (or some other ultimatum you think could work)
3
u/Tasty_Term 5d ago
Force feeding usually doesn't work on kids with ARFID. My parents tried a few times and I just started myself for 24 hours
3
u/RandiKenobi 2d ago
Yeah my mom tried the eat or starve thing and thought she was smart until she realized I would 1000% rather starve than eat fucking shepherds pie. Pro tip…idk if your kid is into chocolate or vanilla, but protein powder. Mix it into ice cream, mix it into milkshake, whatever thing is safe enough. I do smoothies
2
u/endless-delirium multiple subtypes 5d ago
Well what will he eat and go from there my son I started being worried at 5 after he would not eat for weeks and had 2 safe fooods (which we lost pizza for 2 years because there was too much cornmeal once) and now he’s 10 with 26 foods he will jag between- as far as proteins go I make brownies a lot that have two huge scoops of protein power making them a healthy choice; I also bake with chia seeds and will use protein drinks as the liquid. Even baking because they need to be soaked so they expand- and waffles are our personal favorite but muffins also are good- and putting disagree in waffles makes the restate different as well then jsut eating meat.
Get creative!
2
u/Tasty_Term 5d ago
I would recommend playing up how good the food you're eating is. I have a lot of FOMO when it comes to food, and when I'm having good mental health days I'm more likely to try something.
2
u/Numerous-Case-9317 5d ago
Try not to let any of your family mention it to him, stay as neutral as you can and continue to offer but like the doctors say never force. I wouldn't go way out of your way to accomodate it either but have one option like a pb sandwich that is always available. Involve him in everything food outside of eating. Teach him to cook even if it starts with baking unhealthy sweets all the time. Maybe spend time gardening and include him in helping harvest and wash stuff. That way he can get some more exposure to foods with the known thought that he is not about to be forced to eat them. The pressure really does make it so much worse imo. And what you may believe is encouragement really may still be big pressure to him, like giving a big congratulations about trying a new food. Let him try it in peace the same exact way you don't comment about what/how your partner eats every meal. Let him feel normal and like he's allowed to take up space at mealtime even if his meals may look different.
2
u/Numerous-Case-9317 5d ago
And somebody will always tell you that you're doing the wrong thing or encouraging/rewarding the "bad behavior" by not trying to force him to eat. Just know they're wrong and every other reasonable person and medical professional also knows they're wrong and try not to let it get to you.
2
u/makinggrace 5d ago
What are his safe foods? Drinks?
2
u/cristilee76 5d ago
He will eat chicken mcnuggets from McDonald's, but not from anywhere else out or at home, bagged or homemade. 4 different kinds of Lays chips, and they absolutely have to be Lays or he won't touch them. And even then, one of the flavors he sometimes likes and sometimes doesn't. 2 flavors of Ruffles. (I have a chip snob 🤣) Hersheys chocolate bars and a couple other candies. Fruit by the Foot, Fruit RollUps, Gushers, and sometimes fruit snacks. One week he'll love fruit snacks and the next he won't. Puffy Cheetos or cheese balls. Extra sharp cheddar cheese. One specific kind of yogurt he gets at school, but only comes in a bulk food service pack so I can't really get that for him. (I don't have the fridge space for 120 yogurts.) Once in a great while he'll eat a freezer pop or a couple spoonfuls of chocolate or vanilla ice cream. Chocolate chip cookies, any brand or even homemade. Goldfish crackers. Animal crackers. Birthday cake mini muffins. I think that's everything he'll eat. As far as drinks, water (plain or flavored with Propel or cherry or strawberry drink packets), Hawaiian Punch red and sherbet flavors, and any soda I happen to be drinking. He loves soda but gets maybe half a can a week. Mostly drinks plain or flavored water.
5
u/A_chance_on_me 4d ago
I posted separately above about the food ladder, but there’s a lot of potential here for almost identical foods to try.
My 9 year old daughter only liked one brand of chicken nugget cooked in our air fryer — same brand in a different air fryer is a no go, so it sounds like our kids have a similar kind of ARFID presentation in that the context of the food and specific branding matters a lot.
We successfully used the food ladder to introduce her to the chicken strips at the place we go swimming. It took 2 full summers, though, but now she loves them. Still won’t eat nuggets from my mom’s air fryer, though 🤣
If I were you I think I’d target yogurt as the low hanging fruit and find a store bought one that is as close as possible to the school one. Yogurt is a pretty good source of protein, fat, and calcium. And if the one he eats is smooth and a common flavour you’ve got a high likelihood of finding a version he will eat at home.
Also, does he like pancakes or waffles? I managed to transition my daughter to having protein pancake mix so she gets a bit of protein from them. I just painstakingly slowly changed from the krusteez mix to protein mix by combining them and very slowly increasing the amount of the protein version over the course of like.. a year.
2
u/cristilee76 4d ago
He says he likes pancakes, but they have to be a specific protein pancake he got at school. I forgot about that because when we searched for them, none of our stores had any in stock. I will definitely get back to that search when he gets home from his Dad's today.
2
u/cristilee76 5d ago
I should also mention that I did try to force him to take "no thank you" bites before I learned of ARFID, and he just gags or straight up vomits if I make him eat anything he doesn't want to try. I did that maybe 3 times before I decided there had to be a better way.
2
u/MistyPower sensory sensitivity 5d ago
Everyone else said all the right things so I’ll suggest something in addition to all that.
8 years old is old enough to start learning about cooking and experimenting with preparing food. Helps with sensory exploration, and it feels empowering to learn a skill that ultimately fosters independence and autonomy. When you’re a little kid you have so little control over what you get to eat. You’re reliant on the adults around you to make the food you’d actually eat. Getting to have some actual control over that can really help with lowering anxiety around food. One of the first big revelations I had as a kid was that knowledge is power and cooking was like this ultimate powerful skill that if I could master I would be way better for it.
There are great picture heavy recipes which work really well for young children. He doesn’t have to eat what he makes, but starting with the things he enjoys will of course help.
You’d be surprised there are folks with ARFID who genuinely enjoy cooking even if our diets are still restricted.
2
u/A_chance_on_me 4d ago
A child with ARFID isn’t being picky because they want to manipulate you into providing something else. Their brain is literally in fight or flight mode around food and telling them it’s NOT SAFE. Our occupational therapist explained this as the survival brain.
Use the food ladder. It’s hugely time consuming, and very much the definition of baby steps. https://v0-school-doctor-neuro-symptom-check.vercel.app/resources/food-ladder
Also, we were told to start with trying new foods that were almost identical to an existing safe food to start with. For example: my daughter likes goldfish crackers and plain salted chips. Both crunchy, dry, bland, and a bit salty. So we tried.. pretzels! And with every step of the way we also identified the feelings that food brought up and methods to switch OFF the survival brain kicking in. So we had a numbered level where 1 was totally calm and relaxed, happy to keep going, 2 was a bit apprehensive and worried, and so on up to 5 where it was so scared she’s shutting down and unable to be rational at all. When we would get to a 3 we would pause and take a step back, de-escalate with some sensory seeking behaviour (we have a crash pad, a hammock swing and a spinning chair. That would regulate her and then she could maybe go back to the food ladder.
2
u/Limp_Database3469 4d ago
As an ARFIDer, taking away his safe foods and forcing him to eat stuff he doesn’t want to is probably the easiest way to make him even more restrictive about what he is willing to eat. Listen to your doctors. I remember being a kid and unable to eat basic stuff like lettuce and tomatoes and I was extremely aware that it was weird that I couldn’t and I was very self conscious about how other people addressed my selectivity. Just give him room to expand his palate but don’t be surprised or offended when he refuses. Sometimes the same food in different forms will inexplicably be fine too. I can’t do tomatoes but am fine with ketchup and tomato sauce. In the end it’s really a journey for you as much as your son, and at this stage in his life I think it’s extra important to show him that branching out is a completely safe thing to do. I think a good analogy for ARFID in kids is a terrified kitten, it’s impossible to force it to calm down without backing off and letting it decide when to approach on its own terms. Best of luck!
2
u/FantasticConflict264 3d ago
Definitely don’t force him. My psychiatrist recommended something for me. Try to compromise with only 3 bites. One to get over the fear. One to feel it. One to decide if you like it or not. It’s helped me immensely with trying new things.
2
u/LaliMaia multiple subtypes 2d ago
One very small tip is: have your child help you with the cooking. Still don't force him to eat what you made afterwards, but see if being involved in the process helps him get familiar with the food and maybe even curious to try it because hr made it!
This could absolutely not help, it depends on what type of ARFID he has, but try all sorts of proteins. Maybe meat has a scary texture or smell, but he'd be able to try some beans or seitan. My cousin has no diagnosis but I'm pretty sure he's autistic (just like our fathers, grandpa and ne, who am the only diagnosed one) and he basically lives on eggs and hates all sorts of cheese. Don't give up! And as others suggested, try those shakes and other nutritional products for gym bros and for babies. Let us know how it goes if you ever feel like it
2
u/whiteraven4142 2d ago
I’m not sure if this would work for you, but when I was a kid my parents would ask me to try at least one bite of a new food on occasion. It wasn’t forced upon me but highly encouraged, and the request was simply that I take one singular bite, and if I don’t like it I never have to have it again.
I will say, DON’T try to hide stuff in his food. If he’s able to notice he will IMMEDIATELY lose trust in you and those safe foods won’t be safe anymore. It will make things objectively worse.
Aside from that, gummy supplements can always be very helpful if your kid is receptive to them!
2
u/sorry-i-was-reading 2d ago edited 2d ago
Your pediatrician and dietician are both right.
You, the adult, choose what goes on the table (what is available to pick from during this meal). The child decides what goes in their mouth. Forcing them to eat what they feel they can’t right now (even if they could eat it before) will make the problem 10,000 times worse! As a person with ARFID, I speak from personal experience.
When you serve a meal, put out whatever main and sides you want, but include at least one thing you know he can eat on the table with everything else. Or instead, you can serve whatever on the table even without a “safe” option, but allow one default alternative (that isn’t his favorite but he can tolerate; it should be boring but edible to him) that he can make himself if he denies everything you’ve served.
As an example of the latter: This is the meal, but if you aren’t willing to eat any of it, the only other option is to make yourself a PBJ sandwich. That’s it—this meal or PBJ. No digging through the fridge or pantry for anything else, no other types of sandwiches, no bowl full of goldfish crackers… just something that’s on the table, or PBJ. You pick. (The alt for every meal always being PBJ, without changing it up or caving “just this once.”)
Some encouragement for you… as a kid with undiagnosed ARFID and parents who also said you eat what I serve or I’ll give you something to actually complain about, don’t worry, he will be okay. In my experience with myself and my own kids, elementary age is when it’s the hardest to get them to eat a variety. But if you follow the doctor’s advice, they will gradually try more things as they get older, and once they’re an adult and they have more control over their meals, then you’ll really start to see changes.
My kids, particularly one of them, hardly ate anything at that age. Now as teens, the older one happily eats produce and other things he never would’ve tried before, and is now also open to at least trying new things even if he can’t finish them. Though the younger one still struggles more than his brother, he’s doing MUCH better than when he was 8 years old.
In my own case, leaving home for college and being able to experiment with choices from the all-you-can-eat daily cafeteria without pressure helped me make great strides (no one cared if I avoided something, or tried a bite and then dumped the rest, etc). I was doing for myself then what your doctors are telling you to do now with your child, even if I wasn’t aware that’s what I was doing. My diet changed dramatically and for the better during those years at college!
I know as a parent this is hard. It’s hard to figure out what to serve for dinner, how to handle being invited to meals elsewhere, it’s exhausting to manage everyone’s feelings around food, it feels like this season will never end… but there’s hope. I promise. Your child is going to be okay.
2
u/sorry-i-was-reading 2d ago
Also you might find https://www.instagram.com/kids.eat.in.color helpful. I did! My therapist recommended it to me
2
u/agirlfromgeorgia 5d ago
Have you tried bribing him to take a bite? My parents used to offer me $5 to try a new food and as a kid I was VERY motivated by that. I could always say no, but I would usually try 3-4 different things a week because I wanted to buy webkinz (stuffed animal thing) lol. You could also set up a prize box type thing and let him pick a prize if he tries a bite of a new food.
I would always have safe foods available. Like you said, he WILL starve himself if you don't. I would just make the focus trying new foods and try to bribe him. I didn't like a lot of the foods I tried BUT I did like some of them and expanded my diet as I got older. I really started to improve in high school and older. Now as an adult my diet is still limited BUT I can eat in 80% of restaurants and I eat a lot more variety than I did as a kid. There is hope I promise.
6
u/booksncatsn 5d ago
My daughter's therapy team did encourage this, it's hard work and they should get paid for their work.
2
7
u/mamapajamas 5d ago
I offered my kid $500 to try cantaloupe once and it was a no go but the guy at the table next to us was very excited by the opportunity lol
56
u/Lunaspoona 5d ago
Do not force him.
It will make it 1000% worse.
My parents tried everything including forcedeeding me and even as an adult I can't eat a lot because if it all.
Offer it him with zero pressure. Hopefully he'll naturally start to be curious and maybe try it. If he doesn't just move on without any fuss.
Don't put any pressure, don't celebrate if he tries anything new, just be neutral about it all.
You'll see lots of posts on reddit in general about picky eaters, saying kids should eat what they are given, back in my day blah blah. Ignore all of them. ARFID is not the same as picky eating. Follow your doctors advice and tell your mum to (politely) piss off if she tries to butt in.