Need advice asap...picky eater

FranticFrummie

Sun, Apr 26 2020, 8:41 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

He gets hungry all the time and has no problem with his appetite. He eats throughout the day and he really enjoys the food that he eats.

Quote:

He told me that his problem is that his brain tells him to throw up whenever he tries a new food and he wishes he could get a new brain so he wouldn't get like that.

Your child sounds very intuitive, and he's trying to point you in the right direction. He knows what is wrong, now your job is to find a therapist who can work with him.

CBT therapy might be helpful with slowly getting him used to different tastes and textures. It can also help with intrusive thoughts and anxiety.

If you child has a particular aversion to meat proteins, then let him be a vegetarian. This means learning how to combine plant based proteins to make sure he's getting all of his nutritional needs met. He'll need vegetables (which I didn't really notice much on your list), and egg and fish if you can find a tasty way to get him to eat them. Veggie/pescatarian is not a bad diet at all.

FranticFrummie

Sun, Apr 26 2020, 8:47 pm

https://www.google.com/search?.....UTF-8

Pick one of the muffins that looks easy to do. Try to pack in as much wheat germ, protein powder, ground nuts, flax meal, dried fruits, shredded zucchini, and carrots as you possibly can. The muffin batter is really just there to hold all the other good stuff together.

Use yogurt instead of milk or water, and add an extra egg, and you'll end up with a really healthy breakfast that he can grab as he's running out the door. You can even replace about half of the sugar with coconut sugar or agave nectar if you want to get fancy.

amother

Seagreen

Sun, Apr 26 2020, 8:56 pm

oneofakind wrote:

Child therapist here. I don't like lying to kids especially when you could be educating him about his mind.
Forget "medicine". It could totally backfire.
This is trauma. Many therapists are doing teletherapy now. You can pm me.

I agree with taking the approach of a child psychologist who is trained in trauma. And I say this as an OT who would have different advice if you hadn't described this scenario. Even if you make some progress with a different approach, the underlying trauma will likely be stuck in his brain until he is treated by the right professional. It's difficult to say how it will be expressed, but it's SO much easier to work this through at a young age than to wait.

myname1

Wed, Mar 02 2022, 5:37 am

2 years later... OP, what happened?? I searched "picky" to get ideas for my delicious, picky children, and this thread was fascinating! Any chance we can get an update??

amother

Dandelion

Wed, Mar 02 2022, 5:50 am

I am also very curious to hear the outcome of this. I'm surprised that no one acknowledged that he could justbhave very sensitive taste buds. I was the same as a child. Foods would make me gag and throw up from the tase, and that would make me scared to try foods. Even drinking water from certain sources was unbearable. Taste buds become more sensitive as you get older, and eventually as an adult I eat most things without a problem.

As confirmation, a DNA test I took showed that I was genetically predisposed to having very sensitive taste buds. So it is a real thing.