Gabe eating this morning. Can you see Polly Pocket about to slide down the slide? He's really into imaginative play with these "Barbies".
This whole eating thing with Gabe has really thrown me for a loop. If I did'nt know better, I would think he was'nt related. We are a family of very specific likes and dislikes for food, but we love it none the less. My husband is a meat and potatoes guy, I'm a lactovovegetarian (16yrs.) and my daughter loves vegetables. Where does that leave Gabe? I have no clue. He will eat almost any candy no questions asked. (He eats candy very rarely, mostly as an experiment that he can eat other things than his extremely abbreviated list.) Table food sends him into sreaming rants and rages. He is petrified of it. But, hand him a french fry from McDonalds and he is all over it. Absolutley NO chicken nuggets, although they are fun to throw in the car. We have tried everything from giving him only a certain amount of water and milk a day with only table food and I swear he could've continued his strike for days. That was one doctor's advice. This doctor (a "specialist" with Autism) suggested that eventually he will be hungry enough. Gabe did not eat ANYTHING for 3 days. We were in tears by the end. Needless to say we stopped that. He's in OT with a great therapist, but it seems to be more on HOW to even get him to eat anything outside of cereal and crackers. We've tried flashy toys, noisey toys, movies all types of distractions. We feed him, he feeds himself, in fact we encourage it in order to empower him to no avail. This is a list of the ONLY foods Gabe finds acceptable: Bran cereal, Kashi whole wheat waffles, pretzels, any type of cracker (we do only whole wheat or Kashi) plain popcorn, sugar free pudding, chocolate chip cookies/any cookie(special treat), animal crackers,Gerber sweet potato puffs and vegetable wheels and baby food mostly #2(Only apples/chicken, oatmeal or rice cereal mixed with applesauce, #3 applesauce, turkey vegetable dinner #2....there are a few more, but not many. There are days when he will only eat the cereal baby food). He does not have any muscle motor control problem with eating, except it may be more tiring, because the food he does eat does not take a lot of effort. Through OT we use a NUK for sensory therapy in his mouth at home. Gabe likes it now, but it has'nt changed his eating habits.***
I guess he has always been this way. When he was 8 months old he went on his first "strike" from baby food, but we thought he just did'nt like the kind of baby food we chose. He also was not into breast feeding. He preferred the bottle. That threw me for a loop, because I breast fed my daughter for almost a year and she loved it. But then, Gabe was never a snuggler.
******
As you know, Gabe also has GERD (constant reflux). He is on Previcid to protect his esophagus. We've exhausted the resources and tests through our gastrointestinal doctor. ALL tests came back normal. So, we are on the allergy testing avenue now. I've wanted to try the Casin/Gluten free diet, but, as you can see, that is all that he will eat. Based on the theory for that diet and if he would benefit from it, no wonder he likes eating those things. I have to wait 2 more weeks until he gets the allergy testing done. Kind've tired of all the waiting. He's seeing someone that is known in his field for specializing in food allergies, so what do you do?
****
Does anyone else out there have a child with similar eating issues? I was once told not to worry about your child not giving up the bottle, because have you ever seen a college student drinking from a baby bottle? But, you know, I can imagine Gabe whipping out those Gerber Sweet Potato puffs before calculus and smiling.
Take it easy.
