Feeding Aversion in Infant?

[Anonymous]

Sorry for the cross post but I didn't know if this was considered special needs or not...

It is very possible that my infant is in the early stages of developing a feeding aversion. He does not hate being in the high chair or cry when we try to feed him (or get him to feed himself - he plays with the food but doesn't really consume anything) and he is also interested in our plates/cups. I know at his age - almost 7 months - food isn't a big chunk of calories, it's about learning. However he shoes zero interest in it. Whenever we try to feed him with a spoon, he closes his mouth. We try to get him to open his mouth in a variety of ways, and while it works. not much gets consumed. He has very slow weight gain and has been a bad nurser his whole life so we are adding formula in addition to pumping and trying to get him to nurse as much as possible.

My questions, i guess, are this....
1) How did you know your child had a feeding aversion?
2) what were your first steps?
3) What helped the most?
4) where are you and your child now in this journey?

He has no other issues as far as we know (ASD/SPD) - he's met every milestone early and is generally a happy baby (other than sleep!)

Thanks for any info/advice/help!

[Anonymous]

My child has an eating disorder. We started to notice there was a problem at 7 months ... but he was adopted at 7 months. At 14 months we ended up in the feeding clinic at Childrens. We was not losing wait, but he didn't gain hardly any weight from 7 to 14 months. But he was force fed in an orphanage so he was pretty heavy to begin with but ended up being really really skinny at 14 months.

Is your child maintaining his weight curve? If you think there is a problem, I would buy an infant/toddler scale and weight him every week along with length and start plotting it.

My child has infantile anorexia and there is a sleep component to it too.

I think ask your pediatrician, but 7 months may be too early for feeding solids for your baby. I think I tried that at 8 months, no interest. So ask your pediatrician for guidance on that.

http://www.amazon.com/When-Your-Child-Wont-Eats/dp/1475912455/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1400260343&sr=8-2&keywords=chatoor

Dr. Chatoor is co-director of the Feeding Clinic at Childrens Hospital. This is something to read to get to know different areas of eating disorders. If his weight does not follow a curve (like falling from 25% to 10%), then you should pursue a feeding clinic.

I'm not doctor, just a parent dealing with a child with an eating disorder. But the scale really helps you have a history, but remember you need weight, and height.

[Anonymous]

PP here, answering the question of where we are on the journey:

My child started in the feeding clinic at age 14 months and we went monthly until about age 3.5. After that things got much easier ... but my child had adenoid surgery at age 3.25, and that made a huge difference in his eating.

My child is now almost 7, we still follow the strict eating schedule that Dr. Chatoor suggested (it changes over time), but pretty much all meals are scheduled as well as snacks. So the child is sufficiently hungry when snack or meals are offered.

My schedule now is: 7:30 breakfast
8:00 am 4 oz of milk with Miralax
11:30 lunch
3:30 snack
5:45 dinner
7:15 4 oz of milk (with Miralax ) before bed
at 7:15 if our child is still hungry, rather than send him to bed hungry, which is one of the suggestions, he has one last chance before teeth brushing to ask for food. If he didn't eat well at dinner, his plate has been saved and he can have his cold food. If he ate well at dinner and we just didn't offer enough (like we should have offered another dish besides pizza), then he gets some protein before bed.. salami, cheese, yogurt or something like that.

The 2 different cups of milk are to get Miralax in my child due to constipation, but also offer a little more calories after meals. We used to do it all at night but that was too much liquid before going to bed.

[Anonymous]

Thanks PPs.

My pediatrician and I are on the same page so far - I actually switched because our first ped didn't seem to think weight gain was an issue. He went from 25% to 10% pretty quickly and last appointment was at about 2%. We are going back next week for an official weigh in on te same scale but we do have a scale at home.

The pediatrician said that as long as he seems fine in te high chair and plays with food, it's normal. However he should be putting some in his mouth, which he isn't.

We have had a long, difficult breastfeeding relationship and I was thrilled that he took formula - it showed me he can consume something else. I am nursing him all the time but I have to return to work.

Did you feel like the feeding clinic helped you? My ped said she'd like to see how the solids develop and thinks that by 9 months we should have an idea if we need to go there.

We have done speech pathology and GI

PPs how did you know something was wrong that wasn't just a stage? Just weight?

[Anonymous]

Eh, I think you may be overreacting.

In my experience, my DD went from 50th percentile at birth to 3rd percentile at 6 months. She has stayed at 3rd ever since. She didn't really like solids until after a year -- when other babies were chugging down huge cups of blended sweet potato, she only wanted a little here and there.

Opposite of you, my ped thought it was a big deal but I disagreed. I have my baby records and I was similarly light (as were my siblings) and my mother recalls none of us really liked eating until we were preschoolers.

Now at 3, DD is still on the 3rd percentile, but approaches all food with gusto (eats pretty much everything and in great amounts). She also is, quite possibly, the earliest talker, walker, etc and has been ahead on every milestone. Some kids are just small and start out unenthusiastic about solids or don't need a lot. There's not always a pathology involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks PPs.

My pediatrician and I are on the same page so far - I actually switched because our first ped didn't seem to think weight gain was an issue. He went from 25% to 10% pretty quickly and last appointment was at about 2%. We are going back next week for an official weigh in on te same scale but we do have a scale at home.

The pediatrician said that as long as he seems fine in te high chair and plays with food, it's normal. However he should be putting some in his mouth, which he isn't.

We have had a long, difficult breastfeeding relationship and I was thrilled that he took formula - it showed me he can consume something else. I am nursing him all the time but I have to return to work.

Did you feel like the feeding clinic helped you? My ped said she'd like to see how the solids develop and thinks that by 9 months we should have an idea if we need to go there.

We have done speech pathology and GI

PPs how did you know something was wrong that wasn't just a stage? Just weight?

6 months seems early for mastering solids. Keep trying and see what happens by the time you go back at 9 months. Things change quickly at this age--skills they don't have one week they will start doing the next and have mastered in another two.

[Anonymous]

I am PP. We felt the feeding clinic was enormously helpful for us and our child. What else beside weight gave us a clue?
Well, we were first time parents. We couldn't get our kid to drink much milk. He would suck a small amount and that was it. It would take maybe 1/2 hour to get 4 oz in when he was little. When we started solids, the only way to get it in his mouth was to trick it in. I saw other parents just spooning babyfood into their child's mouth and the child wanted it. That NEVER happened. He was only interested in playing and not interested in food. So until we went to the feeding clinic, I would spend 3 hours a day trying to get enough food in, all by entertaining and sneeking the food in. I would have a whole arsenal of toys to get his attention while I slipped in some food covertly.

He couldn't eat if he was too stimulated, like when any other children were around. He wouldn't eat if he was too tired. He wouldn't eat if he was too excited. At 18 months (after being in the feeding clinic), he would not eat on Christmas day (at all) because it was too exciting. And then he wouldn''t calm himself and sleep all Christmas night. He finally fell asleep about 30 hours later and we stuffed the bottle in his mouth and he sucked while he slept.

My child has lots of issues, but I would say I spend the most time on eating issues for the first 3 years.

[Anonymous]

Op here. Thanks so much pp.

It sounds like this could be where my ds is headed. He is easily distracted (but common in 6 month olds!). He is a bad nurser - bad latch and slow transfer. We use a slow nipple in the bottle so he doesn't chug and gulp then choke.

When I put food on the tray he just plays with it. Doesn't brig his hands to his mouth. The closest I get to self feeding is those pouches and when he notices it has flavor he takes it out of his mouth. Spoon feeding involves making him laugh enough to open his mouth to get food in.

Sound familiar?

We will have our 9 month check up and see then if we need the referral - did you read anything about it that you would recommend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Thanks so much pp.

It sounds like this could be where my ds is headed. He is easily distracted (but common in 6 month olds!). He is a bad nurser - bad latch and slow transfer. We use a slow nipple in the bottle so he doesn't chug and gulp then choke.

When I put food on the tray he just plays with it. Doesn't brig his hands to his mouth. The closest I get to self feeding is those pouches and when he notices it has flavor he takes it out of his mouth. Spoon feeding involves making him laugh enough to open his mouth to get food in.

Sound familiar?

We will have our 9 month check up and see then if we need the referral - did you read anything about it that you would recommend?

Sounds like most 6 month old babies. Why so eager to pathologize normal development?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Thanks so much pp.

It sounds like this could be where my ds is headed. He is easily distracted (but common in 6 month olds!). He is a bad nurser - bad latch and slow transfer. We use a slow nipple in the bottle so he doesn't chug and gulp then choke.

When I put food on the tray he just plays with it. Doesn't brig his hands to his mouth. The closest I get to self feeding is those pouches and when he notices it has flavor he takes it out of his mouth. Spoon feeding involves making him laugh enough to open his mouth to get food in.

Sound familiar?

We will have our 9 month check up and see then if we need the referral - did you read anything about it that you would recommend?

I am PP, put a link to a book by Dr. Chatoor, that I recommend. It is in a previous link. That book or the other book were not published when my child was in the middle of this. I still think 7 months is pretty young to go to the feeding clinic. We noticed my son would rather do anything else but eat. He is not the worst case by far, but if has been very stressful. It was NOT our pediatrician who saw the problem. We went to the pediatrician's office (probably for problems with eating) but our pediatrician was not there and we saw one of the other partners who was familiar with Dr. Chatoor and infantile anorexia and thought we needed to be seen in the feeding clinic ASAP. The ped. office helped us get an expedited appointment first in gastroenterology and then the feeding clinic.

Our pediatrician, first sent us to a nutritionist. And she didn't have a good one to recommend. I ended up with someone who thought my child needed more "POUND CAKE" and to take high calorie nutritional supplements to gain weight that cause as a side effect diarrhea.

Our pediatrician first gave us a week to get some weight on him, and I did get some weight on him after a week, but the following week, he could not sustain it. I also recommend getting that scale so you have better records if you need it. I sold my on craigslist afterward, so you end up making back half your money.