Certain holidays get really difficult with a child on the Spectrum.
The Monster’s eating, as I’ve referred to at various times, has gotten much better than it was. Where he used to eat about 10 things, he’s now eating nearly anything that comes in front of him…
And then, out of the blue, we hit Passover. Continue reading
One of the few constants about children is that they need to eat. (It’s that, sleep and poop, honestly – the big three.) And despite being behind verbally, he does let us know that he’s hungry, if not in the most elegantly phrased way, but by shouting ‘EAT!’ at us.
As I’ve talked about several times, the Monster is a very finicky eater. We’ve not figured out if there’s a rhyme or reason to his choices for what he will or won’t eat, which leaves us frustrated more often than not. It’s not uncommon, from what I’ve seen looking around the community, but it is a giant pain in the ass. For more than a year now, his meals have been fairly fixed at home, with dinner being a slice or two of pizza.
So for a few months now, he’s been involved in a feeding therapy program every other week (it switches off with some behavioral therapy he’s getting). This therapy’s introduced the whole concept of “food friends” to try to get him to eat more, and it’s had some modest success – he’s been drinking milk again, as well as eating macaroni, albeit one noodle at a time. Continue reading
Once a weekend, I cook a hot breakfast. The goal of the operation is not just to feed everyone, but to leave ready-to-heat breakfast for the rest of the week. (Our daily schedule has about 55 minutes from our wake-up to when I have to be out the door with the Monster to catch the bus. By the time you factor in my getting ready, it’s usually closer to 30, so pre-made breakfasts are very helpful.) I alternate between pancakes and waffles, since R likes those well enough…
But for three years now, the Monster’s really only had one of three things for breakfast – frozen french toast, cereal, or a bagel. It’s been difficult, but at least you know what to expect on any given day. Continue reading
This week’s feeding therapy was, by the wife’s report, not a success. Apparently the Monster pinched, kicked, screamed and anything else he could come up with, rather than actually eat a little bit of grilled chicken. (Which is funny, because he’s eaten it before, as well as plenty of other white meats.)
But one day’s therapy isn’t really the yardstick that we should be measuring this by. Continue reading
For a while now, we’ve been trying to get the Monster to broaden what he eats. As I’ve mentioned multiple times, it gets a little tiresome when the only thing he’s willing to eat at home for dinner is pizza, with the occasional chicken nugget.
(Which is probably a little unfair, since he will eat chicken fingers if we’re out at dinner at a restaurant, and is still generally willing to have a hot dog at the ballpark. But still, by and large, our weekly routine has started to include a stop at a pizza joint to get some for him, so we don’t have to cook it ourselves.) Continue reading
So, we’re trying to stem the tide here with the constant influx of pizza.
The Monster, most nights, has a slice of pizza or two for dinner. I know of other kids who work the same way, but it’s a problem honestly when we have to think about whether or not we have any in the house. And it’s not like he doesn’t eat anything else – when we’re out at a restaurant, he’ll have chicken fingers, or the occasional hamburger, or a hotdog… but not at home. Continue reading
Thanksgiving is a holiday that’s full of traditions.
I grew up with all the usual trappings for the holiday, the turkey, dressing, cranberries and the like. And in my own family, we have a few more of our own – of getting up to watch the Macy’s Parade in our pajamas, while we have french toast… Continue reading
The feeding therapy is a whole bunch of “two steps forward, one step back”.
To rehash why the Monster’s in feeding therapy – he’s very picky about what he’ll eat. Over time, we’ve been watching how his selectivity of what he eats has been increasing, removing old favorites from his repertoire and quickly making it quite impossible for us to have just one dinner for the entire family. Eating at the holidays turns into a bit of a guess as to what he’ll be willing to try, or requires us to have at least something on the menu that we know in advance is on the approved list. Continue reading
Tomorrow is another trip to the feeding clinic, but there’s also whatever we can do at home to reinforce whatever is going on there.
My wife’s been working on giving him familiar foods in slightly unfamiliar forms. For those who haven’t experienced the Monster and his eating… things have to look the way he expects them to. Pizza needs to look somewhat like delivery pizza, and so-on. Continue reading
So, unfortunately, the Monster is a rather picky eater.
Finding something he’s going to eat is often a challenge. There are things that he’ll eat away from home – chicken fingers, for example – that he won’t touch in-house. Or the the appearance of those things has to be exactly the same each time he’s getting it, or he won’t treat it like the same, familiar food. This is getting to be a problem, since the diversity of what he’s eating is actually, gradually narrowing, rather than broadening as you would expect with a six year old. Continue reading