Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi this is my first time posting, I really feel like I’m fighting a losing battle with my 3 year old daughter, she will only eat certain foods, but she wants 2 of everything, for example, last week it was oranges, but she wanted 2 for every meal, which is obviously not going to happen, as I’ve tried to explain to her she will get belly ache but she doesn’t understand, before that it was noodles, but she wanted them for every meal would refuse everything else and have severe meltdowns, this happens every week or 2 she will change the food to a different food then that’s all she will eat for the next week or two, not only that but she will have a meal and as soon as she has finished she says she is hungry and wants more food, she wants food constantly and will have meltdowns when she is told no where she is hurting me and herself and just screaming and throwing things and she will not stop for around 30 minutes this goes on all day every day except when she’s in school, any tips or advice would be great.
Also bear in mind this is typical 3 year old behaviour plus asd. Just feed her what she wants but only a specific meal times, show her on a clock what time she has to wait til, and the splitting things into 2 is genius, whish I thought of that 10 years ago
Hello
There is an advice page here on the NAS site about issues around food, that you can find here - https://www.autism.org.uk/about/health/eating.aspx - which offers some advice on how to try and communicate changes in diet to children, underlying environmental, sensory and social factors that might play a role in picky eating, and different strategies to try and control portion sizes and help your child accept a more varied diet. There are also links to other resources from the NHS and books that NAS recommends on the subject.
Hopefully there might be something here that will be able to help you.
Best wishes
Lorraine Mod
I think you could play a psychological trick on her here. If you have an orange, cut it in half and give her two halves. If you have some food out of a can, put half of it in one bowl and the other in another, to make it look like twice as much. I wonder if that might work.