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Refusing to eat, doesn’t communicate help!

NAS89791

Hi, my grandson is 32 months old, he has never spoken a word, occasional squeal. He has always struggled to eat, he lived on a few chicken nuggets, rich tea biscuit for months but for the last 3 weeka he isn’t eating anything. He has nutritional drinks from the dietician, as he only put on 3lb weight last year. Does anyone have any ideas how we can get him to eat, he is becoming lethargic, we have rang the GP, speech and language to see if they can see him, awaiting for them to contact us. It’s so upsetting to see Pensive

  • In terms of finding food that autistic people will tolerate there are few principles you can remember.

    1. Sugar covers a multitude of sins. Foods that are normally bitter and intolerable can be made tolerable if there is enough added sugar to overpower a bitter flavours.
    2. texture is hugely important. food might be intolerable prepared the normal way might be more tolerable if it is prepared in an unusual way that changes its texture. for example I personally can only tolerate bacon if it is very lean and cooked very well until it has a consistency close to leather.
    3. food that lacks flavour can be made flavourful by adding salt. since a lot of flavours end up being unpleasant for autistic people they tend to skew towards foods that have less flavour, but you could always add flavour with salt to make them more enthusiastic about food.
    4. being given new or unfamiliar food can be stressful for autistic people because they feel under pressure to eat something that they are afraid they will not be able to tolerate. So it’s important to present new food options as options not compulsory items of food that must be cleared from the plate. Maybe put it on a central plate in the middle of the table and say it’s for anyone who wants it.

    of course none of this pertains to the separate question of nutrition just The issue of finding food autistic people can eat.

  • Sorry to hear you and your family are going through this.
    It's likely we will need more context before we can adequately give any "advice": we cannot legally give any definitive medical advice (it's against the rules of the forum too) we are just autistic members of the public really. We can only tell you what worked for us, we can't tell you what to do to fix your situation.

    Is he maintaining his percentile on a growth chart even if weight gain is slow?

    Is he diagnosed as autistic?

    If it's only suspected he is autistic then why is it suspected, and is it possible his situation is attributable to something else? Global developmental delay? Sensory perception disorder? Generic toddler fussy eating?

    Identifying something acccurately is the first step to seeking effective help.