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| Tue, 07-12-2005 - 1:18am |
Hi,
I'm Kim and I have a 4-year-old son who I suspect has Asperger's or something related. I won't go into all of his issues right now, but I do have a few questions if you don't mind.
One of the biggest issues we have is that my son will only eat a very short list of foods. Do most Asperger's kids have food issues and if so, how do you handle them? Do I give him what he wants, or make him eat what everyone else is eating, or something in between? I'm at a loss as to how to handle it, especially when he says he doesn't like something and usually he's never even seen it, much less tried it.
And he's recently started something new: if we are giving him something he DOES like, he asks to see the box/packaging - as if he needs to know it is the "right" brand, or he doesn't trust that it really is what we say it is. What's up with that??!!
Also, is it common for Asperger's kids to crave carbs? With the exception of milk, cheese, yogurt, and Tyson chicken nuggets, all my son wants is carbs (crackers, cookies, chips, breads, etc.). He eats NO fruits, NO vegetables, and NO meat (unless you count chicken nuggets).
Thank you in advance for any insight you can give me. I'm very new to this and I'm just trying to figure it all out in order to help my son as much as I can.
Kim

With the exception of milk, cheese, yogurt, and Tyson chicken nuggets, all my son wants is carbs (crackers, cookies, chips, breads, etc.). He eats NO fruits, NO vegetables, and NO meat (unless you count chicken nuggets).
Your sons diet sounds very much like my DS diet.
Pat
Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response. --
He was recently evaluated and he has Asperger Syndrome (suspected) with a higher functioning Autism. They say since he has speach and will interact with a person of his choosing on a limited level,he is most likely AS.
I know he has totaly changed the lives of everyone in our household. We do not do alot of things we should. We stay home except for a few places he will go like "Walmart". Church is something I am distressed over giving up, but he is just to disruptive both in service and Sunday school. We are not able to make those "family" trips or go out to eat. Our twin boys are 7 years old and they are sure troopers, they love there brother.
We got a large pool this year and we have spent alot of family time together. This was one of our best investments. Steve just took to the water and seems to have gained a great deal of confidance in his ability to "swim". He will shout "Look at Stevey I shwimm'n!"
I know he has totaly changed the lives of everyone in our household. We do not do alot of things we should. We stay home except for a few places he will go like "Walmart". Church is something I am distressed over giving up, but he is just to disruptive both in service and Sunday school. We are not able to make those "family" trips or go out to eat.
Jake is at the point where we can take him just about anyplace and he will behave anywhere from pretty well to excellently.
Pat
Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response. --
By the way, does your child ever eat or chew on "things"? I have to watch plastic wrappers,wood splinters and even my wicker baskets. He has chewed the plastic on all his "Thomas Tank Engine" wheels.
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Edited 2/19/2008 9:16 pm ET by littleroses
Kim,
My 6yr old, Nathan (HFA), will only eat certain foods too. He's always been this way. I used to try and have Nathan eat what the rest of us eat at mealtime....til I learned that he was autistic. Everything made sense after that! I let him eat what he wants, he has his favorites, which tend to change after a few months. It didn't make any sense to make mealtime so miserable for him and for everyone else.
He's also picky about brand names too. He will only eat pringle potato chips, only the original ones. He will only eat french fries at restuarants, he won't eat the frozen kind or even if I make homemade french fries! He will eat breadsticks and rolls at restuarants, but no bread at home. He doesn't eat any fresh fruit except for strawberries, and he will not eat any veggies either! He will eat canned mandarin oranges and applesauce.
Anyway, I don't worry too much about it, he also takes a multivitamin and extra vitamin c. When we go out to eat, we do have to make sure that there is something on the menu that he will eat, and if we're invited to someone's house....I usually find out what is being served, and then bring extra food for Nathan (no reason for him to go hungry!!)
It did get frustrating at first. Dh took a long time adjusting to this. He grew up in a family where you were supposed to clean your plate!! Dh still has difficulty at times! On the other hand, I am doing really great at multitasking at mealtime!!! LOL
Michelle
We have huge problems with my almost-4 year old's picking eating. He also eats a very limited selection of food. I talked to the pediatrician a couple of months ago about it because I was concerned. He eats almost no fiber, and, sorry to be blunt, but he poops bricks. Big, painful bricks. Nuff said.
She suggested that we give him a sticker for trying new, healthy foods. Like, if he tries a pea, he gets a sticker. Five stickers and he gets some treat that he loves. Well, it's been really tough. One thing he loves is candy, ice-cream, and cookies. Okay, that's three things. But using that as a sticker treat just isn't do-able. When I'm trying to manage the most insane part of the day (the evening), and I've got to get two rambuntious little boys steered into their bedtime routines...cookies work. I can't be telling one kid that he's not getting any since he refused to eat a raisin. Well, I can, but he'll get so mad he'll go around kicking all of his brother's Lego creations. Then we'll have a huge problem just when I really need things to run smoothly. So, we used something else that Nathan loves: a trip to Starbucks for a kids hot chocolate. I thought that might work. But, guess what? If it means eating a pea, or a whole wheat Ritz with *gasp* ALMOND butter on it, forget it. In two months, he has earned 6 stickers. They were all for eating fruit. That's basically six bites of fruit in a month, no vegetables, no beans, no tofu (which he used to eat).
I've often thought I'd like to rid the house of everything but healthy food, but my DH would just die. And I'm sure the kids would just go hungry. They would, too! I follow a mostly-vegetarian diet,and DH is heavily into bacon and "fried slice", which is bread fried in bacon fat. None of us like to eat the same thing. I make lentil soup for myself, David eats Cup-a-Soup noodles, Nathan shouts, "I'm not hungry!" and DH makes himself a slab of greasy dead animal when he comes home from work. Then we all have cookies. I may as well just tattoo "BAD MOM" across my forehead. LOL!
I don't know for sure about the carb cravings. I can say that I detect a bit of AS in myself, and prefer carbs to other foods. My 7 year old with AS seems to crave carbs, or at least prefer them. I just figured it was because hot, buttered toast and hot cocoa are simply *yummier* than chicken and green salad. Maybe I'm just biased.
Evelyn
I sometimes feel like a ball of confusion and disapointment. Somtimes Steve seems like he is doing so well,then other times like he has been set back. He has usually kept his trains in disarray and seemed to prefer them that way, now lately he wants to line them up. He never "plays" with them as one would typically define it, he gets right up close and squints his eyes as he watches them pass. As I said, he just turned 4y.o and my husband and I were so down yesturday because he seemed so much like a baby. I sure hope the intervention preschool helps him.
It seems like my twins(7y.o) and mself and my husband are always "giving in" to him just to avoid the chaos and confusion that is involved because he just does not get what is going on or why he should or should not do something. This is starting out to be a bad day, fighting kids already.
My neice has such a perfect life; married to a neurosurgen, beautiful home, smart nice kids... everything so "white and fluffy" like a picture from a magazine. They take trips to Florida,to disney world(they would call out the flight marshals if we tried to fly anywhere!).She takes her kids to restruants and movies. I feel sorry for myself, depressed, hopeless and like "why us?" today sorry.
So going out to eat is easy- we just keep a stash of his peanut butter crackers in the car and take them in the restaurant. I feel sorry for him that his diet is soooo restricted, that he can't even enjoy the guilty indulgence of an ice cream on a hot day.
Heck, I must be the only mom in the world who is actually THRILLED her son loves chocolate! I actually buy a chocolate bar once or twice a month and share it with him and just enjoy the experience of sharing a delicious treat with my son.
I also worry about the long-term health effects of this restrictive diet. I sure hope he's not still eating infant cereal when he's a teenager! Hopefully things will improve some day.