Does my autistic child have ARFID?
Firstly, what on earth is ARFID? I had certainly never heard of it until recently.
ARFID – Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. If you want to know more about the condition or need some support regarding ARFID then check out this website here arfidawarenessuk.org
*DISCLAIMER* We are under a Paediatrician who we can consult about this. So if anyone is worried about their child then your GP should be your first port of call.
It’s fairly common for autistic children to have some sensory issues around food. You might have heard that some autistic children will only eat pasta and cheese or chicken nuggets and chips. One reason could be that these foods will always taste the same and have the same consistency, whereas, if for example they were to eat Blueberries then some will be sweet and some will be sour, some will be firm and some will be mushy.
So what about our Edward? Thinking back, we have had feeding issues with him all along. He had to be put on high calorie formula at 3 months old. He urged and spewed on his first spoon of thin baby rice. He never picked up things and put them in his mouth and was never interested in the food that we were eating.
A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about Edward’s diet. You can read about that here and compare it to what he is like now.
There was a stage when he would eat toddler meals of Bolognese, Macaroni Cheese etc, but over time these got less and less. Today, Edward’s diet consists of Chocolate Weetabix, sometimes Porridge, sometimes Beans and Mash, sometimes a white bread and butter sandwich with the crusts off, Wildlife yoghurts, baby fruit pouches and Milky Ways.
However, even with these he urges and spews. He started to not want the beans and mash anymore so ended up just having Weetabix. This had a knock on effect on his bowels and he ended up with a really sore little bottom. Mummy then started to panic that he was going to become ill.
One thing that the Paediatrician suggested doing was to let Edward play with food. The idea behind this is that he will become desensitised to it. So when I am cooking he loves to come and help me cook. Edward likes to handle and smell foods such as onion, peppers, courgettes, mushrooms etc. He wants to pretend to chop them and put them in the pan. He also wants to stir the food and watch it cook. We have had no results as of yet as he point blank refuses to taste any of it. We will keep persevering.
I have also reached out to social media and found a wonderful group on Facebook, ARFID parent/carer support I haven’t posted anything on there yet but just reading other people’s posts has helped me enormously and now I know that we’re not alone.
In the meantime, I trying to put some vitamins in his fruit pouches and hope he doesn’t notice. Still got to be careful on this one in case it puts him off eating his fruit pouches. I can’t have him reducing his food intake any more.
Has anyone else had experience of children with ARFID? Do you have any tips to share? Let me know in the comments below.
