Yummy Yummy

Aiden and food. This is a topic that weighs heavily on my shoulders. I don't know that I have really shared in detail all his feeding struggles on the blog. It is frustrating, a daily struggle, and something that is really hard to deal with as a mother. Watching your son refuse to eat day after day makes you feel like a failure as a parent. My job is to help him grow. Which he does not do at the rate that he should. On top of my own guilt, I have doctors telling me he HAS to get more calories, having to jump through hoops to get a feeding therapist for him (very expensive - were talking 10K for a program), and people who just don't understand what it is like to have a child that does not eat. They may be well meaning comments, but people telling me constantly that kids will eat when they are hungry, that all toddlers are picky or that they know what I am going through because their child only eats chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, cookies and fruit is just annoying. When I say that Aiden doesn't eat I mean it. I don't mean picky, I don't mean he won't eat his vegetables. I mean he won't eat anything sometimes. And there is not much that I can do to fix it. Our daily lives consist of:

• Aiden not eating at all and only drinking milk for weeks at a time
• Hearing comments like "Oh my God, is that chocolate milk in that babies bottle?" followed by a dirty look in my direction (don't worry, I commented right back on that one)
• Monthly visits to a Pediatric Gastroenterologist
• Test after test showing no medical problems - scopes, bloodwork, etc. - all normal
• Aiden tolerating only bottles and pureed foods for the first 2 1/2 years of his life
• Screaming at the sight of a high chair
• Doctors giving me orders to get a certain number of calories in no matter what
• Tricking him into opening his mouth and shoving yogurt or oatmeal in
• Getting asked if my almost 3 year old son is 8 or 9 months old
• Aiden literally shaking when a spoon would go near him, even if he was holding it
• Making him food after food to see if he would eat ANYTHING, sometimes I made 10-12 meals a day for him with no success
• Spending THOUSANDS of dollars on wasted food with the hope that "maybe he will eat this because it is..." brown or soft or hard or whatever we thought he might accept
• Wearing size 6-12 month bottoms for the last 2 years
• Buying calorie supplements at $40 a can (for a week)
• Putting him back on formula at 2 1/2 years old
• Letting him eat cookies all day, because at least it is calories going in - I got comments about this, too
• Aiden's moods suffering because he was not eating, which makes him so grumpy
• Waking up multiple times a night for milk, because it would not keep him full for more than a couple hours.
• Medication to stimulate his appetite
• Multiple serious talks about putting in a G-tube

So, a few months back, we decided enough. Enough forcing him to eat. Enough counting calories. Enough worrying about him eating at the table or high chair (as recommended so he would learn about mealtimes). Enough with synthetic calorie boosters. Enough of it all. It seems easy to do, to stop forcing it, but it was so hard. How do you stop caring if your child eats or not? We started leaving him snacks on the coffee table, we came to terms with the fact that the calories in his milk were sustaining him, maybe not growing great, but not losing weight.

We added special high potency multi vitamins to his milk and I started researching why some children seem to not have an interest in food. My research led to taking all dairy proteins and gluten products out of his diet after reading about food intolerances and children's tendancy to self select only those foods which they cannot handle. I started Aiden on supplements to improve his digestion (enzymes, probiotics) and zinc after reading that low zinc levels can alter taste buds, making food bitter or tasteless.

For weeks there was no change, he continued to not want anything but cookies, crackers, toast and milk (he drinks hemp milk now, still with chocolate). I don't know which one for sure is doing the trick, the supplements, the dietary changes or the sheer fact that we stopped pushing so hard and lowered everyone's stress level about food. But, in the past few weeks Aiden has been eating like a champ and we even started him back on gluten which he seems to be able to handle. It started out with a piece of pizza, then grabbing our sandwiches and taking bites, and then to eating half of his cousin's hamburger. In the past few weeks he has eaten burgers and fries, bean burritos, pulled pork tacos, cupcakes, pizza, sausage links, egg and sausage breakfast burritos, turkey sandwiches, a ground turkey and avocado soft taco, pieces of avocado, orange chicken and teriyaki chicken, several chunks of red snapper and 3 sticks of roasted parsnip and carrot. At his cousin's birthday party he even grabbed the fork of my sisters sis in law's plate and started eating her salad and chicken breast.

He is like a different kid. Interested in food. He is actually saying "mmmmm...yummy yummy" while he is eating. Now, of course the video below is him eating a caramel apple, but trust me a month ago he would not have touched something sticky and the fact that he is eating some fruits and veggies now is amazing!

These are the little moments that make you realize that you are doing the right thing in a situation where there is no clear cut answers. These are the little moments that make you proud as a parent not only for your child, but for yourself for figuring out what works for them and realizing that doctors, specialists and writers of self help books do not know anything better than you do when it comes to your children.