Food with Ethan is a battle. He has a very limited diet, he will mostly only eat yellow things, and sensory issues can also make him refuse items. We even attended a food sensory group last year in the hope to improve his eating.
Little E’s weaning has also been more challenging than we expected it to be. She has decided that Baby Led Weaning is right for her and I have been picking our dinners out of the Baby Led Weaning Cookbook.
This has been a challenge for Ethan as we have been putting meals in-front of him that he has never eaten before. This has included potato salad, homemade fish fingers and a vegetable biryani, to name just a few.
Now I won’t lie and say this has been easy, and it is an ongoing battle, but Ethan has tried everything new. It may only be one spoonful with a very tiny amount of food, but he has been the one to put the new food up to his mouth.
This is a massive step for him and I do believe his sister has helped him. We have been using Little E as an example, telling Ethan to look at her whilst she tried the new food. Fingers crossed it has worked for now and it will continue to work.
We have also noticed that Little E will look at her brother whilst he eats so we have had to relax our attitude more than we would have liked with our food battles. This is because we don’t want Little E to pick up on any of Ethan’s food fears from seeing him distressed at the dinner table.
So food will continue to be a minefield in our home but hopefully it won’t be too much of a battleground!
It’s great that Little E is helping her big brother, sounds like Ethan is doing really well, perhaps this is a sign of things to come too? Siblings have been known to help each other in the most incredible ways.
I recently saw some nurses doing sensory sessions in the hospital playroom with a toddler who wouldn’t eat anything due to a sensory condition and was having to be tube fed. It was fascinating watching how touching different foods with his hands was making him curious enough to smell them and even lick his fingers and his siblings were getting involved to encourage him.
Sometimes it’s best just to relax a little and let them find their own way. Just like Little E, Ethan is deciding what he and won’t eat and trying new stuff is brilliant 🙂
I’m glad to hear he is trying new foods and hopefully they can help each other. We are hoping our LM can help our fussy Monkey with food too and so far she eats anything put in front of her and he is doing a bit better… We shall see if it continues!! X
Well done Ethan (and you all), I can empathise so much with the challenges that sensory issues bring and how much it can impact on mealtimes.
How fab that he is trying a little bit of what his sister is having, she’s leading by example and hopefully he’ll continue to have a go at some unknown tastes #SSAmazingAchievements