Food Strike

Food Strike

Hi cc, here's a post for you. :P You asked about J's food strike and what my friends and PD suggested?

Okie, perhaps for J its a bit different, coz his food strike started by something WE did on PD's suggestion. We started off by sharing with our PD that J dun chew his food. Yep, at 2 yrs old, he don't chew his food, even now. He swallows. Even his fav fruits we have to scrap it for him, else he wld rather not eat. To cut the long story short, I cried for help, coz I cannot have him NOT chewing until he's 3 yrs old!!! At that time, he still eats home cooked food, or any soft outside food...but the latter rarely.

PD's advice - to encourage him to CHEW.
- Do the hard method. Stop preparing home cooked food for him, let him eat adult's food and breakfast like toast, chee cheong fan, kuay tiao, cut fruits instead of scrapped. If he dun want, then say "you don't want it? Mommy take it away?" and if he still don't want it, remove the plate, and dun replace with ANYTHING else.
- Do this like consistently for a few weeks.
- Make sure caregivers all sing the same tune. Well, this is where it become difficult. J goes to both my ILs place and my parents place. I couldn't manage to make it consistent across all 3 places. But I tried. Meaning I asked my MIL to STOP blending his food (Yes, she did! and my dad to STOP chopping his vege until so fine)
- So we did this hard method for a week. There was a day on a weekend that he did quite well for lunch, prob coz he skipped bf (he refused his toast with cheese) and was hungry. he ate quite a bit of kuay tiao noodle soup after a musical with his friends. it could be he was hungry, or it could be he was with his friends who were eating in front of him, though that doesn't always work.
- Then.....the next Monday. The food strike started. He was at my MIL place, once he sees food, he GAGGED. he had a hard time eating bf, and he refused lunch and dinner. we panicked! What have we done? have we caused him to hate food?

The next few weeks were quite horrible. He can refuse ANYTHING put in front of him, without tasting A BITE of it. even steamed egg which he dun have to chew, he just refuse. And worse is he started refusing even his usual fav like mee sua soup or porridge!!! we seriously panicked, and that was when I wrote to the mommy friends and my PD again. What my PD suggested is that we are doing well. That he is behaving like this coz we are succeeding in getting the mesg across. He asked us to continue and monitor. His last resort, if J still refuse to chew, is to send him to a speech therapist. But we figured, he can talk, so it cannot be jaws? Plus he can imitate us chewing (opening and closing his jaw), just that his food is NOT betw his teeth when he does it. So, we were quite stuck. Torn between continuing on our PD's advice, and betw our parental concern on him not getting enough nutrients. He is asking for milk more, but we know if we replace his missed meals with milk he will never get the message, so we had to harden our hearts and refuse him milk when its NOT time for milk. Our PD actually told us by this age (2 yrs old), he shld be taking only 2 milk feeds a day, one in the morning and one in the evening. But we are still giving him a mid afternoon feed which we have been doing.

My mommy friends advice is:
- They feel there's no 2 ways or mid-line solution for this prob. Either we harden ourselves and go through it and grit out teeth when he dun eat, until one day he realise what he has to do OR we give in to him with his preferred form of food now (though now the prob is he dun even take his usual fav, but the idea is hopefully that will change back to normal), and as long as necc, as long as he likes, UNTIL one day he DECIDES or REALISE what chewing means!
- One friend suggested borrowing a dentist artifical human jaw mould, the kind with teeth and gums all in, to demonstrate to J what it means to chew.
- Another friend suggested, to get him to like food again, to feed him what he likes. Example, during his food strike, he only takes soup. If i cook noodle or kuay tiao soup, he takes the soup only. So she asked me to cook more soup and let him drink the nutrients and let him LIKE food again.
- Another friend suggested other forms of soft food that is in between really soft and solids. Eg. instead of mee sua, feed angel hair pasta, thick bee hoon etc. I tried thick bee hoon, no use, he drank only the soup. :(
- Then I saw on a friend's blog that her kid same age going through the same thing. He PD prescribed a med, that miraculously improved her appetite. But pls be warned, this med cannot take for long term coz got side effects. I asked her for the name so that I have something on hand, but I didn't get to use it coz I checked with my PD's nurse and they told me got side effects of kid getting drowsy and cannot feed more than 2 weeks. In place of the med, the nurses recommended 3 other kinds multivitamins that can be bought off the shelves from Guardian or the like. Just for info, these are as follows, but pls decide if you need it before buying, coz multivits are still just that, supplements. Its still best we can tackle the problem of food strike at its roots instead of relaying on these. For me, I am desperate so I just wanted to try it for a few times to see if it improves his appetite back to his normal eating habits. I was careful with feeding him this, and so far, I only fed him 3 feeds of this although I have the multivit in my fridge for 1-2 weeks so far.

1. Appelin B12
2. Nutroplex with Lysine
3. Kiddipharmaton

All this are syrup form. Its the lysine inside this multivits that improves the appetite. I read up on lysine, it is an essential amino acid that is crucial for kid's development, that can only be found in food (cannot be produced by the body). It has no side effects, but when you have lack of lysine in your system, there's a host of problems and one of them is poor appetite.

- Another thing I found out by chance, is that the chinese herb 淮山 is good for bodies and improves appetite too. My mum cooks the raw form (not the dried herbs form) in soup once in a while, perhaps a month once. Pls DO NOT cook this too often, coz my dad said he read before that too much of this may be bad, but I do not have time to check out whats the effects yet. But taken moderately, this is a very good vege/herb.

- Perhaps for your case and ur friends case, if its really food strike and not chewing prob like mine, you can try varying your food variety? Try pasta, try outside dishes, try cooking the same thing in another way? Try using ginger slice to fry a dish instead of garlic (I find it taste so good), try onion and butter instead of oil and garlic, try millet instead of porridge, try bee hoon instead of mee sua etc....
- Or try making the food looks interesting, funny, cheerful, try Annabel Karmel's recipe. Too bad, I cant try that coz her recipe for 2 yr olds my J wont be able to eat. :(
- A mommy also suggested try leaving him to explore his food with his fork and spoon without you feeding him or pressurizing him. Leave him alone to explore?
- Feed only when he's really hungry instead of fixed meal times? Sometimes I find J is not hungry although I expect him to be.
- Or the last "resort"...if he is growing well, height and weight is healthy, alert and happy, and PD is not worried, then take it that its one of those growing phase. It will pass and one day they will like food again. That was one of the consoling thoughts to myself during those times.

I really hope this post helps......though I am still not totally there myself coz J don't CHEW. :( I think I have decided to take the soft approach. We really cannot bear to see him starve himself.... for J, though he was alert and happy, but he lost a bit of weight during his food strike. Now that he's nearly back to normal appetite, my parents, my hubby can all tell that his cheeks have started to fill out again, and his backside more "flesh". soooo...I think for him his food strike was really quite bad and it takes careful observation to see the effect......