I’m looking to talk with other parents of children with special needs, as it’s far more complicated to have the child eat! My son is 8, weighs 20kg, and looks like he’s starving. He’s had 2 viruses in the last month, (to hospital on a drip the first time) and although I managed to help him gain weight between them, he’s lost it all again this week.
He eats cheeseburgers, I CAN get him to eat double the meat in them. Chocolate milk, toast for breakfast, all the horrors that make me gain weight just looking at them! But, I simply need to get the calories into him. His blood is good, no deficiencies, no other problems besides behaviourally he doesn’t need to eat, takes AGES to eat, goes a million miles an hour all day.
We’re seeing a dietitian next week, I know it will be pointless, apart from getting a script for sustagen.
I’ve tried to have him eat more LCHF, but argh, between the paediatrician wanting me to give fruit and vegetables (a joke), and knowing the low fat, eat veggies and lean meat (blah) the dietitian will recommend next week, I’m just a bit panicked and lost, especially considering how thin he is.
I guess I am just looking for reassurance to keep plodding along, and if you have any ideas that I might not have tried yet… And I’m sure I have tried everything!
Special Needs Children and Increasing Weight in the Very Fussy
I’m no expert, but my guess is if you feed him toast, chocolate milk, and other foods with sugar or very digestible processed carbs, it’s a jolt of glucose to his blood, which then sets him on a roller coaster ride with blood sugars. This up and down would contribute to moodiness, poor focus and restlessness.
On the other hand, keeping blood sugar levelled, would contribute to more stable mood and better chance to focus on one thing for an extended period of time. Fats burn steadily, and don’t provoke a blood sugar roller coaster ride.
Parents with epileptic children go through the same thing. And ketogenic meals helps calm their children down and minimize seizures.
A great site that has ketogenic recipes specifically designed for children is the Charlie Foundation: http://charliefoundation.org
They take into consideration how fussy kids can get and they have come up with some brilliant recipes for children…all ketogenic and quite tasty.
Hope this helps? I really hope you figure this out. Good luck to both of you. Stay in touch and let us know how it’s going.
I have a daughter, now 5, with special needs. She is a little better now, but for the first year of her life we had to feed her via NG tube. She is now a fussy eater, and is stubborn. Sometimes it’s a matter of picking your battles, and planning to do better at the next meal.
Have had some success with chopped up omelette at breakfast time, loaded with stacks of cheese and some ham. Provides lots of fat, some protein and little carb.
Also, have saved site recommended by @Fiorella.
My son has autism, and we have had eating issues his whole life. It’s really tough to get him to swallow new foods. He didn’t even swallow medicine until a few years ago, but he now swallows pills. We give him digestive enzymes, probiotics, and have him on natural anti-fungal and other supplements which have been helping with moods & health. I got some really good ideas out of a book called “Unprescription for Autism”, and there is much more info available out there, that was the book that got me started with treating the possible digestive issues that diet alone were no longer fixing. We try to keep his diet as grain free, dairy free (except butter), and sugar free as possible. In the book she discusses using the enzymes with grain & dairy to help your body process them better, if you want to keep them in his diet. She reported better success than I’ve had introducing new foods (because they are feeling better, so they want to eat). Most of the cases are younger kids, a few older individuals.
He’s pretty picky but I just try to add stuff where I can…butter/lard/tallow in his hamburger (no dairy here), homemade SF ketchup (addicted to the stuff), butter/bacon grease to every vegetable he will eat and keep his fruit minimized. His beverage is VERY watered down Propel. I have been trying to get him to eat eggs for over a month…he will swallow 2 bites only if he can wash them down with “juice”. I’ve ground liver and mixed it with his hamburger at a small ratio. I’m just looking at every food and trying to figure out how to tweak it for better health and still keep him eating it.
It’s a tough road, just keep trying a bit at a time. My son is 21, and I wish I’d had the info available when he was much younger. He’s much more stubborn now lol, but I just keep trying. He never developed any health issues until he was 17, and now we are dealing with issues I feel could’ve been avoided had I known some of the new info available.
Any chance you could switch out the standard for keto compliant? Maybe do it gradually, especially with the chocolate milk so as not a huge change in flavour at once. Toast is more tricky but you could try??? I am guessing though that it will be a lot easier in theory than practice.
There’s a book written by an occupational therapist specifically for special needs kids with sensory issues called “My Kid Eats Everything”: https://www.amazon.com/My-Kid-Eats-Everything-Adventurous-ebook/dp/B00EZ85R2Y/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1492110884&sr=1-1&keywords=my+kid+eats+everything It may be helpful.
I know it’s difficult. I have two nephews with spectrum diagnoses and they will literally starve themselves rather than eat new foods or foods that they have aversions too. They tried to “get tough” with my young nephew and he went without eating for nearly two weeks, losing weight he could not afford to lose.
And, if it’s any consolation, that same nephew is now an adolescent and is mildly overweight. He got interested in gourmet cooking and even though he still won’t eat everything he cooks (very elaborate, fancy foods!), he’s eating some of it, clearly. (BTW, this has been great for his communication/socialization skills. He dragged me to a local spice shop looking for a very specific uncommon spice and did the whole transaction very independently!).
My older nephew with ASD has earned his PhD and has a fellowship in England. He’s on his own there, and has had to adjust to a lot of new foods and new preparations. He’s doing very well (not without many challenges, but still doing great).
Thanks for the book suggestion, normally I would avoid the title as ridiculous! Exactly as you know, the ‘tough route’, that will work with NT kids just won’t work with ASD. I have finally, after MANY years, got him to help making Keto chicken nuggets, which was a great success, yet the fish nuggets I made with his NT brother, wouldn’t touch!
I spent a solid 6 weeks daily trying to get eggs into his breakfast diet, only to fail, even though he sort of likes them, he simply refuses anything that he perceives we want him to eat. Case in point, he now refuses cheeseburgers with two meat patties, which he likes, as he knows that the meat will give him muscles and strength. Sigh.
(NT = neuro typical for those curious!)
Craig, I’m going to give the omelette idea a good go. I’d thought of it before. Can you please run through the technique you use for it? I so desperately want eggs in his diet. We spent months getting him eating hard boiled eggs in his ABA program, but now that he likes them, he refuses them, argh!
That’s my strategy, up the healthy fats where I can. It’s a pity we can’t get away camping, as that’s an ideal way to ZC the lot of them…
At 8 he could be preparing some of his own foods with supervision. How about smoothies where you let him pick what goes in to them?
Very quick and easy.
2 eggs, whisked with a fork in a saucer. Add grated cheese and chopped ham, whisk more. Pour into a heated pan with coconut oil. Cook until mostly solid. My little girl is 5, so still prefers to have hers chopped up for her before eating.
We’re currently in hospital as he has pneumonia. The trip to the dietician was actually ok, he’s on a high fat and protein diet until we return in July. I’m reviewing the ideas and stuff in the Charlie Foundation books and the dietician plans (skipping the jam/sugar/honey which are also on the high energy list!) & will be using every trick to get him back to lchf that he was briefly on. The goal is to get weight on him, as he’s extremely underweight now at 19kg.
As usual, the tricky part is the actual eating bit! But, got even some new ideas of how to up the energy in his foods, without really changing much, even though many of the ideas I’ve been doing for ages!
What are your son’s favourite foods? Maybe we could suggest recipe ideas. Like, does he prefer eggs, chicken, beef, cheese, pork…etc…? Does he prefer creamy stuff, or crunchy stuff, hot or cold…? Does he prefer finger foods, or stews/soup…? Salty? Sweet? Vinegary? Spicy or not too spicy?
Would love to help you with food ideas…
This is an amazing an inspiring thread, I have a few friends with autistic children, one of them totally denies and legitimacy in the keto way of eating.
Hang on. Are you feeding him a different plate of food than what you or others are eating? Do you sit together as a family during meal time and eat the same thing, or different plates of food for everyone?
I have two girls that are ADHD. One is just like Chthulhu’s son, stick thin and cannot seem to put on weight. She takes a stimulant behavior drug that dulls her appetite and we have to work hard to get food into her. She isn’t picky as much, just not hungry. She’s been at 53 lbs for the past 12 months (she’s 7) and gone from 48" to 53" tall. Her bones are starting to show and it scares me. Her doctor has said she must start to gain weight or she has to stop the medicine. Now, the irony is she is highly intelligent, and understands the concept of proper nutrition. We discuss diet and what she needs to eat to grow and be healthy. She knows it in an empirical sense, but cannot seem to apply it. So I, too, am trying to sneak calories in wherever I can. I know she must have excellent insulin response, but I still don’t want to give her too many carbohydrate calories. I do load her up with bacon when I can. Thank goodness she loves it.
The second daughter will be six in June, and she’s almost the opposite. She has been chubby all her life. When she started the same medication as her sister, she thinned out a little but has not lost weight. I think she is more like me, and probably needs to really watch carbohydrates. I try to encourage her to eat more protein and fats, and limit her carbs, but it’s hard. Even when I pack her school lunch, she still has access to that chocolate sugar water they call “milk”, and I cannot stop her getting it unless I go to the school at lunch time. I may have to have an intervention with the school staff so she isn’t allowed to go through the lunch line, but I don’t want her to be stigmatized. And then, I don’t know what will happen if I’m ill and can’t prepare her lunch for some reason. sigh It’s hard, isn’t it?
I keep trying recipes on them, hoping I’m going to find things they like. Every time I do, I feel like I’ve found gold and I get so excited. Until the next time I serve it and they whine and complain (recently happened with Fathead pizza). So, yeah, here I am.