The Battle of a Picky Eater

Well my son is 7 years old with a dual diagnosis of Down Syndrome and autism so the texture sensitivities at mealtime are overwhelming. All of these years, he has only eaten the Gerber baby cereal with baby food mixed in. Although a nutritionist has approved his diet as being okay...as a mom it is troubling. We've tried several times before to introduce new foods and textures with no luck. But I had to gear up and try this thing again.

The first trial involved the transition from baby cereal to regular oatmeal. We started by putting one teaspoon of oatmeal into his cereal. Each week we increased the amount and he seemed to love the oatmeal. This morning I only put a thin layer of the baby cereal and the rest of the bowl was oatmeal...HE SCRAPED THE BOWL CLEAN. This week we are trying oatmeal alone. This has been a huge success.

For lunch, I decided to chop up 4 raisins finely. I knew if I put in too many, he would become hip to what mommy was doing. Let me tell you, CJ will sniff and stir through the bowl when he thinks he is being tricked lol. So I added the chopped up raisins and put some fruit based baby food in the bowl to sweeten the food and he ate most of it. I was shocked. The texture of the raisins didn't make him stop eating.

Although it is small progress it is huge for my family. Our food adventures continue........

For fun meal ideas....check out: