You are what you read

Having a child with a feeding disorder brings with it challenges you never knew you'd face. When you are pregnant thinking of all your hopes and dreams or teething and diaper rash you never think your child will choose not to eat. Choose not to eat to the point of failure to thrive, dehydration, hospitalization. Our journey has been a long and difficult one. I think it has shown me a lot about myself and as a mother and I hope I remember all the things I have learned from this.

One thing about children's books is a lot of them have lots of fun ideas about food. Our first love is Peter Rabbit - thanks to Beatrix Potter we've been getting into mischief for years with Peter and Benjamin and eating the food they found in the garden. Beans and even trying peas because the mouse had a pea in her mouth.

One morning I made my son muffins and he turns to me and says "What about the jam?" and this started me on our "book food". Muffins and Jam or pancakes and maple syrup - a big deal for my son who is very against any type of sauce. Food from a garden or even making a herbivore lunch like The Pteranodon family does when Tank comes for lunch. Making green eggs to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday didn't work out so well I had to make him new eggs because "sparkly eggs are supposed to be yellow, Momma!".

It won't fix my son's feeding issues but it can make food more fun and connect what we're doing in feeding therapy and at dinner with the books we know and love. Now that he's almost five I have a funny feeling I will have to try and make some food that looks like energon cubes because he tells me this is what Transformers eat...you think I can sneak a serving of veggies into energon?


A feeding disorder - feeding\oral aversion etc goes way beyond a typical "picky" kid. This is a serious medical problem which involves needing help from doctors like a Gastroenterologist or Developmental Pediatrician and your child's pediatrician to help from speech and occupational therapists and a Pediatric Dietitian. It involves testing like blood work, feeding evaluations and even looking at your child's digestive system with a camera. Getting help from the right 'team' of people is amazing even more so when you see your child finally eat or drink and actually gain weight. The joy you feel when your kid eats pizza like the other kids or tries a liquid other than water.

I hope we will all learn healthy views on food, eating etc thanks to all of this and we'll be better for it.