Mealtime

Toddlers are generally picky eaters, with autistic toddlers its a nightmare. My boys feeding issues started around 8 months when I attempted to move from pureed baby foods to stage 3 lumpy foods. They would gag, then spit it out, frantically wiping off their tongues with their hands until every little piece was gone. What was even harder to understand was why my boys would put every non-food item in their mouth despite its degree of grossness. Mud, lint, rocks, ants, obsessively shoveling beachsand by the handfuls into their mouths...but chicken with tiny bits of carrots would cause a complete anxiety attack. A few times I could give them a tiny bit of "lumpy" baby food under their pureed baby food until they caught wind and felt the lumps... then they didn't trust me at all and would refuse to eat any baby food period pureed or not.

They go through weird obsessions with food, right now its peanut butter and dry cereal. I typically have no problems feeding them any carb foods. So any type of cracker, or cereal is welcome. Bread too, they are Big into toast. For a few months they only ate sausage. Then there was a pepperoni pizza phase, they still will eat the pepperonis off pizza, but they've given up on eating the rest. For a few months they ate tons of apple sauce and yogurt, that was by far their healthiest phase. We even had them eating banana's and apples for a few weeks but they have abandoned the entire fruit and vegetable group altogether (unless they are stage 1 baby foods in the baby food jars, and with a lot of coaxing, and depending on their mood that day).
I don't know what it is about autistic kids that makes them so weird about food, its so frustrating. It would be nice to get through one meal feeling like they've eaten properly.
Last week, I mixed up a baby food jar of banana's into some pancake batter and put peanut butter on top, with a little sugar free syrup, that was a hit.
Then I figured out I could make smoothies and blend a little spinach or any other vegetable mixed with enough fruit and Darby will drink some of that.
So today, the only foods (non-pureed baby food) I can get them to eat are the following:
toast, cereal, crackers, cookies, bacon, spoonfuls of peanut butter, ice cream, cake, cornbread, and french fry's, pepperoni, sliced American cheese, popcorn, bagged shredded cheese, spoonfuls of cinnamon, and spoonfuls of Parmesan cheese... not the best diet. I'm worried they'll end up with diabetes or severe nutritional deficiencies. Fortunately I can get them to eat Flintstones and an omega 3 chewable vitamin every day. People always say "just don't feed them, they'll eat if their hungry enough"...I agreed that this was logical but found out quickly that while it may be true for normal kids, its a whole different ballgame with autistic kids. They will go to bed hungry, then wake up 80 times during the night crying of hunger pains, then get up at 7am ready to eat dry cereal, and I try to feed them some banana slices or oranges and scrambled eggs, this leads to more meltdowns and frantic pointing to the cupboards where the bread products are stored, then no eating, and off to school they go to find themselves at lunch scarfing down only their fry's and the bun from their chicken sandwich.
Food therapy is the route I'm eventually going to have to go down, hopefully by the time they are 3 they'll communicate better and it will be worth the cost.