Late last week I had a conference call with a Developmental Nutritionist to help me get Becky’s severely limited diet expanded. With a newly minted Autism Spectrum Disorder or PDD-NOS diagnosis in hand from the school I was able to give this new information to the Nutritionist. Wow, I had no idea just how “typical” Becky’s diet was until that call. It was a huge relief to get some explanation of why Becky does what she does and how we can help her.

In a nutshell, Becky’s brain processes tastes differently than say you or me. I was fascinated by that. So we have to help her brain “train” to treat new foods a number of times in order for her brain to accept hem as an “old food” that she will then eat reliably. While this may sound like Baby Diet 101, it sort of is but with a twist.

The other important parts to our conversation included Becky’s multi-vitamin. Apparently the generic Gummi Vites we are using is not appropriate. In today’s UPS shipment I received a dry ice package with a large bottle of Becky’s new compounded liquid vitamin from a specialty pharmacy in Baltimore, MD, complete with Bubble Gum flavoring. And in the next few days we will be receiving a special shipment of a lemon pudding-like flavored fish oil supplement. It appears the research in the last year or so is showing this supplement to be beneficial to preemies both as babies and as children. Here is a great Time Magazine article to that effect:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1871514,00.html

The big news of the day is that we need to treat learning to eat fruits and vegetables as “Food Homework” and not a food battle. Wow, what a concept – because it actually works! And Gregg took Becky to the local Whole Foods to explore the produce department and had Becky pick out things she would like to try. So far we have been able to get her to consistently try new types of apples, eat a different type of cheese, and even eat a full leaf of lettuce. And her lunchbox now consistently holds a banana. Fingers crossed that this adventure continues and has a happy ending!!

Have you had a child with a feeding issue? I’d love to hear from you. Let’s compare notes!