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Infant anorexia
I took DS to the GI-Feeding specialist at Children's Hospital in DC today. They think he may have infant anorexia. It's supposely a new epidemic. I haven't found much on it online. Anyone else have a child with infant anorexia? Please share your story with me or what treatment you are going through.
We have to start DS on a strict feeding schedule of 3 meals and a snack a day every 3-4 hours. We are suppose to give him milk following the meal and no snacking in between. In a month we have to let them know if DS is eating better. If not, then they may want us to do an endoscopy to rule out a medical condition that maybe causing him to not want to eat.
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Re: Infant anorexia
I generally only lurk on this board, but my daughter is FTT and I've often described her as anorexic. She doesn't like to eat, there isn't really another way to describe it. Basically we've just been told to "feed her more" which is such BS because everyone knows a kid is only going to eat what they feel like eating. We try to beef up the calories in anything she eats, but there is really only so much we can do
She'll be 3 in a couple weeks and only 24.5lbs. She's normal height (which is why more drastic moves haven't been taken) but so, so skinny. She eats better at school than she does at home, but she's never going to be a big eater.
Good luck to you!
Need help with high fat food ideas? Chunky Monkey
Sounds kind of like my DD. She's a healthy weight (24lbs at 19mo) but that's only because we are still spoon feeding her stage 3 baby food and giving her milk in a bottle. She is very reluctant to self-feed and will only occasionally put food in her mouth, and then about half the time she spits it back out. She will drink juice from a straw sippy cup, but won't drink anything from spouted cups and only wants milk from a bottle. All health issues have been ruled out and she's been working with a SLP through EI for 6 months without much improvement. I'm at a loss of what else I can do.
This is interesting. My DD is a pretty good eater but she is only 33" and 23lbs at just over two years old (25th and 7th percentiles respectively) I suspect she'll gain about 3 or 4 more pounds over the course of the year and maybe another inch or two (if we're lucky). She has always been tiny though. Her weight has never been above the 13th percentile and her height maxed out at the 75th percentile when she was about 6 months old, since then she's been in the 50th, except for right now. But I was a tiny child and my husband is a string bean (i.e. tall and thin). I just chalked it up to our body types. My pedi hasn't really said anything about it (even when asked). I wonder if we should be concerned at this point.
I will preface this by saying that I had never heard of it until you posted, but I did a little googling (and you know what that is worth). Anyhow, I would be VERY concerned about a diagnosis of infantile anorexia since everything I could find says it is a serious pschological condition. Just feeding the child more is not going to address the underlying control aspect of true infantile anorexia.
Lots of kids have suppressed appetites for many reasons. Has your child had a GI series to see if there is blockage/rotation that causes him to feel full prematurely? What about a gastric emptying study? A swallow study (DD was silently aspirating on foods which is why she did not want to eat as eagerly)? Have you seen a feeding therapist? Reflux?
If your child indeed has infantile anorexia, I would recommend finding a child psychiatrist who has experience with the condition to team up with you and your medical doctors to work out a plan since it more complicated than nutrition alone.
We saw a feeding therapist and she is the one who brought up the infantile anorexia. She said she wasn't sure if he had it or not. She said some kids are genetically small and don't need a lot of food to fill up so we have to figure out if it's a medical condition, behavioral, genetics,ect. He seems to be eating better since we have him on this schedule. We went to McDonald's yesterday (we were in a small town and that's the only place we found) and he ate almost a whole cheese burger (no bun) and about 10 french fries and 2 oz of a berry smoothie.
If in a month, we don't see improvements then we will do an endoscopy. I'm taking him to an allergist on Thursday to check for allergies.
They never messaged a swallow study or the other things you put.
I have a 3.5 year old diagnosed with infantile anorexia. Infantile means onset between the ages of 6 months and 3 years old. The "anorexia" just means "failure to eat", or "lack of appetite". There is a fabulous book available on Amazon called "Diagnosis and Treatment of Feeding Disorders in infants, toddlers and young children". It has a whole chapter, with case studies, devoted to IA. It is well worth the money if you have a child with these issues. the author is an MD from Children's Hosp. in Wash, DC, who has been working with and studying kids with feeding disorders for many years. It's all backed up by research. IA is not like anorexia nervosa, where there is an actual fear of gaining weight. The book has a feeding protocol for IA that we are going to start following this week -I just got this book recently, prior to this I hadn't known about the condition, even though my son has been seeing the feeding team at our children's hospital since he was 13 months old. They never came up with the IA diagnosis, it's something I found on my own and then brought to the pediatrician, who agreed completely. We have a great pediatrician who actually took a long time with us and even read the information in the book.
My son is 33 pounds and 40.5 inches, putting his bmi in the underweight category. He has been 32-33 pounds for over a year. He will eat enough to just take the edge off, but that's it. He has tons of energy, is happy, otherwise healthy, smart, just no appetite, refuses food and will do anything he can to not eat. Thankfully our dr. understands that this is more than just picky eating. He takes cyproheptadine to stimulate his appetite, 2 wks on and 2 wks off. When he is taking it, he is more receptive to food and eats more, but still not enough. When he is off the meds, he doesn't eat much at all. It's extremely stressful to say the least. It affects the whole family and as a stay at home mom, it takes a toll on me. His next meal is all I think about...I am constantly buying things at the store that I hope he will eat, but he usually rejects. Like most of you, I am just worried sick about my son not getting the nutrients he needs to grow. We have no family history of this, although I am tall and thin, and was a very thin child. My husband is average. We eat healthy foods in our house, but for my son we do try to pack in as many calories as possible of the foods that he will eat - adding butter, making shakes, whole milk, and he does like avocado which is great.
Thanks, I just read part of the chapter last week. It was free on Amazon, but it was only part of the chapter. I'm going to see if my library has it.
We started the feeding protocal 2 weeks ago. Feeding LO every 4 hours with no snacks. He hasn't wanted to eat breakfast but has been eating lunch and dinner well and seems hungry.
I totally understand about the stress, toll it puts on you. I've cried hundreds of times because of feeding. I also buy everything at the grocery store in hopes he will like it and eat it.
The biggest stress of my life-my daughter-now 2 1/2-who refuses food. She weighs 23lbs. It all started when I tried feeding her baby jar food at 4 mo-recomended by her pediatrician to help her sleep through the night. Up until then she had only nursed. She tried it a couple of times but would scream every time after that when I tried to feed her. I nursed until 15 months because that's all she'd eat. But then she lost weight and so the pediatrician recommended weening her since breast milk could no longer support her activity level. She would wait all day and not eat bite until I would breast feed her at night. So I had to go cold turkey. Still no luck. At 18 months she weighed 17lbs. My pediatrition gave little help, she only told me that I was short so she is going to be small. Little explanation to her growth curve going down to off the chart for her weight. I researched and found Infantile Anorexia on my own, and found that I was part of the reason she was having this eating problem. I was so stressed when I feed her and unknowingly force feed her when nursing and feeding baby food. So I put some chocolate pudding in a bowl, locked her in her high chair and walked away. She ate it, after a week of eating a few potato chips a day, finally success. But that did not end all. I switched pediatricians and still, little luck. No doctor had heard of it. I went to a feeding specialist and occupational therapist and they had never heard of it but said she had a food aversion. Nothing they recommended worked. I've been to three pediatricians and they've all concluded that since she is developing normally she is fine. But I say, what about her weight-she is sooo skinny? I see what she eats, I counted her calories-and she is not eating enough.
Her behavior is about control. So I put all her foods at her level to have at it whenever she wanted them. Still, she would stand there staring at them and not eat anything-even when she says "hungry" she will refuse food from time to time. The approaches that worked best for me was to eliminate snacking and make a meal 3 times a day with her whole chocolate milk and 1 snack. I kept her busy in-between so she'd work up an appetite. She has tried different foods and put on some weight and is back on the growth chart for weight! But then, she just lost 1/2 a pound and I believe it's because of her last 2 year molar that's taking forever to come in. Her appetite fluctuates like crazy. But overall, she'll eat normal for a day and then go a couple to a few days of only drinking her whole milk with ovaltine (we tried using almond milk-that was when she lost 1/2 a pound). I have now started using carnation. The signs of malnutrition she has is a pale face and severe constipation. I go into her doctor next month for a weight check and if the ovaltine does not help and I can't help her constipation with prune juice then i will go in sooner. Her doctor is now trying to get my insurance to cover the tests to make sure there's nothing wrong with her stomach and to get her allergies tested.
I hope this helps anyone researching. It is so painful to watch your child starve and be told by everyone that he/she is fine.