Help--intentionally throwing up?

st.augbride

Hi everyone, I haven't posted in a while since things have been hectic here. Our new baby arrived a month early on Dec. 29th! She's doing really well though and has been a very different experience from ds: no NICU time, she happily eats, and sleeps well. Amazing how different it is.  Ds was adjusting pretty well it seemed, though we have something going on now and I am pretty lost as to what it is and how to deal with it, so I wanted to see if others have experience with this.

Ds doesn't have any diagnoses other than being born with severe growth restriction. He's always been a TERRIBLE eater, but through youtube and other means we've managed to get him to eat enough to catch up to 50th percentile in height and weight at 2 yrs old. Well a few days ago, ds was eating breakfast, gagged on something, and threw up everything he had eaten. This then happened again with his snack that he willingly chose to eat, and again at dinner. Yesterday he only drank pediasure and was fine with it, but then asked for bacon at dinner. We gave him some tiny pieces. He ate 2 and then started sucking on the 3rd for 10+ minutes, which is a behavior of his. At that point, dh asked him to spit it out into his hand. He went to spit, but then we heard that terrible gag and stomach sound and he threw everything up again. He had a low-grade fever yesterday, but otherwise acted fine. We're taking him to the ped this afternoon to rule out other stuff, but we're very concerned that this is partially behavioral. Perhaps it was first triggered by a GI or ear thing (we'll find out), but there's something about it that seems somewhat intentional. He has always had a sensitive gag reflex that is triggered even by purees, which is still mostly what he eats, but he has never thrown up like this. I'm so scared it iwll continue. I managed to get him to eat some yogurt this morning, and then halfway through he made that sound, so we stopped and he kept it down. I know he has some food texture stuff, and he doesn't chew well (all harder solids he eats are things that break down very easily---crackers, pretzels, hummus, cheese, etc...). I've also heard about toddlers starting this as a new habit, which scares me. We've worked with GI, feeding therapists, nutritionists, yada, yada, yada...you name it, we've tried it, and it never changed a thing. Any ideas???

st.augbride

Thanks for the possible ideas as to what's going on. Sorry to take so long to respond--rough week here between the vomiting, new baby, then our heater broke (while it's 10 degrees out) and dh's grandmother just passed away. When it rains, it pours!

Ds does seem to have some sensory issues, but they really only manifest around food. He does (or did...) eat several textures and could mix textures, but has so much anxiety around new foods and refuses to try them. I think our biggest concern is that he is just never really hungry; a few bites of anything will satisfy him, and he has tons of energy to run around like wild all day regardless. So that, combined with now trying to gag up whatever he did take in, is just so stressful. I just put in a request for an emergency appt with the GI doc and/or a nurse practitioner who specializes in infantile anorexia. Here we go again with the specialists...