THE SENSORY MADE SIMPLE PODCAST

Transcript

Welcome to Sensory Made Simple, a podcast dedicated to helping moms figure out how to understand your child's sensory needs and how to support them.

Whether it's tackling meltdowns, eating new foods, or just getting through the day without feeling completely drained.

Hi, I'm Dr.

Sam, a pediatric occupational therapist and busy boy mom.

And each week, I'll share simple, realistic tips that fit into your busy life.

Because believe me, I get it.

Adding one more thing to your plate feels overwhelming enough.

No complicated terms, just easy to follow strategies to help your child feel calm, confident, and understood.

So grab your coffee, chances are I've got mine too.

Pop in your earbuds, and let's figure this out together.

A little note before we begin.

Please be advised that this information in this podcast is not medical or occupational therapy advice, and is just for general and informational knowledge.

Okay, let's get to the show.

I know your child is eating these same foods on repeat day in and day out.

You are not alone.

I get it, because I am living it.

I know, I know you're sitting there thinking, Sam, you come on here every week and talk to us about variety and having a bunch of different foods in the diet and why it's important.

And now your child is only eating a handful of foods.

What is going on?

I promise I'm gonna explain it.

And I am very lucky that as a feeding therapist and as an OT, I know all the strategies, and I will admit, it is a totally different ballgame when it is your own child with a limited menu.

And those emotions run high when it comes to feeding.

My son would absolutely happily live on bagels, toast, bananas, hummus, and bomba.

Oh my gosh, the bomba, if I let him.

But I also know how important that variety is, especially when it comes to keeping an openness to new flavors and textures and preventing food burnout.

So we are taking small, intentional steps to keep things moving in the right direction.

Today, I'm sharing why it's a very personal episode.

I honestly, I needed a break from sensory for a bit, and I really hadn't talked about feeding in a while, so I thought what better way to talk about feeding than share how I am navigating it now as a mama of a child with a little feeding challenge.

So I'm sharing exactly what we're doing to increase variety, respecting his preferences, keeping mealtimes low stress and preventing food ruts.

So let's get into it.

All right, what is going on?

How in the world did we end up with a child who is only eating a limited amount of foods when all I do is talk about variety?

Well, we have been navigating a ton of food allergies.

So Mr.

C has had quite a couple allergic reactions, and we're actually having a hard time figuring out to what and why.

We did have one really big reaction.

We think it was to some kind of seafood, where we did end up calling 911, and thank goodness he was absolutely fine by the time they got there.

We do now have an EpiPen, which has made it a little bit more, I guess reassuring.

It's never really reassuring, right?

To try some new foods and to introduce some new foods.

But we really are trying to figure out what exactly is going on, and why he was having these really big, big responses.

So he has really bad rashes, and he'll get head-to-toe rashes.

And as quickly as they come is as quickly as they go.

Along with that, he also has something called F-Pies, which for those of you who don't know, is called food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome.

That is what F-Pies stands for.

And it is essentially, from what I understand, when the body does not recognize or recognizes, essentially, the protein in a certain food as being like an allergy, as being something that the body is not, it's not good for the body.

So it reacts by causing, at least for C, intense, intense projectile vomiting.

Like he will projectile vomit, exorcist style.

His eyes roll back seven times within a minute.

For other kids, it goes on all day.

Thank goodness, we, it kind of happens, and then we're able to hydrate him right away.

But we have found that sweet potato is one of those.

We think that dairy might be another trigger.

And again, we're still just really trying to figure it out.

So how did we end up at a really simple diet where he eats the same things every single day?

We were having so many allergic reactions day in and day out.

So many different projectile vomiting episodes that our allergist really just wanted him to have a very simple diet and to start there.

So we found a couple of foods that we knew he did it really well with.

And honestly, we have stuck with that for quite a while.

And now that we know he doesn't have allergic reactions to those food, we are in the place where we can finally start reintroducing them.

But naturally, because we haven't been introducing a lot of new foods, he's more hesitant about them.

He is still great about exploring them when I give it to him, but he doesn't always eat and eat a quantity of it, which I know many of you can relate with.

I put it on their plate, they look at it, they'll touch it, but they will not eat it, and they will not eat a quantity of it.

I get you.

We are there.

And it's so frustrating because I'm watching all of his little friends try all these different foods every day, different things at restaurants, and we're kind of, we've been in a rut, we've been stuck because of the allergies.

I haven't been able to introduce as much variety as I personally would have liked.

And that less variety does mean less interaction with new foods.

It's a cycle.

Fewer opportunities to interact leads to more reliance on the safe foods that he knows and love.

So again, I know you can relate to this.

You feel stuck in that cycle of they only like their safe foods, but they're not interacting with the new foods.

And then when you try, it leads to fighting, and it leads to resistance, and we kind of start all over again.

So here's what we are doing as we are now starting out.

So we are really kind of just starting again to reintroduce foods, and we're going so slow.

So if you are starting out with me, here's what we are doing.

My very first step.

We are rotating safe foods.

So what I'm talking about is he loves, loves bread and loves hummus.

So one day we're doing a bagel, the next day we're doing a piece of toast.

Today for the first time we tried tortillas.

So yes, it's still the same.

It's still bread.

It's still the same components, but it's a little bit different.

And here's why it's important.

When a child eats the same food every single day, the same exact way, eventually they're probably gonna get bored of it.

If we eat the same thing every day, we get bored of it.

We call this burnout.

Suddenly, they drop this food because they're so tired of it and burned out of it.

Now, most of the time, you or I would just change and have something different.

But if they don't have another safe food to change to, they just keep eating it until they get totally burnt out and the food you relied on becomes a hard no.

So that's number one.

We are changing the little things that we can every day.

So maybe I'm changing the brand.

Maybe I am changing the shape.

So instead of introducing it in a square, I'll tear it one day.

I also switch between hummus and peanut butter and different nut butters on the bread.

So he loves peanut butter.

He'll tolerate other nut butters.

They are not his favorite.

But we will switch between them.

It's a small, small, small change, but it does keep a little bit of difference within the textures, a little bit of difference within the flavors.

So it keeps it from becoming too routine and too predictable.

It also helps keep him open to changes.

So if he only eats the same thing every day, the same exact way, that's what he's going to expect, and it's going to make it really hard to try new foods.

So pro tip, if your child has a favorite food, think about a really, really small, almost unnoticeable way to change one element.

From there, continue, continue to change.

That way, it's keeping it fresh, but it's not too scary or too unfamiliar.

I think I mentioned this before, but something else I do is I change the shape of the food, even if it's the same exact food, each time I cook it.

So, for example, he is actually really comfortable eating ground chicken or ground turkey, so I'll change it up each time.

Sometimes I shape it like a chicken finger.

Other times, I'll crumble it up, or I'll make a mini meatloaf bite and slice it.

So it's all the same ingredients that I put in it, but it's in a different presentation to, again, keep that open, keep that variety open.

This really plays into that visual sense, so helping his visual sense get used to seeing foods in different shapes, in different presentations, so that from its protective standpoint, when he sees these foods on his plate, in the future, he's not going to have that immediate, oh my god, this is too much reaction to something new and different in a different shape.

But I know you're sitting here thinking, okay, they have their safe foods, but I want them to eat new foods.

So let's talk a little bit about what I am doing to actually start to build up some more foods.

Now that we finally got into a place where he is able to eat a couple of different foods every single day, we are comfortable enough to start working up to new foods and to start creating some variety.

Now, because he has allergies, I am not doing this probably as regularly as somebody without allergies.

So I am not introducing one new food a day.

I am not introducing one new food every other day.

Personally, we are introducing one new food a week.

And I actually think that's a really good takeaway for parents of kids who have sensory challenges with food because often we want to just keep introducing new foods, and it feels really overwhelming, one, for parents, and it can also be really overwhelming for kids.

So if you and your child are new at introducing new foods, you might just want to stick with one, one a week and just make it really low pressure.

And so we right now are introducing only one food every single week and kind of seeing how it goes.

Now I'm keeping it low pressure, so I'm putting it on his plate.

I'm usually thinking about how I can prepare it in a way that's going to be best for him.

So how would he most likely eat this food?

So, for example, he really loves things that are shaped as a stick.

So more often than not, I will try to introduce something in that shape first before trying it in a different shape, because I know he's going to be most likely to try it in that shape.

Another thing I might try to do is pair it with the food that he really likes.

So when we had first introduced hummus, he was very hesitant about it, but he really likes those puff sticks that dissolve.

And so I dipped the hummus in the puff stick, and he was delighted.

And now hummus is one of his favorite foods, so pairing it with something that he already likes was actually really helpful for him.

For some kids, this might actually go the opposite way.

It might ruin their preferred food for them.

So I usually recommend that you not do this with the food that has a ton of nutrition, not a food that you rely on every single day or every single week, because you know it's pretty nutrient-dense.

That's why I paired it with one of those puff sticks, because for him, that's not something that gives him a ton of nutrition, just something he enjoys from time to time.

So it was a really good food to use for pairing.

When it comes to introducing these new foods, I do not pressure him to eat them.

I put it on his plate, I take a step back, and then I let him do his thing.

So I don't sit there staring at him, right?

Who wants to be stared at while they're eating?

Once in a while, I might look over, check in, see how he's doing, if he's totally ignored it.

Then maybe I'll start to call attention to it.

I'll talk about the food.

Maybe I will model how I eat it for him.

Sometimes I'll even throw in a fun utensil.

So right now I am, and he is all about the Davodoo food utensils.

You've heard me talk about these before.

I absolutely love them.

They are recommended for kids to and up.

He is only one right now, but I was sitting right next to him and paying really close attention.

So we gave it a shot.

And this was with chicken, and he was totally ignoring the chicken, wanted nothing to do with it, hasn't eaten it.

And I handed him the food bag with a piece of chicken on it, and he has now been eating chicken for three straight days because he is so excited about using this new utensil.

So simple, so cute.

Really, if you have not checked out Daboodoo, they really are absolutely adorable.

I will put an affiliate link in the links in the show notes because I do truly, truly love them.

Something else I make sure to do is always have a safe food on his plate.

I actually prefer to safe foods that I can predictably think that he will eat the majority of the time and that he can get full off of because what is worse than sitting at a table and only having foods on your plate that you don't know or don't like and not feeling like you can be full and content.

So I always make sure that he has safe foods on his plate.

Even if he is not interested in food, I still continue to offer it and I'm still offering new and unpreferred foods as often as I can within the context of his allergies.

So I'm really careful with his allergies of how much I introduce, but as much as I can, I am still offering those foods.

So for example, right now, he is not about the berries.

He was eating them before.

They are just, they are out.

I am still putting them on his plate every couple of days.

The exposure matters.

Just seeing them is that reminder.

It keeps it in his mind.

He knows what this is.

And then maybe in a couple of weeks, in a couple of days, he will give it a shot.

Now, of course, berries are very expensive.

So you're sitting here thinking, oh my God, how much money are you spending on this?

I am buying berries for myself, and I will put one, maybe a quarter, on his plate every couple of days.

I am not about the food waste, but I am about offering foods that our family does routinely eat so that he can learn to eat the foods that we eat.

And I'm gonna give you a really good example of this.

So when he was younger, he loved, loved kiwis.

He would sit there and eat an entire kiwi.

And then for like a month or so, he totally ignored them.

Every time I put them on his plate, totally ignored them, wanted nothing to do with them.

So I gave him a little break for a week or two, and then I reintroduced it, again, ignored it for a little bit, and I just kept offering it in different ways, different times, different meals.

I didn't push it.

It was just kind of quietly in his rotation.

All of a sudden, he is downing the kiwis again.

This is a perfect example of how that consistent, low pressure exposure works.

It's not about pushing them.

It's about making the food familiar enough and available when they're ready.

Now, I am fortunate enough that although he does have the allergies and although he has not had the opportunity to explore as many foods as I would like, he is pretty open to exploring new foods and trying new things.

So we are starting to build up variety, which is amazing.

Once you get there, this is what I prefer to do.

Once we have enough safe foods, I try not to serve the same exact food for every single meal every single day.

So for me personally, I try to do two days of a similar menu and then change it.

And the reason I do it for the two days is because I meal prep, and I'm tired and making an entirely different meal every single day is a lot.

So meal prepping makes life easier.

So I will offer two things for two straight days, but then I'm really intentional about rotating it on the third day or the fourth day so that he's not eating the same exact thing every single day.

Now, of course, you need to be able to build up to a place where you can do this.

So we've built up to a place where we can rotate on our mornings from muffins.

We do Monday and Tuesday.

And then Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, we usually do pancakes.

And then Friday, Saturday, or I said Friday things.

Saturday, Sunday, we do oatmeal.

And I rotate through that.

For lunch, we rotate through different kinds of toasts on Monday and Tuesday, and then different kinds of eggs on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

And then on Saturday and Sunday, that's kind of our open day.

We see what we've got kind of left in the house.

For dinner, we rotate through different meatballs and different chicken balls and things that he's very familiar with, but I just keep them again, a little bit different.

For me, having a really similar menu makes it easy for us to rotate through these things.

And it makes it easy for me to meal prep and then also plan, hey, okay, what can I make as a family meal that would also incorporate him?

I will say the SOS approach to feeding actually recommends that you don't offer the same food for two days in a row.

So they actually recommend every single day kind of switching.

So on Monday, you would have the muffins, and on Tuesday, you would have the pancake.

Then on Wednesday, you would have the muffins again.

But personally, what I have found just works for us is having the same thing two days in a row and then changing it the next couple of days.

Again, this offers him opportunities to explore and interact with new foods, keep that variety open, and then also lowers the chance of burnout.

If the menu that we use is something that you guys would be interested in seeing, interested in seeing some of the recipes that we're doing, let me know.

We can also do an episode kind of on that.

I really love the BabyLed weaning app.

I think it's great for all ages.

I honestly use it sometimes to plan our meals, our family meals, because there's just some really great recipes in there, and they're divided into lunch, dinner, and snacks.

And I think for the whole year, it was like $30.

So it really, really played out well for us.

And so I'll just pull up muffins.

Okay, this week we had this muffin.

What can I change for next week that's a similar muffin?

It has been really helpful.

But yeah, let me know if you would like to see or hear a little bit about the menus that we follow for the week.

Okay, before I continue to ramble on, let's do a little recap.

Here's what I am personally doing to help keep variety going at home.

We are rotating between similar foods to prevent burnout.

We are building up enough safe foods that we can change the menu every couple of days.

We're changing the shape or the presentation of our safe foods to keep things interesting.

We are offering new and un-preferred foods consistently, even if he ignores them.

And then we're staying patient and persistent like I did with the kiwi, and trusting that these small steps can help make an impact long term.

If your child is stuck on those same foods, I get you.

Breathe.

We were there.

We are starting to build some variety.

Start small.

Start with one tiny thing, maybe changing the shape, the base, or the spread.

It might feel really, really tiny, but those tiny changes really, they really do add up over time.

Try adding a fun utensil or the fun food picks.

Progress isn't always linear.

Some days they'll ignore it totally, and then another day they'll surprise you.

Hang in there.

You've got this.

You are doing an amazing, amazing job.

And if you're still here with me at this point, thank you so much for listening to this episode and listening to me pour my heart out about kind of the feeding challenges that we have been navigating with allergies and F-pies.

And I really do, I really do feel for all the other parents going through something similar and going through food sensitivities and going through food aversions because it's tough, it's hard, and it is very, very emotional.

If you like this episode, I would be just so grateful if you would let me know by going over to Apple or Spotify, wherever you listen, and leaving me a review.

I really do read these, and they just make my heart jump for joy when I hear that a certain episode or a certain podcast or a certain topic that we've been talking about has helped you or related to you.

And it also helps Apple and Spotify know to share these episodes and to share this podcast with other parents just like you who might benefit.

Again, I hope you loved this episode.

Let me know if I should say or more personal things like this.

We could also do a Sensory one, something similar.

And thanks for joining me.

Thank you so much for joining me today on Sensory Made Simple.

I hope you're heading off with a little extra confidence and some easy ideas to tackle those sensory struggles ahead on.

If this episode was helpful or gave you a tip you can't wait to try, it would mean so much if you would share it with a friend or leave a quick review.

It helps more moms like you find the show and support their child too.

And remember, every small step you take makes a big difference for your child.

You've got this, and I am cheering you on every step of the way.

See you next time.