Nutritional rehab and feeding holidays for kids

Nutritional rehab and feeding holidays

As picky eating can cause so much emotional stress it is important to defuse the situation. In a lot of homes picky eating behaviour is like a time bomb waiting to explode and somehow, we must defuse the situation while keeping health as the number one priority.

Herein lies the challenge as patients always ask me. ‘How do I get my child to be healthy if they are not eating a healthy variety of foods’ 
We know that a well-nourished child wants to eat…. So, we need to find a way to break the cycle.

We need to nourish the child through a process I call nutritional rehab and at the same time we need to take the pressure off feeding. 
Whole nutritional supplements are imperative when doing this. We need to find the easiest way to give nutrition easily. The ultimate nutritional supplement will have an appropriate balance of all the major nutrients, fat, protein, and carbohydrates. It will also have the micronutrients needed for growth and to correct deficiencies.

Initially during nutritional rehab supplements may need to make up around 80% of the required nutritional intake for the child. People are often concerned that giving such a large volume of a supplement may decrease appetite - quite the opposite is true as the child becomes more nourished their appetite improves greatly. 

The body also becomes secure in knowing that it will be fed, and the metabolism starts to normalise causing the child to feel hungrier. A lot of precise eaters have become quite apathetic to food as they have had little, so the body expects little. Almost like an anorexic state of being. This can be fully corrected by appropriate nutritional rehab.

The importance of nutritional rehab is that it is a process where you eventually wean the child down from 80% of the nutritional support and then they start to replace with foods. This however needs to be done in the right way and at the appropriate time normally starting around 3 months post rehab to a few months down the line.

Feeding holiday 

So just like nutritional rehab breaks the physiological cycle of precise eating so a feeding holiday is in place to break the emotional cycle of picky eating. During a feeding holiday as a parent, you need to take the focus off food in your home. You can offer three small meals and 2-3 small snacks a day and the rest of the time you focus on doing other things outside of feeding. Re-establish your relationship with your child in a new way and new environment. 
This could mean going for walks, play games with your child etc. During the feeding holiday the focus on mealtime is socialisation as opposed to feeding. Normally feeding holidays are done simultaneously with nutritional rehab and this gives you peace of mind that your child is getting in nutrition despite poor eating. 

During this time also look at your expectations with regards to your child’s feeding behaviour that is how much and what you are expecting them to eat. Look at voices that may be influencing you. It could be a parent, an in law, a social media following, your own fears etc. it is important to set all this aside during the feeding holiday. 

Lastly during a feeding holiday, you must ensure that you offer the healthiest foods that your child will eat. Do not focus on getting your child to eat and try new foods during this time. But you will continue to prepare and cook the foods you as a family eat and try.

Focus: family mealtimes, buffet meals, sitting on laps for younger kids.