Texture Aversion

Our son (12) has had a severe problem with this too. We have been in the hospital 3x cuz he would not eat enough. We just finished a feeding program that deals with behavior issues like this at Our Childrens House of Baylor. They have satellite spots, but you probably want OCH that has child psychologists. I know downtown and Irving has these.

Good luck with this -- it's the MOST FRUSTRATING THING I've EVER dealt with! I have a 21 month old that still won't eat anything hardly. Breakfast consists of waffles, peaches, cereal (honeycomb or little flakes) and banana or apple. Lunch is a pb&j (smuckers no crust ones), pb and crackers, SOMETIMES he'll eat a chicken nugget or two, french fries and/or pizza... dinner is the same thing for lunch. He will, on occasion, eat a quesadilla or a bean burrito but that's it. IF it's not a cracker or mentioned above, he wants nothing to do with it. No hot dogs, no vegetables, no pasta, it's MADDENING! If you want, Cooks Children's offers a therapy 'thing' for kids with this... outpatient through local rehab clinics.. kiddo would meet w/a speeth pathologist or therapist and she'd work with your kiddon on certain thigns... I'm considering trying this. It was like $300 which is why I haven't done it yet.

My son is now 2 and eats almost anything, however, he was just like that when he started on our food. Start by giving him bread items (like muffins)in small pieces. It was so long ago, but I think he moved to bananas, cheese, crackers....Gradually he will be able to handle this and will start to eat more and more. You have to be very patient. Don't worry, he will get over this.

My son is 16 mos and still has a texture aversion to many things! :) Our doctor and my friend who is a pediatrician too said don't worry about the fact that your one year old still wants to eat jar food because as they said, there's no way he will enter kindergarten still eating jar food:) All in time, they will adjust to new foods. It's not a huge issue to be concerned of they reminded me. My doctor said her son at 15 months old didn't even want to eat mashed potatoes b/c of the texture:) What's funny about my son is that there are some things he will easily eat (like Ritz crackers broken up, bananas pieces cut up in tiny squares, and soft cheese) but other things he will chew on for hours and ultimatley gag and spit it out (like a piece of a tortilla or a soft cooked carrott). Here are things my texture picky baby actually likes - grated cheese, small pieces of bananas, mac&cheese noodles, small pieces of toast with butter, small pieces of really soft/ripe pear, AND SHREDDED turkey from the deli. He can't deal with even the thinly sliced turkey from the deli, BUT if we have it shredded to where it's almost like it's chewed up to begin with, he LOVES it. And he's 16 mos old and just eating these things. I admit, I'm freaking out b/c he goes to a parents day out program starting next month where he has to eat finger foods! And I don't know what he will eat! :) Don't worry to much about this one and slowly try new things. That's my two cents on this:)

Hi C.,

My daughter was the same way and my friend has twin 1 year old boys and one eats solids and one won't eat anything with texture. My son was eating big people food at 9 months, but my daughter didn't start until 18 months! All I'm trying to say is all babies are different and it's okay if he doesn't want solids yet. We left cheerios out for our daughter and sometimes she would eat a few. We fed her yogurt, pudding, instant mashed potatoes. She wouldn't even eat certain pureed foods so that made it even trickier. She was on stage 2 baby food until she was 18 months. She never would eat stage 3. Yes, the cashiers would look at us funny when we checked out with all our baby food, but who cares. She's fine and has always been in the 50th percentile her whole life so it didn't hurt her. Just follow your baby's cues and try new things every now and then. If he likes it fine, if he doesn't fine. He'll be okay. Surprisingly, one of the first big people foods my daughter loved was corn on the cob! LOL

Hi- my daughter has the same thing. We see a speech therapist (for feeding) and an occupational therapist. They tell us that kids who have texture aversions in their mouth usually have the same aversions on their hands. So they try to get her to be more comfortable with different textures, by doing things like playing with whipped cream, or jello, or a bowl of beans or rice (you can hide things in the rice and have your child try to find them). They work VERY SLOWLY to increase the texture in foods, starting with a pureed preferred food. So take your childs favorite food, and provide just a few small "chunks" or add wheat germ, only a tiny bit at a time. I would be glad to share more with you if you are interested.