I Love Food, She Doesn't...

Kaitlyn has been going through one of her phases again recently.

The phase I hate the most and worries me the most.

She stops eating. Like just doesn't eat. And I have no idea why.

This time it started just before swimming lessons started at school-so about 4 weeks ago. She was coming home from school with her lunchbox half full.
After a few days the lunch box was coming home completely untouched and she was complaining about headaches to her teachers.

I had a word with her teachers about her not eating and that was possibly the cause of the headaches. I told them I was worried for the following weeks swimming lessons, I wanted her to be eating after being at swimming so she didn't get tired, cranky, sick and dehydrated.

Now I know it's not the teachers job, but thankfully they told me they would watch her at lunchtimes.

The next day-empty lunchbox. Yay!

But understandably the teachers can't be there watching every day so she slowly slipped back into bringing home an empty lunch box.

During the second week Kaitlyn came home and announced to me "I'm allergic to eggs!"

"You're what?!?"

"I don't eat eggs, I don't like eggs and I'm allergic to them" she told me.
Well I hate to say it but that got me really angry, we sat down and had a deep and meaningful that night. I told her that she's eaten eggs since she was a toddler and explained to her what being allergic meant. I also told her how foolish and dangerous it could be to tell people she is allergic to eggs-the poor teachers would have a meltdown thinking I've neglected to tell them something so important-but she stubbornly refused to believe me.

Over the next week it got worse, lunch boxes were completely untouched, and she was starting to 'dislike' everything I cooked her for dinner. I was purposely choosing meals that were sure winners for everyone in the family but she still wasn't eating much more than a couple of bites. As you can imagine this worries me, she's basically surviving on her breakfast of a couple weetbix a day.

Last week Kaitlyn came home from school and declared "I DONT eat multigrain bread mum"

"You can't eat white bread darling and you have been eating multigrain for 2 years now. Why don't you like it"

"I've never liked it and I won't eat it again"

"There is no other option Kaitlyn that's the only bread we have"


"Well I won't eat it."

And so far she's stuck by that statement. Today as I was taking the bread out to make lunch she looked at it and said "yuck I'm not eating that" I asked if there was anything in particular she wanted on the bread and she refused.

The after noon went fine until it came to dinner prep. She watched me take out the potatoes silently, then she watched the carrots and onion come out. She watched as I chopped the potatoes and put the potato bake into the oven. The second I took the zucchini out of these fridge she started moaning and crying and whinging.

"What's wrong Kaitlyn?" I asked her-although I already knew the answer

"I don't feel well mum, I don't think I'm well enough to eat dinner"

She's already started her excuses for not eating. Since then she's come back into the kitchen 5 or 6 times moaning and whinging and even had a pretty good show of crying.


As you can imagine I'm so worried about my girl. I hate seeing her not eat. I hate the lack of energy, emotional mess that comes with the not eating. I hate that no matter how much I talk to her and ask her and offhandedly slip in questions she won't tell me what's going on. She tells me "I'm only eat jam sandwiches" so I send a jam sandwich to school and it comes home again.
It seems to be a never ending story. And it's not a new trick she's learnt. We've been through this countless times before. On two occasions she actually stopped eating COMPLETELY for 2 days and 3 days at a time-thankfully she was still drinking water in this time.

I've talked it over with countless counsellors and psychologists and even mentioned it to the latest lady we have been seeing up here. But no one has been able to help us out much more than 'just give her what she wants' we do that and then she magically doesn't like that either.


We've had a bit of a set back lately, the counsellor we were seeing up here who was really nice has pretty much said there's not point us seeing her anymore. Basically Kaitlyn's anxiety started when Bradley was born and we had to drop everything and leave quickly for 2 weeks and leave her behind, but it's never happened again and that was over 4 years ago now. The counsellor says that it's been so long, with all the work and support we have had since she should be well and truly 'over that' by now. She also doesn't have much experience with kids so young so can't really think of anything else she could do. She did however leave me with a few websites and names of books that I could try out although most of those are aimed at older children.

It's really hard, it's very worrying but it's my life. SHE'S my life and I love her so much. It's hard, every day is hard and every new behaviour has us stressed and worried and angry but we battle on through. I wish my big girl could find peace and happiness and security to fight these bad thoughts and emotions. I wish I could help her fight these emotions. . .