Have you ever played one of those infuriating games where, for no apparent reason you have to unlock the green chest with the red key that you got from the one-eyed wizard to retrieve the amulet to make the cat talk so you can get the directions to the hidden forest to save the baby snake from the fire?
Lunch in our house is a lot like that. It can take over two hours to feed our daughter as she becomes fixated on anything other than eating. At the moment it’s ice lollies. She won’t be placated by the idea of a lolly after lunch, she wants it now. Despite being told repeatedly that if she would only eat the food that she asked for then she could have the sodding ice lolly: she refuses. Any attempt to dissuade her from her course to the freezer is met with fierce resistance.
She spent half an hour trying to get to the freezer, banging the table, shouting, and screaming. When this achieved nothing (it never does) she gave up and sulked, so we wiped her down and moved on. After two renditions of Baby Shark (which I believe is against the Geneva Convention) I suggested that we all ate in an effort to encourage her – “monkey see, monkey do” type of thing. Keen to do anything other than watch another rendition of overly-cheerful sea creatures bop along with the top predator, my husband agreed.
Which led to stage one of our mad game – have you got a ball? You need a ball. The ball is used to coax the reluctant fae along the floor into the kitchen – diner. If you don’t roll the ball into the room she won’t come happily. If she isn’t happy, then she won’t eat. So you need a ball. Stage two: you need crisps, any crisps will do but in this case salt and vinegar (apparently, they go well with chocolate hazelnut spread). The crisps are so your fae can alternate between eating her lunch and your lunch, which is apparently the way to eat today.
Stage three: remember that fidget octopus she has? Well you need it now, as without it you have nowhere to store the ball. If you can’t store the ball, it will be rolled around the table getting in everyone’s food. So stuff the ball in the octopus. Yes, it looks pregnant, but whatever. Finally, reheat the food. Because after an hour or so it’s stone cold and Fae creatures won’t eat cold food.
So the final score to get our child to eat the meal she asked for, we needed: a golf ball; microwave; two hours; and a small silicon octopus. And an ice lolly to follow.
Funny old world isn’t it?
Anyone else had issues like this? Please share I would love to hear it!
So my Fae is – as I guess a lot of such children are – entitled to transport, supplied by the council, to and from school. This is because she requires extra support, as she has a tendency to Houdini herself out of any harness or seatbelt; has no sense of danger; and can be a bit of a nightmare if she puts her mind to it.
So, over the summer we received our letter informing us of such things, because the school our child is going to attend seems incredibly competent and orgisned it for us. We dutifully filled in our part of the paperwork, sent it back, and all seemed fine and dandy. That was until last week, when a strange man with no identification knocked on our door.
Waving a list of children’s names and addresses at us, he gruffly enquired if this one was ours. Taken aback by this sudden intrusion, it took me a moment to regain my wits and ask him (a) Who the hell he thought he was and (b) Why did he have my daughter’s details?
Speaking as though I was an idiot for not knowing, he blithely said he was the driver for school transport. He did not offer a name, nor variation of this. He told me he would be picking her up on Monday at 8am. When I informed him that she didn’t start school until Friday, and even then we would not be starting her on transport until later, as she was autistic and would find this too much – something we had arranged with both transport and the school – he scoffed, made a circling gesture with his hand next to his head and said in a knowing tone “Oh a bit like that is she?”.
….
….
He was lucky I was too shocked to recover fast enough to do anything but shut the door. Needless to say, my daughter is not going on transport and we have lodged a complaint. This is not acceptable. No child should be subjected to such an attitude, and no parent should feel the need to defend their child against such ignorance. The failure to keep confidential information safe is illegal; the failure to react courteously regarding a child’s needs is a strike against child protection and the disabilities act.
The scoffing refusal to introduce oneself when arriving unannounced at a stranger’s house is a failure of common manners. This man has no business being anywhere near children, vulnerable or otherwise.
As I type the council has not responded, I will keep you informed should they do.
So on the 29th of September I got a response! but not from the transport but from ACT. Act is a different department in the council set up to help parents with children with disabilities. I wasn’t reassured when I sent them the same email that the automated response said they would get back to me by January 2022 but I felt I had nothing to lose. THey apologised for the driver and asked for his name (missing I sense the bit where I said he did not intriduce himself) and giving me a form to fill in for expenses. Not really promising but still I filled in the form reiterated everything I knew about the driver – pointing out a bit of basic detection the thier part would identify him and sent it back.
I guess it will be another few weeks before anythign else happens.
There are times that, like it or not, your fae needs to do what you tell them. This can cause conflict: if they have PDA (pathological demand avoidance) tendencies, it can be impossible, or at least very difficult. I have some suggestions for how to get your way with your fae child, some of these come from what works for my daughter (that we’ve made up as we went) but most are adapted from my time as a teacher. You would be surprised at how much overlap there is.
Firstly no matter how tempting it is, and no matter how near you may be at the end of your tether, don’t shout if at all possible. This is for a number of reasons: if you continually shout, it loses its effectiveness – ‘mummy always shouts so I will ignore her’ – or worse it will be seen as funny. Either way, what happens is: they ignore you; and you become more frustrated. Shouting doesn’t work.
Offer choices where you get what you want with either option selected; are THEY putting their shoes and socks on; or are YOU helping them? Either way they end up with their shoes and socks on, it doesn’t really matter how it happens.
Leave plenty of time. There is nothing worse than the added pressure of a deadline, whether it’s getting to school or catching a bus. If you know that they need to be ready by a certain moment, leave time to get them there.
Give warnings of change of activity, it doesn’t have to be 5 mins every time, but give some notice; make it clear and concise; and walk away after. Don’t respond to shouts of NO or protests. They know it’s happening, responding to the protest makes them think they can negotiate it. The idea is to make the clock the enemy, not you. ‘We have to leave in 2 mins, time’s up, nothing I can do’.
If there are tasks that your child really doesn’t like but needs to be done (for our daughter, it’s nappy changes) turn it into a competition. We race our daughter to the bathroom: she loves to win, and then she is happy to have the change done now she’s there. We may also compete to see who can finish dinner first, or get to her fork first – she always wins, but then she eats her dinner.
Use ‘when-and-then’ statements. It puts the onus on them to do what you want e.g. “when you put your socks and shoes on, then we can go to the park”. Be clear on what they need to do for you to get the outcome they want.
Warn of consequences that you can follow through on. Never threaten something that you can’t do. We learnt early on that time outs were not the way to go with our daughter, and the punishment had to fit the crime. Where possible, we give her time to change her behaviour (obviously if what she is doing is dangerous, this isn’t possible) I give her a slow countdown from 5. This is enough for her to weigh her options.
If possible, offer a choice; do you want to hold mummy’s hand or daddy’s hand? I don’t care whose hand she holds, so long as she is holding one or the other. It gives her some sense of control over events but also keeps her safe.
Focus on outcomes not methods – what are you trying to achieve? Does it matter how you get them to wear their seatbelt, so long as they do wear it? Do you really care if their clothes are on back to front and inside out, so long as they put them on?
Regardless of how they externally portray them (or don’t), your fae feels emotions deeply: they take things to heart, so take care with how you speak to them; if they are melting down or upset they may need you to name the emotion for them. Give them the words, let them know it’s ok to be angry or frustrated or sad;let them know you understand why they feel that way; and show them how to deal with it in a healthy way. Above all, be calm: you are their anchor, and if you get angry or distressed, then they are going to be adrift.
Your child is a small human and needs to be treated with respect. That doesn’t mean they get to do what they like, when they like; all children need boundaries. Those boundaries need to be firmly enforced: the harder they test it, the more you need to hold it. If you let them break them, or they can’t find any, then children feel very unsafe and their behaviour becomes more outrageous. Be firm but fair: children don’t need to be insulted or scared into behaving, and they certainly shouldn’t be hit or smacked. Smacking a child doesn’t teach respect, it teaches fear and that is not useful in the long run.
It’s funny how one small thing can screw up what was otherwise a damn fine day.
I suppose at this point it would be wise to explain about Bubble. Bubble is a small, green triceratops with a monobrow and a loose thread round his neck. Don’t ask me why he’s called Bubble, I have no idea. My daughter named him (and it is a him, I have been informed quite forcefully). Bubble is one of what we call the ‘bedtime posse’. She has – as I am sure many children, both neurodivergent and neurotypical do – a large collection of plushies that she insists on sleeping with. They include every member of the Paw Patrol (two Chase’s, one with a nightlight), a small reversible octopus call ‘Coba’, Professor Inkling (from the Octonauts; the rest of the crew live in the family room as I drew the line at another 8 characters joining in); a small stuffed dalmatian called ‘Tiny Marshall’; and Bubble. Out of this menagerie, only three leave her room – Tiny Marshall who goes *everywhere* with her (he’s very important; Pro life tip: if your child has a very special toy, have multiple copies in case one gets lost or mislaid. We have 5 Tiny Marshall’s); Professor Inkling goes to the family room to visit the other Octonauts; and Bubble comes down to read in the evening.
Last night, we couldn’t find Bubble. This was beyond a crisis: instead of a calm bedtime routine of doing jigsaws and reading, the time was spent tearing the house apart trying to find Bubble whilst my daughter plaintively cried for him in each room. We went through all the bedding in all the rooms; the cushions in the playroom; and dismantled the couch. Finally we gave up and hit the “break glass” and pulled the spare ‘Bubble’ from hiding. Unfortunately this was rejected. Unlike the ‘Tiny Marshall’s’ which are so similar that she can’t tell them apart, Bubble 2 didn’t have a loose thread or a monobrow.
I suggested we call him Bubble 2, and this was grudgingly accepted, but she still searched for OG Bubble in the family room. And then during reading time.. she managed to lose this Bubble too! She spent the rest of the time crying for both Bubbles and didn’t want to go to bed. It was exhausting. In the end she agreed to go up with “Big Bubble” (a somewhat bigger and more realistic triceratops that her grandparents bought her a few weeks ago.)
After she went to bed, instead of falling headfirst into a bottle of rum, I went back through the family room and found Bubble 2 (hidden in the back of the couch, go figure) but still no sign of OG Bubble.
We gave up. This morning, out of desperation, I pulled her bed apart. Literally: mattress off, bed away from the wall.. and finally found him! He was on the floor, squashed between the side and the wall (no idea how he got there). I also found the plushie Everest that I hadn’t even noticed she’d lost. It’s possible that she has too many soft toys….
Anyone else had their entire day trashed by something small? Please share in the comments!
Last week I didn’t write a post. This is because, like many of you, I am in the depths of the summer holiday. 6 weeks of freedom from routine and the humdrum of school and nursery life. For a lot of families this means the excitement of holidays in far flung places (or at least before Covid), lazy mornings and meeting friends. For most parents it’s a bit of a drag to entertain your youngling(s) throughout the time and wishing that flights were cheaper. If you have a fae child, however, it can be 6 weeks of meltdowns, tantrums, and frustration. They have just lost their regular daily routine, which is their safety net, overnight. This world of freedom robs them of many certainties they relied on. They can become very unsure, and this makes their behavior harder to manage.
My daughter is normally the happiest little thing you have ever seen, but for the past week she has run me ragged. I have tried to keep with her regular morning and bedtime routine, but inevitably there has been disruption. Firstly, her childminder hours have been reduced, she now goes twice a week rather than every weekday. She doesn’t understand why she doesn’t see the same friends there, as some are on holiday, and some are simply busy. Her grandparents came to visit – which for myself and my husband was a relief but, despite how much she loves seeing them it comes with a whole level of change. She thoroughly enjoyed her time with them, but after two days, she just wanted to hide in her room and cuddle on her bed all afternoon. It was important to her that either my husband or myself was with her, but we weren’t to interact with her, nor her games. It’s a difficult balance between supporting and smothering.
She has needed more sleep than normal to cope with the upheaval. We have had to reintroduce nap time, and she has been sleeping later in the morning – a real benefit, at least for us! Her eating has improved too: we had a ‘lightbulb’ moment where she would steal chips from my plate whilst ignoring the ones on hers. It finally occurred to us: the difference was that I had added salt to mine. So, in complete indifference to all known health advice, I started adding salt to her food. My husband also realized that all her food was, at best, lukewarm rather than hot; again, because I did start with the best of intentions on feeding my daughter the correct way. It turns out if you serve her lava with some salt on it, she will eat it. Who’da thunk?
Still, it is only the second week in August and I am fretting about school uniforms, pencil cases and book bags. I believe this must be a displacement activity, as every morning I wake up with a moment of blind panic about what we are going to do that day. So far I am trying to keep some semblance of normality, we go out in the morning and let her burn off the manic, and then chill out at home. We got her a new bike – her first with pedals (sidenote: teaching a non-verbal child to ride a bike is like some sort of bizarre game of charades with added metal contrivances). She spends the afternoons oscillating between being on her new bike and pleading to be allowed on her new bike.
This leads me to my current position, cooling down in my new gym’s café whilst trying to stave off a heart attack having worked out for the first time in four years. This is not penance but pragmatism; if she’s on a pedal bike, I’d better be fit enough to catch her on mine!
Our daughter has a bedtime routine. She will go to bed happily and stay there all night. On a good day she won’t get up until about 7am. On a bad day she’s up at 4am, on average she gets up somewhere between 5 and 6.
This was not something achieved without significant effort on our part. For over 2 years we fought tooth and nail until we found the right combination of naps, activities and routine to make it work. The key is to tailor the process to what works for you and your family and don’t alter it. There are timeframes and certain chores that must be done at set times and then stay rigidly consistent. Before deciding to start instigating a bedtime routine, sit down with a planner or a notepad and map out your week. Anything that happens in that week that absolutely cannot be moved fill in first. That includes such things as jobs / school / regular medical or therapy appointments etc. Next spend some time noting when your child gets tired in the evening, and is ready to be put to bed for the night. NOT when you want to put them to sleep, but when they actually sleep. If this is later than 10pm, then you need to consider shifting or eliminating their last nap of the day.
Once you have an idea of when you want to get your child in bed, you can work backwards. You want your evening routine to be consistent, regardless of whether it is term time or not. Consider that at some point, your child will be attending school, or factor in other children in the house already of school age. You may want to start sleep training during the summer holiday, when sleep deprived older siblings can catch up with lie ins, but that is entirely up to you.
Next make sure the room you are putting your fae into is conducive to sleep. Temperature should be ideally between 16 – 20°C: this may be harder to attain in summer. We actually bought air conditioning units to keep the rooms cool, but this is a luxury that a lot of people cannot afford. A standalone AC unit can be noisy and cost a few hundred pounds. To get integrated AC cost us the best part of £5000. I don’t regret a penny of it, but it is a lot of money, and not an option for a lot of people. You can get a good effect by using fans and placing a bag of ice in front of them (put a tray under the ice to catch run off) or spritzing curtains with water and using a fan to cool them. Ceiling fans are also a cheaper option but require a certified electrician to install them.
Temperature is a significant factor in getting your child to sleep easily. Our daughter can sleep through any noise – we used to walk her around the town in a chest sling to get her to sleep, and even sirens wouldn’t wake her. But being too warm would definitely do it. It’s also very dangerous for young children to overheat. Too hot is significantly more dangerous than too cold: children can snuggle up with bedding for warmth, and are likely to wake if they are too cold, whereas they can fall into a coma and suffer heat related illnesses when too hot.
Try to keep the room calm; keep the décor from being over stimulating; flashing and beeping toys should not be in their rooms overnight – this is a place to sleep, not play. Place loud and exciting toys elsewhere; a playroom or family room. They can, of course, have their favourite stuffed toys (our daughter has the entire Paw Patrol and, at last check, a couple of Octonauts had snuck in) but if it lights up, talks, blinks, beeps or has at any point made me want to launch it out the nearest window, it does not go in her bedroom.
Her room is painted in bland white and off-white shades; her duvet sets are mostly beige with a few characters from books or dinosaurs on them. Bright colours are for other places. It’s deliberately dull: there aren’t even any sheep to count because for her that would be too exciting – she loves numbers.
We spent several weeks planning how to tackle her sleep routine before starting, and once we began we didn’t stop. Commitment is key: if you show signs of weakness, they will sense it. We figured out that 8pm was the sweet spot – the time where she was mostly tired, without being so tired that she went manic. We worked out that baths excited her too much to be the last thing she does before bed, so our bedtime routine started when my husband stopped work. He has half an hour to play with her. They may go in the garden and throw a ball around, or just chill out watching TV and building forts in the living room while I prepare her dinner (apart from when her dad cooks). We eat at around 6:30, and by “we” I mean her father and myself eat. She will sit on the bench opposite and may or may not join us: she has a troubled relationship with food that makes it difficult to predict. I rarely make her anything unfamiliar, there is always something she likes on her plate. If she eats, I sigh in relief and internally dance for joy. If she doesn’t, I will try to hide my disappointment. It’s no good coercing or begging, it doesn’t work.
We always finish the meal by offering her a yoghurt and asking her if she wants ‘anything else’: this is to encourage her verbal skills. She normally counts to 3 to indicate she would like three chocolate buttons. She has been known to try it on, and count to ten with a cheeky grin, but she knows that three ( if she eats really well, 4) is the best she can hope for. After which we wipe her face and hands regardless of whether she needs it (it’s a signpost that she can leave the table) and head to the bath. She has recently got into the habit of brushing her own teeth, although much to my lament I have to sing ‘baby shark’ while she does it. If I stop singing, she stops brushing. Still life is about compromise. By the time the bath is full (and I have caterwauled through the last do-do-do) she is ready to get in. Bath time is also used to encourage language by naming body parts as she smashes a sponge into them: she tries to wash them herself but often needs a little help. Drying her off is most often achieved by chasing her around the bathroom while she hides under the towel pretending to be a ghost.
My husband will clear up from dinner at this point, while I create monstrosities from Lego with her, or complete jigsaws. At about 7:45pm we all curl on the couch and read from a selection of books. Her favourites are an illustrated version of “Rhyme of the ancient mariner” and Poe’s “The Raven” – both were bought as a bit of a joke, but she loves them. By 8 she is normally asleep or very close to. She has a signpost book, ‘Roaring Rockets’: we use it to say “time to sleep”, she uses it to indicate she wants to go to bed. Either way it’s the last book of the night. We then carry her to bed (when we started this, she was a lot lighter!) Originally, this was where the trouble started.
She would be fine until we had kissed her goodnight and left room. At which point she would spring to life and throw herself out of bed to follow us. We sometimes spent literally hours putting her back in bed, while she went through the gamut of emotions from laughter to tears to full out-rage. We would start at 8 and she might be asleep by 10. Some nights we were still fighting her at midnight. Only for her to wake up at 2 and start the whole thing again. I wanted to cry (I did often). Eventually (by that I mean after about 6 months of this) she stayed in bed mostly, but screamed and cried every time we left. We kept going in: we didn’t keep to the recommended “leave her 5 mins”, I was physically unable to leave her that long and frankly it seemed cruel. We began with a maximum of 20 seconds before going back in. The important thing was to settle her and leave. It didn’t matter how long for. We went through this phase for a long time too.
Finally we got to the point where we could put her to bed and she would stay and go to sleep without tears (yay), but if she woke at night she would still need the same amount of pain to get her down again. I caved: I was exhausted from this, so if she woke at night, I started bringing her through to my bed to sleep. Which marked me as a soft touch and probably prolonged the process. In my mind, I didn’t want her waking her father – who had to work then next day – with her cries.
It reached the point where we had to bite the bullet and go through the same rigmarole at 2am as we had at 8. That almost broke us, I think on my own I wouldn’t have managed it. I don’t know how anyone does. The only thought that kept us fighting was that we felt the need to crack this NOW, so as not to be still having this fight when she was 5 or 10. We got a gro-clock (these things can be magic) and informed her she had to stay until the clock face went from blue to yellow. This does two things: 1. It gives her a night light; and 2. The countdown and colour change is a clear boundary, she can rage at it not us; after all it’s not our fault, it’s that silly clock – because rules.
All in all it took just over 2 years. It’s not perfect and even this morning she was up at 5 but she stayed in her own bed until 6.
So TL;DR:
• Decide on the routine that fits you and your family
• Begin the routine at the same time each day
• Turn off all tech well before bed
• Calm activities like reading or jigsaws as a wind-down activity
• Get a gro-clock (link below)
• STICK TO YOUR ROUTINE
• Accept it will take time, potentially years
• Have a support network: you can’t do this on your own.
So with that said, I’m still exhausted so while my fae is with a childminder I’m off for a nap!
Don’t be shy; like, comment or share – it’s good to know we’re not alone with our struggles
I have recently been reminded of the importance of having a routine in the lives of fae children. In all children, in fact, but doubly for those of a neuro-divergent disposition. Routines and structure give children security and a sense of safety; without it they are more inclined to act out. Studies have shown that there is an increase in behaviour issues in children who don’t have a routine in their household: Anyone who has ever seen an episode of shows like ‘Supernanny’ will know this, as it’s the first thing to be instituted.
They can also be used as a way of reducing stress and frustration (and therefore meltdowns) in fae children. Especially if they themselves are included in the creation of such routines: It should not be a dictat from On High.
The routines in our house would seem, to the standard neuro-typical parenting person, insane. I am fully aware of this, and I don’t care. They have evolved organically for the most part, and they work. The key is finding what works for your family and sticking to it. We defend our routines jealously, even when this means we do not go on holiday and we have been known to (politely) kick out guests and relatives before 6 in the evening to maintain them. Sorry, not sorry. If it means I can get my daughter to eat her dinner AND sleep in her bed in the evening, you are leaving whether it’s politely through the door, or being hurled through the window.
Her breakfast routine is a prime example of this: it began when I started weaning her and found that she would accept porridge in the morning. This was a win for me, as porridge is reasonably nutritious, filling, and not loaded with sugar or salt. It is also quick to make. I told my husband how I made it one day, as I was busy with her. Since then, she decided that she will only eat porridge if daddy makes it (sorry daddy you are just going to have to get up every day and make her breakfast). It has to be made in the same bowl, mixed with the same spoon, and heated in the microwave. We’ve tried using the hob (we did that just yesterday, because of a power cut) and she simply won’t eat it. The milk has to be measured using a Tommee Tippee baby bottle (that we have because we used to have to use a special formula as she was allergic to cow milk and soya) because that’s what she can hold to pour the milk carefully into the bowl.
Once cooked (she HAS to push the button on the microwave) and sweetened with a multivitamin (can’t recommend this trick enough: you can use the syrup multivits to flavour porridge and get them into fae children, providing it’s all they’ve ever known), it is served in a long-suffering blue suction-cup bowl. The actual suction-cup part departed this world in 2019, but we are not allowed to change it out.
We bought our dining room furniture with our fae in mind. It is made of oak and steel girders, and would be my first choice to hide under in the event of a direct bomb strike. So far it has also withstood the continual movement of our fae during meal times: she sits or lays or squirms or dances on her 6ft long, 2ft wide bench as she eats. She has the entire 6ft to herself, even if we have guests: they sit on the ends in chairs or squeeze on the other side with us. Otherwise, you end up with bruises from being used as a crash barrier, as she careens into you during intervals between mouthfuls of food.
She still uses a sippy cup but I have been allowed to remove the lid so it is an open top beaker. She will not consider drinking from anything else during meals. We don’t fill it, we have a bottle of water and continually top the beaker up, this means when she inevitably knocks it over during her over-excited flailing there is only a little to clean up. We keep the bottle out of reach and she accepts that she’s not meant to touch it. Her dishes are moved to the same empty place mat off to her right when empty. She can also put things here unfinished, as a way to say she is full.
When she has finished comes the ceremonial wiping of the face and hands with a damp cloth. She doesn’t necessarily need it any more, but she’s used to it and now it’s routine and she insists and will not get down until it has been done.
This is not all the chaos, but the highlights, and most meals follow this basic pattern with where things go and how much effort is put into them.
We also have similarly in-depth routines for bedtime and they start before dinner time! The main take-away point I would suggest is: turn off tech from dinner time. Screen time is very useful, but overstimulation before bed can make it very difficult for children to turn off and fall asleep easily. It can also affect the quality of sleep they receive.
Our daughter finds baths very stimulating – she loves water – so we bathe her straight after dinner and change her ready for bed. We then only allow calming activities such as puzzles, lego and (probably specific to my child) mathematics – it’s her special interest and she loves numbers. 20 minutes before bed, we grab her favourite stuffed toys, a blanket and night-time books – we keep these the same each night – and read together. She may or may not fall asleep with us.
The last book of the night is always the same one, regardless of whether she appears to be awake or not. Like the hand-wiping at the end of dinner, it is a signpost. We use this book to indicate that it is now time to go to bed, so it doesn’t come as a surprise to her and also it allows her to choose that book if she’s ready for bed.
Signposting like this is useful because it means that we can communicate to our non-verbal child that a change is about to happen. But, equally important, she can indicate she wants that change. If she is tired and wants to go to bed, she will select the signpost book as a way to say so. If she wants a hot chocolate, she fetches the special cup her grandma gave her that is used for nothing else. And so on.
This allows her to communicate without words, reducing frustration. It is why routine is important. If A always equals B, then they can use A to tell you they WANT B. Building signposts into a routine helps prevent meltdowns, and eases frustration on both sides.
Despite what the book said and the indoctrination of at least 50% of every baby aisle I did not go down the pureed food and baby jar route. I used baby-led weaning, and this was done after conducting a lot of my own research. By research I don’t mean I sat and watched you tube videos…well I did that too, but mostly ended up looking at cats falling asleep, so it wasn’t much help. My background is in science, so I sat down and found peer-reviewed documentation in reputable journals, and studies conducted by paediatricians. The reason I did all this? I was absolutely, irrationally sure that the first time my baby had solid food, she would choke to death. PPD is a bitch, and can lead to all sorts of anxiety that cannot be rationalized. This was not helped by everyone around me looking at me sideways, like I had grown another head. I am not prone to irrational behaviour, and so I found myself being dismissed with no one taking me seriously. With no other course of action, I used education to comfort myself.
It was my brother who suggested I investigate baby-led weaning. He is one of the (if not the) smartest and most sensible people I know, and as such I take his advice seriously. So, with a starting point, I started looking through information he sent me, and then went and ferreted out my own. Baby-led weaning forgoes the puree stage entirely, and heads straight to solids. We started with slices of apples and rusk biscuits. She would merrily gum the biscuit for half an hour or more, and a slice of apple was an excellent way of removing most of the biscuit pulp from around her face and hair after! This meant she got used to the feeling of food on her gums and around her mouth from the first moment, and so we had fewer texture problems than some parents with fae children face. That is not to say mealtimes are easy, she still drives me crazy with her pickiness and outright refusal to eat on occasions.
There are also things that if I had time again, I would not do and I would not allow: my husband has a love of “beige foods” – he is also a very picky eater – and he kept suggesting these as things to introduce to my daughter. At the time I was too tired to even think about arguing. If I could go back, I would stop the introduction of crisps and other such ‘junk’ into her diet at an early age. For the most part, her diet is more limited than I would like (a lament I am sure a lot of mother’s share) but there are more good parts than bad, and everything is in moderation. Yes, she has chocolate – but 5 chocolate buttons a day shouldn’t be the end of the world. She eats fruit, even if it’s limited to bananas, dried mango and the occasional slice of apple. She won’t eat vegetables that are recognisable, but her favourite meal is dahl so I can hide a lot in that.
Things I would recommend to any parent would be; avoid purees, start on solids when it’s time to wean. Look for things that your child can grasp, gum and investigate. It gets them used to the feel of food on their gums. Let them play with it. Put a large plastic tablecloth or tarp under their high chair, because it is going to get messy (I mean, if you can afford to coat your entire kitchen in plastic wrap that might be better, as I was removing food from the ceiling, light fixtures and radiators.. but that’s all part of it, I guess).
Have a large supply of muslins or cloths ready for wipe down, and get your baby used to having their hands and face wiped at the end of every snack or mealtime, regardless of whether they need it or not. If you have a fae child and this becomes routine, you will find that they will start to demand this at the end, and it saves a lot of fuss if they are used to it.
Have a specific spot on your table/their tray where plates go when they are done. This is doubly important if your child is non-verbal, it gives them a way to signpost that they are finished with their meal. We have a separate placemat when she moves her plate to indicate she is done with her food. I can count the number of times she has cleared her plate on one hand and have digits left over, so having a way for her to communicate this is vital. It also gives you a way to signal that a course has ended, and you are moving on, which can be useful if you have an incredibly slow eater.
Don’t make more than one meal. It sounds obvious, I know, but insist on ‘take it or leave it’: your child will not starve from missing a single meal. But you WILL run yourself ragged if they cotton on that you will offer multiple food choices if they reject the first. If you are planning to offer something they have never had before, make sure there is also a ‘known good’ on their plate – something they have eaten in the past and enjoyed. This means they have the option of trying the new food, but won’t go hungry if they don’t like it. It has been far and away the most successful strategy we have found for getting our fae to try new things.
While on the subject of trying new things, as much as you may want to dance a jig and scream it from the mountains every time they eat something: don’t. A simple “well done” will suffice. You don’t want to put your child off trying new things because they dread the attention it draws. Similarly, meal times should be enjoyable for all, not a battle. Don’t engage with ‘I don’t like it’s’ or ‘I’m not hungry’. The answer is the same “that may be the case, but you will sit with us anyway because it’s family time”. Oh, speaking of family time….
Have a dining room table and no tech during meals, any distraction your fae can find to do anything but eat, they will take it. Set them up for success with a table, away from the TV (or at least switch it off) and no tech. Eat together whenever possible, at least once a day, and have a conversation with them: pretend it’s 1995 and talk to each other. You may need to give your fae some sort of fidget toy to get them through – we have a small silicon octopus that has pop-ups on the tentacles and is easy to clean with dishes every day so it remains hygienic. It’s never allowed to go anywhere, and she only has it at mealtimes, so it never gets covered with general grime.
Get a plate with separate compartments so foods don’t touch; you would be surprised how much having different foods touch can be off putting to your little fae (yes I know they all end up in the same place and so do you but at this stage just roll with it!) There are many different ones to choose from in shops and online, if your little one is very independent (like mine) they may wish to choose their own, and that may encourage them to use it.
Be prepared to introduce foods more than once. Children’s tastes change as their taste buds develop; they can also take up to 10 introductions before they even decide if they like something. Fae children can also be put off by sensory issues on top of that if the texture or smell of a food is wrong, they can reject it without trying it. This is highly frustrating as a parent because, for example while my daughter will happily eat a slice of happily, she will not take a bite of a whole one. To her it simply isn’t the same thing.
If your fae is incredibly picky it can be tempting to ‘hide’ food in other foods. Something I picked from reading (see previous link) is that this can be detrimental. For example, if your child will eat oatmeal and you ‘hide’ fruit puree in it by mixing the two together, it’s possible that not only will they reject the mixture but they will in future also reject the oatmeal as well, as you have made it unsafe. No matter how tempting it is to ‘sneak’ extra food in: be careful if you choose this approach (I’m guilty of it and have been caught out more than once to my chagrin)
Stick to routine. Seriously, you may not realize how important it is to your little one, but even for neurotypical children it’s important. For neuro-divergent children it’s a lifeline. Have meals scheduled so they know what time they can expect to eat, make sure they have at least one familiar food every time, so they are not overwhelmed. Routines and little rituals build security for fae children: some of ours are insane, looking at them, but they have evolved that way organically (and will be the subject of their own post).
Above all, keep faith: evidence shows that most children do grow to be less difficult as they get older (it’s the only thing keeping me sane) and it will become less difficult. I’m a realist so I’m not going to say it will become easy. Above all, look at your child, are they healthy? Do they have energy? Are they growing? Then you’re doing fine. It’s so easy to get bogged down by what we are supposed to be doing that we overlook all the good we are doing. Try not to worry too much about what your fae is eating at this stage – we’ll work on that later: so long as they are eating and they are healthy, you’ve got this.
Don’t be shy; like, comment or share – it’s good to know we’re not alone with our struggles
Our fae has the most esoteric eating habits. She will go through phases where it doesn’t matter what I put in front of her, she can’t eat it fast enough. It puts me in my happy place to watch my stringbean of a child scarf nutritious food down as fast as I can make it.
Then there is the rest of the time, where it doesn’t matter what it is, she won’t touch it. Which not only is frustrating from the point of effort and waste, but more importantly, she can go days with only sniffing food in passing. It is very stressful. Food that she found perfectly acceptable one day is now shoved aside without even being looked at. It can drive you to despair. We have tried begging, cajoling, bribing but nothing works.
I have tried afternoons with a grumpy hungry fae child who hasn’t been given snacks, and she still won’t eat her dinner. I have tried afternoons where she has had fruit or crisps and eaten the lot and then eaten dinner. It makes no difference.
Recently I started to wonder whether she had PDA and this led us down a rabbit hole, to a very useful book titled “Food refusal and avoidant eating in children, including those with Autism spectrum conditions. A practical guide for parents and professions” written by Gilian Harris and Elizabeth Shea.
I wholeheartedly recommend it to any parent of fae children who struggle to feed them: aside from alleviating a great deal of guilt I had of the feeding habits of my daughter, it also gave some good practical advice, backed up by peer reviewed evidence (which made the scientist in me squeal with delight). It also introduced me to a new term: neophobia – which, apart from being a high score in scrabble, explained a lot that was going on with the thought processes of our daughter.
Since reading and – if you pardon the term – digesting the information in the book, we have altered some of the interactions we have over dinner, which means we no longer comment or focus at all on our fae’s eating: if she eats, great; if she doesn’t then, well, at least we tried.
It has a significant positive effect, as our little child is now investigating new foods and even taking the occasional bite of new things! She is also eating more consistently, so that’s a win too. The amazon link for the book is below if anyone is interested, and please do comment if you read it I would like to hear what you think.
Thinking back to the birth of my fae…. It could have been smoother but it could have been a lot worse.
Believe it or not, signs of the forthcoming arrival of a fae baby may start even before the birth. My first thought that we may be expecting one was when I found myself in an ultrasound room, valiantly trying to stop the descent of my maternity jeans with one hand, clutching a pointless piece of blue towel the technician had thrusted at me in the other, whilst jumping up and down like some sort of pogoing whale. All the while wondering if I would ever manage to pick my dignity off the floor again, or if I was going to give myself a black eye with one of my ever expanding boobs (which were not properly secured for this charade) just to secure my disgrace. The purpose of this farce was to try and convince my fae baby to stop mooning the ultrasound tech and turn round so they could complete taking the measurements they needed. It didn’t work. Nor did trying to bribe them by eating chocolate in the waiting room but I must say I found that method much more enjoyable.
Going home, I returned some days later with more appropriate attire, making me look like I was about to attend some sort of brutal crossfit class rather than a sonogram. I left feeling embarrassed about the sports bra and leggings I had worn, incase I was expected to perform aerobics again, clutching the pictures of my little girl who to this day I swear was smirking at me.
My fae baby is stubborn. This fact became clear rather early on, and was dealt with in the first trimester by giving them the in-utero name of ‘This is Your Fault’, a moniker that remained until she was finally named around 12 hours after we finally met her face to face. She had a habit of playing havoc with my internal thermostat. I am part reptile, if I am lucky I can sometimes make a thermometer reach 36 degrees C, I accept this. Having a downstairs driver stoking the fires to 37 or above in the middle of summer was very uncomfortable. Then turning round and kicking my lungs was just plain mean. She was very good at hide and seek. Anyone who thinks it’s impossible to play hide and seek inside another human body has never heard a midwife mutter ‘can’t find the head’ while prodding unpleasantly at your distended stomach.
As a first time mother, this was not a reassuring thing to hear. I was fairly confident that I would have noticed if this had fallen out somewhere… but maybe that last set of squats was actually a bad idea. Even so, someone would have said something right??
Being sent back for another scan and seeing that, once again, your child is taking the opportunity to display their backside to medical professionals, despite your whale-pogo-stick impression makes you evaluate some of the decisions you have made in the past year. Taking no chances this time, when sent out to consume a ‘small amount of sugar’ to get her moving, I chowed down two chocolate bars, a bag of jelly tots, and a packet of dextrose tablets which I washed down with a glass of undiluted squash. Sure enough, this time she was moving but, alas, I was not able to procure more photos as apparently both the baby and myself were vibrating so badly the pictures were blurry.
My baby was in no hurry to join the real world, so at 41 weeks pregnant I was sent into a maternity ward to be induced. The next 5 days were some of the most dull of my life, as my stubborn little fae held on for all she was worth.
On admittance, I was introduced to the world of propess induction. If you have ever been on the receiving end of this, you have my sincere condolences. I do not want to get too medical, but basically an artificial hormone is coated onto a small piece of plastic which is then inserted behind the cervix. Where, if you have a fae baby, they will promptly kick it back out, repeatedly. This, for me at least, was not a painless progress and as it turns out I was allergic to the propess, or plastic, or baby was just determined to hold the entrance shut. 5 days later she was still refusing to shift. Sent into a delivery suite with the words “one way or another she’s coming out today” still rattling in my ears, I was dragged up to a room to pass through the end stages of labor. Here, a lovely but altogether too perky young doctor forced some hideous green socks on my legs muttering about DVT while I argued that three floors wasn’t that high. In defence of more stupid questions she stuffed a nozzle of nitrous oxide into my mouth. To everyone’s dismay, it didn’t work.
Two hours later, it was fixed, which was wonderful but not as good as the epidural. For the next 6 hours I bugged everyone on my contacts list as my fae baby still didn’t move. At midnight, to mutters of “sod this”, an injection of twice the normal amount of propess did two things: it prompted movement of the baby – finally! …and it broke the epidural. For future reference: expedited birth, coupled with no pain relief, is not to be recommended. Also, why do they give you cardboard bowls to puke in? It’s not a good idea, mine dissolved. The second epidural was inserted by an anesthetist who I will forever refer to as a God amongst men: it not only worked, but he managed to place it in my spine while I was contracting and puking without maiming me in the process.
It still took another 7 hours for her to be in a position to push. 14 hours in one room, tied to tubes covered in I don’t know what bodily fluids, was enough for me. They said push, I pushed, and was told 5 minutes later we had made an hour’s progress and if my husband didn’t put away the catchers mitt there would be issues. So into the world, without so much as a cry but an expression that said ‘you will pay for this’, our fae baby appeared.
Raising the Modern Fae 