Road Trip Success

by Rita D
(Florida)

Not until I found this website did I hear of any other parents whose children waited so long to eat solid food. My second-born gagged on anything that wasn't liquid until he was 18 months old, so my milk was his main source of nutrition for quite a while.

And while he was much smaller than average (genetics - his dad was the same way) and seemed to be the quiet type, he did learn to walk at 10 1/2 months, and talked and played like most other kids. Yes, clothes tags and seams were a problem, and he also preferred perching to sitting.

His picky eating tendencies weren't really that remarkable until he became a teenager. Hormones may have exacerbated the issue, but he told me that the problem with certain foods was the texture. If it didn't feel right, it made him gag and sometimes throw up what he had managed to get down.

His diet isn't as restrictive as some I've read here, and thankfully includes a few green things, but if it weren't for cheese his list of acceptable food would be cut in half! He's a young adult now, and this sensory issue has made certain social situations awkward for him.

He always needs a backup snack when we try new foods or restaurants, and last semester he was "student of the month" but at the celebratory lunch could only eat a salad with bacon bits on it.

When the opportunity came for him to go on a two-week road trip across the country with his brother, we went to work purchasing a nice-sized cooler and using the internet to find his favorite restaurants and grocery stores in each major city they drove through, and worked out how many meals they'd need to stock up for in-between. It worked great!

They had a good time, our picky eater never went hungry, and now he knows that he can accept how he is and still have fun.