Diets......

The word every adult hates - diets!

In this post I want to talk about food diets AND a sensory diet. Yes these are two very different things, it threw me for a loop when I first heard the term sensory diet. I sat there, that first time, and thought 'how the heck does that work? How can the senses be on a diet?' I was completely baffled and every Pinterest find and website check, carried on confusing me.

It was only when another blogger posted about there being another sense, one that was about our internal sense (yup it's a long complex word I can neither pronounce or write lol), that it clicked - a sensory diet is about you getting sensory input, just like when we put healthy food in our mouths to nourish our bodies.

Makes sense right? Well maybe only to us that have sensory issues big enough to realise this. Not everyone who has a sensory issue needs such drastic action as a diet, R doesn't need a full sensory diet or he becomes what I have termed as terror tot! Saying that though, R does need rebound actions and swinging/spinning (vestibular) these along with a strict ski lesson routine, he's calmer than ever.

He does still have his days, especially after school, where nothing is gonna stop a meltdown from happening. This is where his food diet comes into play.

Now up until he turned 6 years old R would eat anything and everything you put in front of him, in his reach or he could figure out how to reach. Since that little switch on his 6th birthday went on, R will now only eat fish, chips, fast food burgers and pizza - not including his vegetables and some berries which he loves.

Not a varied diet right? I had always believed that getting my kiddos to eat whatever I made was gonna be easy and it was - until now! So as me and hubby need to loose weight and the usual diet plans aren't working for me (thank you medication) I have gone gluten free, aspartame free and as preservative free as possible. Can you guess what I have managed to do?

Yup, R now is on the same diet as me - although more calorific due to his bmi being so low. It's a struggle, I won't sugar coat this! It's not just changing the food, it's the mind set as well. This last bit being easier for kiddos as they don't have the years of being set in their ways, as my grandad would say.

So to overcome reluctance we have included them in the shopping for gluten free foods - both naturally occurring and in the free from aisle. This makes life a little easier, as it allows them to make the right decisions over what they want to eat, as well as educating them that you don't always know what's in your food.

Sensory diet wise, well this is still a huge struggle for us. We have a trampoline outside that R will spend hours and hours on with his footballs - yes we know, footballs and bouncing kiddo not a good combo but you deal with the ensuing meltdown with violence added in!

We now have a swing set to add into the mix outside, thanks to grandparents birthday present. The issue we have found is that R likes swings but doesn't stay in them long at all - this is where money becomes an issue. He ideally needs one of those cloth swings which go in circles as well as backwards and forwards - these my friend are not cheap, just like weighted blankets (that's for a different post!).

Well now you know roughly what any diet will do for a kiddo like R. It's a daily struggle even when you love them beyond anything. Xx