My Son Only Ate Three Foods - Eating and Pathological Demand Avoidance Part 1 | Ep. 158

About this episode

Casey shares her personal journey with her son Cooper's eating struggles and the insights gained from understanding pathological demand avoidance.

If your child has dropped food after food, won't try new things no matter what you do, and every mealtime feels like a battle — this episode is the first in a four-part series where I get personal. I'm sharing the story of my oldest son Cooper, who at his lowest point was eating only Honey Nut Cheerios out of a single specific bowl. I walked through grocery store aisles sobbing, frantically looking for protein bars he might eat. I watched him go through the SOS feeding protocol in occupational therapy and add foods only to drop them again. I tried sneaking vitamins into his chocolate milk. Nothing was gaining traction — and I didn't understand why. In this first episode, I walk you through the years before I had a PDA lens: my own food-focused parenting, the Montessori methods I tried that he refused, the escalating meltdowns around eating, the developmental pediatrician who shamed me for not cooking every meal from scratch, and the moment I finally understood that the root cause of Cooper's eating struggles was not primarily sensory — it was autonomy and equality based. I also talk about what happened when I stopped the SOS feeding protocol, lowered demands around food, and gave…

People in this episode

Host: Casey

Topics covered

• eating struggles
• pathological demand avoidance
• parenting challenges
• food autonomy
• feeding therapy
• child development

Keywords

• eating
• food refusal
• parenting
• PDA
• ARFID
• occupational therapy
• feeding protocol
• autonomy
• childhood nutrition

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Montessori, SOS feeding protocol, occupational therapy, ARFID, anorexia

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