'Feeding My Child Should've Been Easy. It Ended Up Becoming A Daily Test Of Survival'

After suffering a rare allergy condition as a baby, my child later became a “fussy eater” – not because of preference, but because their nervous system was wired to protect them.

With a background in cooking and TV (I’ve cooked for the Royal family, and worked alongside Gordon Ramsay, Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver), feeding my child was something I thought I’d find easy.

But it was nothing like I’d imagined as an idealistic new parent. It ended up becoming a daily test of courage and survival.

Our child has ADHD with what I would call an anxiety profile, and they were born with a rare allergy condition called food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome (FPIES).

It’s not like the allergies you read about in pregnancy books or parenting blogs. It’s severe, silent, and terrifying.

From the very start, we faced impossible choices. As a newborn, they had horrendous silent reflux, sometimes turning blue in their sleep. One professor told me there was nothing more to do, dismissing my concerns with flippant advice about ‘needing a large glass of champagne to relax’. It was crushing.

When we began weaning at four months, hoping for joy and curiosity, it turned into a nightmare. By six months, vomiting could leave them unconscious, cold, and in shock. Every new food became a potential danger.

We had to go back to single-ingredient weaning until we found the trigger: bean protein, which is in nearly everything.

That early trauma shaped our child’s relationship with food. What began as survival became avoidance. They became a “fussy eater”, not because of preference, but because their........

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