What causes my mother in a NH to eat sugar from the packets and drink creamers in the dining room?

I wish I had had access to sugar and creamer when I was sick. Is the creamer real or artificial and likewise as huge mom suggested the sweeter? If they are artificial that could be the cause of the diarrhea. The amount available should be limited and her meals supervised. She may be more interested if the food are lenderized so she can drink them. See if she will drink nutritional things like Ensure or Boost. My favorite is chocolate boost. Can she tell you what she would like and have you bring it in. At this sage of her life appetite does tend to decrease and should be encorages rather than forced. Protein powder which is tastless can be added to any food, so for example if she likes mashed potatoes mix the powder in then if does not matter if she refuses the meat. Make sure all vegetables are thoroughly cooked so they are really soft. If she won't eat vegetables substitute her favorite fruit. Melon and grapes go down well but apples are too fiberous to swallow easily. provide snacks throughout the day. I had a tiny fridge in my room and hubby brought in things like yogurt and soft cheeses and Yum smoked salmon and pickled herring. All forbidden on a cardiac diet but I only ate a tiny bit at a time

My mother lost her appetite about 3 years ago. It has caused her to lose 20 lbs & want to sleep all the time. When we would take her out to eat she'd eat about half of a kid's meal. She also drinks no water, she is 96.

When Mother's Dementia started ramping to another level she craved everything sweet. Cookies, she wanted cookies, a never ending supply of cookies. And sherbert. The nutritionist in the NH along with the aides would sneak her orange sherbert when she lost her appetite for most other things.

A very wise RN told me when I was concerned about Mother's nutrition to let her have whatever she wanted at that point.

Are you sure your Mom is not eating packets of artificial sweetner along with packets of sugar? I believe some artificial sweeteners if over eaten can cause diarrhea.

My dad thought he was not done eating until everything on the table was gone! We had to move the jellys! He thought he could dip his fries in them! So we had to be creative and slide things out of sight.

What do you think of the food served by the nursing home? It may be nutritious, but is it also palatable? It just crosses my mind that maybe your mother is hungry, in the way that my aunt phrased it when she was a little girl: "I'm not bread-and-butter hungry, I'm cake hungry."

Make sure your mother is getting enough food that she enjoys. Honestly, if she wants to live on ice cream and bananas nowadays how can it hurt?

Sugar packets would give her a high followed by an energy crash, and probably the need to sleep. Is there some reason she doesn't want other foods?

Is she having trouble eating? Dentures an issue? Swallowing an issue? When did this start?

Or maybe the food isn't very appetizing?

At least your mom is eating edible things and not things like soap or paper. It's a little quirk and if she has dementia, her brain is misfiring. If she is eating great amounts of these things, have the aides remove it from her table or empty the containers of all but one or two packets. Possibly her table needs to be supervised so she will not steal from other's plates.