I thought I would open up with my experience I have previously worked in a kitchen cooking at one point for kids in a holiday park and later in life in a restaurant kitchen. I have 2 children 1 currently 4 nearly 5 with asd (significance later) and a 1 year old.
Both boys were baby lead weaned from 6 months (no puree) both are generally good eaters.
Our biggest challenge are with our oldest his asd means that he can go through stages of only liking things of certain colours or shapes. He doesn’t like his sauces touching his dry goods and likes to see everything he is going to eat at once.
We have learned to change meals to suit him for example we make a decostructed chilli with his dry and rice separate from his sauce (take his out earlier in the cooking process.
We have also invested in a couple of school dinner style platters that have spaces for main veg sweet fruit and water which really helps with child portion control.