Dec 29 2008
Diego* Steak
*For those who don’t know, Diego is a cartoon character that Bug is a big fan of. Diego helps animals, speaks English and Spanish, and has ridiculously huge eyes and an adorable face. He and his female counterpart, Dora the Explorer, both like to yell a whole lot. It drives me nuts, but Bug adores it.
Bug is still as stubborn as ever about eating. I kid you not, this child would rather starve than try anything new. He practically lives off of bananas, sausage, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, and macaroni and cheese. He refuses to eat peanut butter, hates string cheese, or cheese at all unless it’s on pizza (even then he usually peels it off). He will occasionally eat corn or carrots, but that is only occasionally. And of course you remember what happens when we try to get Bug to eat oranges, right? Ugh.
We have done everything from making him eat foods to sending him to bed hungry if he doesn’t eat his dinner. None of it seems to work. We limit the number of snacks during the day and make sure he doesn’t eat a couple hours before dinner so he’s hungry. Very few of our tactics work. I mentioned one method that worked in this blog entry , but that has since lost its effect.
Last night I made steak for Turk and I and nuggets for the kids. (I was definitely not about to waste a perfectly good steak on Mr. Pickypants.) I offered a bite of my steak to Bug, who (surprise, surprise) refused. We have found in the past that if he smells the food first, he’s more inclined to try it, so we both made a big deal about how delicious this steak was.
(Meanwhile, Bean’s freaking out in her seat like “I want some! Gimme, gimme!”)
He takes a whiff, says, “Mmm, dat’s a-yish-ish.”
“Do you want to try a bite, buddy? It tastes even better than it smells!”
“Hmm. No.”
I don’t know where it came from, some tiny genius in the back of my brain, I suppose, but these words spilled from my lips:
“Bug, it’s Diego steak! Diego loves this kind of steak. Here, I’ll put a little piece on your plate if you want to try it.”
Do you know what he did?! He ate the steak.
“Do you like it, buddy?”
“Mmffgh,” was his full-mouthed reply.
He took two more pieces of Diego steak and a couple of pieces of Diego carrot too.
We didn’t want to push our luck and over play our hand by calling everything on our plates “Diego” though. We can’t let him see through our little trick. We’ll save that handy one in the back of our pockets for a later date.
Is it manipulative? Maybe a little. But seriously, this kid won’t try anything. The funny thing, is that when he does, he absolutely loves it! It’s getting him to take that first bite that’s the problem.
So for now, we’re going to use it. Diego steak truly is delicious. (Except for the fact that it sounds like we’re eating Diego.)
Ehh Diego can use his rescue pack to bandage himself up. hehe
I have mine lick it to try it. Also, I keep trying, he occasionally surprises me and eats it.
Once they get in school or daycare they eat a lot more because they see other kids eating.
Ooh, the licking tactic is a good one. I’ll have to try that out. Good to know he’ll get better once he’s in school. He’s already totally pumped to start preschool in September (truth be told, I am too)!
Well played, mom! When I was in college, one of my friends had a little brother. He refused to eat pork chops when his mom made them. But as soon as she started calling them chicken chops, no problem!