I’m sure you’re all aware that Hannah refuses to eat anything that remotely resembles meat. Or fish. Or eggs. Anything protein really. I’ve tried different tactics, some of which have worked for a little bit, some that have failed miserably.
Yesterday, I had a brainwave (what, someone with baby brain can have brainwaves?). Hannah LOVES those little kids yogurts that come in squeezey packs. But what if I gave her a squeezey pack that contained not yogurt, but meat. Of course there are other things in there too, like vegetables, but what ever, there’s meat in there! Usually when I slave over the stove, making her healthy wonderful home made food, she takes one look at it, turns her nose up and says “Done!” Or, to add more insult to injury, she looks at it, refuses to sit in her chair, flaps her arms and legs, makes like a wiggle worm, and starts yelling “NO!!” as if I’m about to put her in a pool full of sharks.
I couldn't find a photo of the meat ones, but this is a squeezey pack. Photo courtesy of Rafferty's Garden
So what if she can’t see the meaty goop she is about to ingest? Sure those wonderful, foul smelling squeezey packs of baby food are for babies from 6 months old (due to being pureed…), and not really for toddlers, but who cares, they contain MEAT! She could actually get some protein into her diet.
As I arrived in the baby aisle at Coles, I found that the meaty squeezey packs were on sale. Score! I grabbed 4 different packs (beef and something, chicken and apricot, chicken and something else, and tuna and something. Seriously, you can’t expect me to remember all of them, I have baby brain). Hannah, cheeky monkey that she is, saw me put her beloved squeezey packs in the trolley (cart) and yelled “yogurt, yogurt!”
Ok, what the heck, I gave her one then and there. She seemed to want it more than anything else in the entire world at that moment in time, so why not go for it? When I handed her the opened squeezey pack of wonder, she started making her over-excited giggle noise that pretty much sounds like a nanny goat and is one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
She went at that squeezey pack with vigor, squeezing and sucking its guts out. She didn’t take a sip and then pull that this-is-the-most-disgusting-thing-i’ve-ever-had face and say done, or no. Quite the contrary, she had some, made the nanny goat noise, then had some more. She ate nearly the entire pack. She probably would have eaten all of it if she hadn’t had breakfast (with seconds, she loves breakfast. This morning, she had Special K for breakfast) only 2 hours earlier.
When we got home and she found the other squeezey packs of wonder in the shopping bags, she wanted more. Hopefully this trend will continue, and she will eat whatever I give her out of a squeezey pack. In a week or so, when she is used to the taste of the meat, I will try putting the contents of a squeezey pack on some pasta, or some rice. If she eats that, I will put some little chunks of meat on it too. If she eats that, I will make everything from scratch again, in hope that she will be used to the taste, smell, texture, and whatnot of the meat, and actually devour it happily.
This is the plan. Wish me luck.
Mommy Adventures 
Sounds like a good plan! Hope it works!
It’s funny because I remember to get me to eat stuff I didn’t like, my mum would chop it up and try to hide it in an omlette. But you can’t do that with Hannah!
Haha, I WISH she’d eat an omelette!
This from the mother who’s entire meat selection as a child consisted of turkey wieners.
There is protein in yogurt. (And milk, nuts, etc.) Beans and rice makes a complete protein together.
Precisely why I’m trying to nip this in the bud now…. I don’t want her to be like me. Don’t forget, I’d eat chicken drumsticks too. Only the drumsticks…..
Sheri,
What a great story! Sounds like your “Baby Brain” is working just fine, thinking like a good mommy.
I remember feeding you Heath bars and calling them meat bars because you refused to eat meat. Heck, I thought if I could get you to eat something called a meat bar I would win the battle. But no, you won that little game and enjoyed the sugary goodness of toffee combined with smooth milk chocolate.
You were a smart kid too.
Dad
MMmm….heath bar……..