Xander Week 90 - He could eat his weight in grapes!
September 11, 2008
Xander with Zach's empty coffee cup
Xander recently discovered the joy of grapes. We have of course offered grapes to Xander on countless occasions in the past, but he always turned his nose up at them, presumably because he didn’t like the skin. Sometime last week though, he got over his grape skin aversion, and it’s now his new favorite food. We’ve got a leftover bucket (from a package of gumi bears) that has been dubbed his grape bucket. We throw a handful of grapes in there, and he carries the bucket around the house chowing down on his snack.
I think it’s great that he’s enjoying healthy snacks, but it sometimes backfires on us - especially during the week. If I give him a grape snack when we get home from work/day care, he eats very little if any dinner. On the other hand, depending on what we’re having for dinner, he sometimes will only eat the noodles or rice and completely forego the meat and vegetable. Then I wonder if I should have given him some grapes, which would have at least been a little healtheir than noodles for dinner… Ah, the challenges of making sure your kid eats healthy…
This was a gerat way to remind us that even if Xander tells us he doesn’t like a particular food, that opinion is likely to change in a month or two, so we shouldn’t completely abandon it. Since our preferences are more solidified, it’s easy to forget this point, so I’m glad Xander reminded us!
Kids really are amazing with their preferences, aren’t they? My 11 month old will eat grapes, skin or no skin, but she won’t eat much else. When she eats her “meals”, if she doesn’t have yogurt, she won’t eat anything else. As long as she gets a spoonful of plain yogurt in between each bite of sweet potato, squash, pear, spinach and potato, whatever jar of food you can imagine, she will eat. No yogurt = no eating AT ALL. We have tried countless finger foods, chicken nuggets, etc, but she only will eat Cheerios, grapes, blueberries, puffs, wagon wheels and yogurt plus whatever Stage 2 jar we open. I see so many 11 month olds eating full table food at this stage and I just scratch my head. We keep offering her different things like peas and carrots (whole), chicken, turkey, salmon, etc. but she just picks it up, stares at it and tosses it on the floor. We won’t stop trying, eventually she will grow tired of yogurt, right????
Hi Seneca - it is crazy the preferences that kids develop with their food… I’m just trying to picture how you discovered “the yogurt trick” for your daughter. And I’m pretty sure that eventually she will get sick of that plain yogurt, and someday she’ll want to mimic you more and eat the stuff that you eat. Hang in there - she can’t eat yogurt forever
Oh my gosh…Samantha can also eat her weight in grapes! They’re by far her favorite food. I have to be careful when I offer them to her, because if it’s at a meal time that’s all she’ll eat.
In general she has been getting picky about what she eats. She’s refusing to eat things she used to love and it’s frustrating! I couldn’t imagine me eating a favorite food one week an not even tasting it the next! Like everything else, though, it’s just a stage that she’ll outgrow someday so I keep reminding my self of that!