Help! I suddenly have a fruititarian on my hands!

I love Ellyn Satter and have worked hard to follow her "division of responsibility" guidlines: I am in charge of what, where and when I feed DS, he is in charge of how much and whether he eats. It's worked well so far but for the last couple of weeks, he's refused all meats. He used to eat chicken, but now I can't even get him to eat that. I've tried to be diligent about offering meat frequently. DH and I very obviously (but not too blatantly :) ) consume our meat and talk about how good it is, and Colin's meat sits on his high chair tray throughout the meal. Occassionally he pushes it out of the way so that he can get to his fruit.

Fortunately, he'll still eat tofu, cheese and bread, but he mostly eats fruit. He also still drinks formula since for some reason he can't tolerate whole milk. But, I'd still like for him to consume some animal protein.

Is there anything else I should be doing? Do I just wait for him to get used to the meat and try it again? I'm trying to prepare flavorful, high fat, meat entrees, but he's just not getting into them. I've tried disguising things a little bit, but I don't want to get too sneaky about things. The other caveat here is that he is sensitive to wheat and some dairy, so I'm limited in what I can offer him. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

My only advice is that this too shall pass. I've posted here a number of times complaining that DS stopped eating. But he usually does again after a few weeks. For the past 3 days I send DS to daycare with meatloaf, and he ate none of it. But he ate it for dinner. We had a few weeks where he wouldn't even touch Cheerios! So, at least your DS is eating something, and it's even nutritious (as opposed to days where my DS eats goldfish and crackers for days on end), so just wait it out... Good luck.

I have not been able to get my daughter to eat meat either. She's not much for peanut butter, but she will eat eggs! So...I keep giving her meat at lunch and dinner (and hope, hope, hope) but rely on those eggs to give her whatever protien she needs.

Jen in Okinawa
Mom to Noelle (10/25/01)

Thanks for the advice and empathy! It's so nice to be reminded that "this too shall pass." It's one of those things I know, but have a hard time remembering.

He did eat half of a McDonalds hamburger today. Not exactly what I would have picked, but hey, I'll take it. Jen, maybe there's hope for our little ones after all!

The other day, I finely chopped chicken and snuck it on an English muffin then covered it with tomato sauce and cheese. He never knew it was there! ;-)