Here’s What I Want To Know
hy my adorably stubborn daughter will not eat macaroni and cheese (definitely gets extruded) but insists on eating cat litter?
This morning she handed me a piece of cat poo. At least she didn’t eat that.
Eww! Eww!!
She also eats books, the lids from her various lotions, creams and hair products (and sometimes the creams themselves) and dirt from the plants.
Yet chocolate, Jello pudding and yes, macaroni and cheese are utterly toxic.
I don’t think it’s a form of pica, yet AdoringHusband decided that she takes after my side of the family. So my little brother used to graze on pieces of the shag carpet. Is that so unusual? Doesn’t everyone have a baby sibling from whose mouth they have to remove soggy, green pieces of shag fuzz on the regular? Sheesh!
But cat litter? Eww!
I have said “no” every way possible, made 70 million yucky faces near the litter, moved her from the litterboxes, oh, a billion times, and still she smiles at me and heads right for the nasty gray clay. And to think I was wigging out when she used to eat the cat food!
Our kids would always eat new food and the stuff we had been trying to feed them but they wouldn’t eat from the grandparents or friends. It use to drive me crazy and then I just went with it.
I tried putting in my blog info but when I do it kicks me out and I loose my comment, this is my 3rd attempt. Trying without my blog address this time.
Oh man, is CommentLuv messing up again?! Sorry.
ETA: OK, it wasn’t CommentLuv. It was that Wordpress Open ID plugin that has been having a lot of trouble with validating Blogspot/Blogger blogs. I’ve deactivated it, so there should no longer be a problem.
But what do I do about the litter eating?
I don’t have any idea about not eating cat litter. It sounds like you are doing all the right things.
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My little sister used to do that! Can you believe how low one’s standards fall once a toddler is around? We went from “He will eat only wholesome, unprocessed foods!” to “He will eat only foods that at least do not have high-fructose corn syrup as the first ingredient!” to “He will eat only foods intended for humans!” and finally “He will eat only items that are neither poison nor feces!”
I’m willing to bet that if you could make the same horrified face when she picks up mac & cheese that you do when she comes at you with the cat poop, she’d go crazy for mac & cheese. But that’s probably a brainstem response that you can’t fake.
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“He will eat only foods intended for humans!”
You see, I started at this place with my loosy-goosy approach to infant/toddler feeding and still she has to wig me out with this litter eating. Maybe if I put the mac and cheese into a clean litterbox….
Go for the horrified face. It’s so crazed it might work.
BTW, you’re my pick for a kick-ass blogger, and your award is here: http://anotherdayanothercure.blogspot.com/2008/08/lets-circulate.html
Sorry that it has taken me so long to see this. Thanks for the pick! I’m thrilled and honored!!
Lianas last blog post..Here’s What I Want To Know
Wow…. maybe she likes the grainy sort of texture? I can’t think of anything graining (and edibile) you could replace it with though lol. My brother ended up with lead poisining when he was 3 because he was eating plaster out of the walls in the not so nice apartment my parents lived in. They didn’t know he was doing it. Even thouh he is older and he could have died, I still tease him about it. Lol
I was just about to leave work and I have cookie crumbs on my floor near my desk chair and I think that’s what Liana should do give Z some cookie crumbs! I am really thinking she likes the crumbly texture of the litter and not so much the taste YUK! I am not saying put them in a litter box for her to graze or anything (LOL) but maybe try offering them to her in a baggie next time you catch her going towards the litter.
Somehow I’m thinking it has to do with the playing in the sand she does at daycare. She seems to like to run her hands in the litter and drop it onto the carpet (like one would do with sand) then she will try to eat it. I don’t know if she is eating sand at school, but I’d rather she eat sand than cat litter!
Maybe couscous?
So FAR S hasn’t tried to eat the litter. However, he does try to help Daddy clean the litter boxes. Ugh.
I think maybe if you are nonchalant about it. Like, no, we don’t eat that, in a quieter voice? Perhaps she like the reaction?
Someday she’ll eat ONLY macaroni and cheese and you’ll wonder why you ever worried