Typical day's food for your toddler?

[pacific407]

I have a 20 month old son and food is often a bit of a battle with him-he isn't particularly fussy, so when he's up for eating, he'll eat most things. The issue is that he goes through stages of not really wanting to eat. I've made my peace with that (just about) but I realised ai have no real idea of what a toddler typically eats-both quantity wise and variety wise (I have no friends with toddlers). I was hoping a few people wouldn't mind sharing a typical day's eating with me...

in my case, it's as follows:

ready brek (about 3 heaped tbsp) with whole milk, fruit puree and 1/3 banana

Generally some bread for lunch (maybe a small roll or 1/2 a medium roll) with butter hummus and cucumber sticks. Half an apple. Maybe a yoghurt. Or 1/2 avocado on toast.

For dinner, it's something I've made and frozen in batches (if I've been organised) - something like shepherd's pie) with a bit of veg on the side. Or if I haven't been organised, something like a bought fishcake with veg or a mini quiche with salad

Pre-bed snack of a slice of toast or a potato waffle.

6 oz milk when putting him down.

Would really be interested to know if this sounds about right, quantity-wise and variety-wise. Thanks!

[gnocci]

I think that sounds great although mayb e up the fruit.

My son is just about to turn 2 and is massive (37lbs and almost 100cm tall) but has a surprisingly small appetite.

Breakfast is usually a bit of toast which he will pick at. He loves hard-boiled eggs so often has one of those. Or maybe a small bowl of cheerios which he often totally ignores. He also has about 8oz whole milk.

Snack - box of raisins or some dried fruit.

Lunch - small portion of pasta or a jacket potato. Often a buffet style lunch (cheese cubes, sliced chicken, bread sticks, halved grapes etc) so he can pick what he wants. A yoghurt.

Snack - fresh fruit or a couple of hovis biscuits. If I want to bribe him to sit nicely in the pushchair then he may strike it lucky with a packet of choccie buttons!!

Dinner - fishcake or salmon (he loves fish!) and a corn on the cob (good hands-on food!) or pre-prepared frozen dinners like a small roast or fishpie or shepherds pie.

8oz whole milk before bed. If he hasnt eaten much at dinner (often!) I give him a handful of dry cheerios as well.

I honestly dont know how he maintains his weight as although the above seems a lot he just picks at it and can often leave whole meals.

[pacific407]

it makes me feel a lot better hearing how your toddler often leaves a good amount of his food! it's such an alien concept to me i don't understand how my son does it!!

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

My 8yo DS only has 3 heaped tbsp s of ready brek with fruit for breakfast so I think he's eating plenty. If he refuses to eat, he could just not be hungry. Leave the food there and just chat and eat your food. When you've finished, clear away.

Try to look at what he eats over a week too rather than a day, it should help you relax over the odd missed meal

[jenduck]

It sounds good to me!

DS2, just turned 19 months has

Breakfast - 2 weetabix with whole milk & fruit puree, 1/2 Tommee Tippee beaker of milk

Snack - Plain biscuit/breadstick

Lunch - cheese spread/paste sandwich on 1 slice wholemeal bread, cucumber, maybe a Wotsit, stick of cheese. Fromage frais. Water.

Snack - Plain biscuit/breadstick/couple of grapes

Dinner - Cottage pie/casserole/pasta with about 4 different veg OR 1.5 fishfingers/chicken fingers/1 fishcake, mash/oven chips/rice. Pudding is rice pudding & fruit puree or banana & custard. Water.

Bedtime - 1 full TT beaker whole milk.

Never really leaves anything & has yet to refuse any food except carrot sticks!

[Chepstowmonkey]

Well, I saw this thread this morning and was about to reply that my 2 year old eats no where near as much you've mentioned but today she has gone crazy and is eating EVERYTHING that stays still long enough. In fact she is now asleep and I am boiling myself some pasta as she ate all of my food too!

Usual day (and this is the food I put in front of her and NOT what she eats. Some days she may refuse all of it but some days - like today - she eats twice as much).

Breakfast - Porridge at about 7am. Not sure what portion size as my DH makes it. 1/2 banana.

2nd breakfast/snack -
nursery day - weetabix or something similar at 9am,
home - maybe toast and peanut butter/eggs when I finally get around to eating breakfast at around 8am or I'll offer her an oat biscuit and a couple of those small mozzerella balls and cucumber/tomato a bit later on (e.g 9.30/10 ish).

Lunch -
Nursery day - apparently she eats all manner of wholesome foods stuffs and clears her plate! Pah!
At home - pasta and homemade tomato sauce (frozen in small pots) with grated cheese, pasta cream cheese and spinach, pasta and pea pesto, pasta with cheese, ham and peas, stir-fry veg with noodles and egg, hummus (or some other kind of dip thing) with bread and veg, pancakes cream cheese and spinach etc. We have homemade soup and bread every Friday.
Always a piece of fruit for dessert.

snack - a biscuit.

tea - errrr.....this varies massively. On a friday, saturday and sunday the whole family eat together and she either eats or doesn't eat and I try not to take much notice. Usually family food - lasange, spinach and ricotta cannelloni, meatballs and pasta, beef stew, goulash, mild chilli/curry.....you get the gist! Nursery - again apparently eats all her food (I blame peer pressure). Thursday she needs to eat by herself and until recently she has refused everything that I put in front of her. I froze little pots of the food that she would happy eat on a weekend and it was all flatly refused. I do not agree with giving in too much to toddler's demands, however, I can't bare the wasted effort and food. So thursdays are now fishfingers or a sausage with broccoli, carrots and corn-on the-cob. She is still not sure about fishfingers but will eat all the veg. I give her mash and gravy with the sausage as there are still some in freezer but I'm not sure what I'll do when the current batch runs out.
Always natural yoghurt with honey stirred through for dessert and more fruit if still grumbling.

She only drinks water throughout the day and has about 160ml of whole milk sometime before bed.

Sorry, it's very long but I hope it helps. I would in no way describe my DD as a fussy eater as she eats a large variety of food. She is just very unpredictable and I think that is normal.

[SamSmalaidh]

Today, which is pretty typical for my 2 year old:

Breakfast - cup of milk and a piece of toast and peanut butter (eats all)
Snack - cheese/raisins/fruit
Lunch - 2x fish fingers, couple of tablespoons of beans and a tablespoon of mashed potato (eats most)
Snack - apple and a biscuit
Dinner - proper cooked meal eg lasagne, chicken and rice, veg (usually picks at it and eats very little)

[SantasComingFace]

DS is 2.2 and really eats alot.

Breakfast is normally weetabix I give him one then sometimes he asks for another.

Snack apple/banana/raisins/biscuit one or two of these or toast at nursery

Lunch nursery day hot meal and pudding
Home varies, sandwiches and carrot sticks, soup, pasta. Anything I fancy really (today we shared a fishcake and chips from the chippy )

Snack Same as morning.

Tea, Whatever we have, roasts, spag Bol, chilli, curry, pasta, just a smaller portion. Followed by a yoghurt

and milk before bed.

Sometimes he'll have sweets/chocolate/biscuits but I'm quite laid back about it as he crams in so much good stuff too.

[DeathMetalMum]

Dd is 22 months eats kind of similar but a lot more snacks (always has bee a grazer even when bf).

Breakfast by 8 porridge, shreddies or weetabix 1+1/2 (not sure how much of otherd dp does those

Second breakfast 9.30ish shares a little bit of toast or potato cakes with me but not always

she can have another snack before lunch sometimes dried fruit, fruit or yoghut coated fruit bits.

Lunch 12ish Twice a week sandwhiches/ cheese on toast 1 to 1+1/2 slices. Other times a normal meal as dp works evenings so could be a bit of casserole, chilli con carne. At least one veg.
Yoghurt/fromage frais dessert.

Afternoon snack Cereal bar, fruit bar, fruit, toast, blueberry muffin or somethig similar.

Usually had some cheese at somepoint.

6pm Dinner usually something slightly lighter such as soup or pasta or noodles. then fruit and either a biscuit or yoghurt somethig for desert.

We still have a very short breastfeed last thing at night and occasionally in the morning and wont really drink milk from a cup hence the extra snacks and cheese.

[oreocrumbs]

DD (2.3) is overall a good eater, but somedays will eat almost nothing. Other days she eats like a horse.

Today has been:
milk, clementine, grapes, hazlenuts and a rice cake for breakfast. She ate half a rice cake.

Lunch 4 chicken nuggets, fresh orange juice and salad. Left the salad.

Didn't want a snack.

Lasagne, salad and garlic bread for tea. Ate the salad, played with the gb and didn't touch the lasagne. Same tea last week cleared the lot and had an extra piece of gb and some of my lasagne.

Will have milk before bed.

Yesterday she ate a bit more. I tend not to worry, she is a good height and weight.

I think what you are making sounds great and what he eats of it sounds typical of a toddler.

[TheArmadillo]

dd is 2yo. Sometimes she eats a lot, sometimes she eats nothing. DC1 had really bad eating issues and although that was horrendous it has made me much more relaxed with dd (dc2). She is at a healthy weight and a good height/weight ratio so not worried even though sometimes she seems to live off air

This is what she gets given. Unlikely she will eat all of it in any given day, but usually around 50-75% depending on how she feels.

Breakfast - 1 slice of toast with butter, 1 small apple chopped up, 2 slices of either salami/pepperoni/chorizo/ham

If she doesn't eat all her breakfast when we are out in the morning she has a biscuit/gingerbread man she always manages all of that or a banana or apple depending on which shop we go in.

Lunch - 4 oatcakes sandwiched with peanut butter and 1 small banana. Hit and miss as to how much she eats, maybe just one oatcake.

Dinner - her favourite that she eats best is some kind of curry or spicy stew with rice, or pasta and tom sauce. I use a small plastic bowl (I think they were 6 for £1 in asda, about 3 inches deep and 3 inches across) and fill it 2/3 to 3/4 full. though on rare occasions she will eat 2 of these.
If we have say chicken, salad and bread, she will have a 2inch length of bread, up to 1/4 of a bell pepper and will refuse to eat anything else
If she has pudding it will be 1 scoop of icecream, one pot of jelly or a cut up apple but not everyday.

She does love her milk so we do half milk half water and she is limited to around 200ml 3 times a day (just over a pint).

She goes through phases of never eating dinner because she doesn't like the look of any of it On other days if she finds something she likes she can eat 1/3 of a pizza in a good (by screeching at everyone else until they give it up).

[otchayaniye]

sound ok to me

mine (4 and 15 months, still bfed on demand ) eat what we eat and we always have our evening meal together. we're keen cooks and i love baking bread)

breakfast is porridge, fruit plate (whatever s going) scrambled eggs, rye bread, mackerel, sometimes cereal or a treat, such as waffles and honey

snacks are dried fruit, oatcakes, cheese, toast, fruit ( sadly youngest detests bananas) - or a muffin or a bit of cake

lunch and dinners are what we eat. lots of asian food ( we used to live there), roast chicken, lots of mideast salads, ottolenghi stuff, a big proper moroccan chicken couscous with chickpeas and seven veg once a week, pan fried fish and puy lentils, egg fried rice with prawns and pork, leftover roast chicken in a pie, minestrones, vietnamese beef stew and so on. some nursery favourites like macaroni cheese and the occasional mcdonalds out in london (baby doesn't eat this but has stolen chips)

puddings are fruit based ( strawberries in orange flower syrup) or homeade icecream from the lebowitz book. baby doesn't eat ice cream though, sometimes will have the odd spoonful.

some days she eats lots, some less. both blw from 6 months. she's always latched on at night though!

[pacific407]

Thank you so much for the feeback. Some really interesting stuff here....I always find it amazing how DS always eats brilliantly at nursery but is so unpredictable at home...definitely a peer pressure thing. A friend of mine was looking after him recently and gave him lunch, and said he stopped eating when her daughter did! Yhink he's going to be one of life's followers!

Another thing that has surprised me is how toddlers can have quite sophisticated tastes - like otcha above doing all the ottolenghi stuff. My DS amazed me the other day when we went to prezzo for lunch-wasn't particularly interested in the oizza, but my DH and I didn't get a look in with the marinated olives. I let him have one as an experiment, and he ate the whole lot!!

I think this will all help me be a bit more relaxed with his food, so thanks very much everyone!