Toddler diet - help

[pandaryes]

Hi,

I was hoping it would be ok for me to list a typical date in the life of my toddler (3 next month). Any suggestions to improve would be hugely appreciated!

Breakfast - usually porridge with strawberries and blueberries and a slice of toast. Or boiled eggs with toast and some fruit such as a banana

Snack - whole meal pitta and hummus or a rice cake or cheese cubes etc

Lunch - sweet potato with tuna and sweetcorn and a yoghurt or ham/cheese sandwich, yogurt, raisins, cucumber sticks (always a fight) and maybe some Pom bears or similar

Afternoon snack - a biscuit and some milk

Dinner - whatever we are having. Examples, mince and dumplings, lasagne, steak pie, fajitas etc. Followed by something like yoghurt or fruit.

Is this typical?? I don't know if I'm getting enough veg in!

Do you eat enough fruit and veg?

If you do, chances are they will, at least by the time they are adults ( there may be times along the way)

Children only need small amounts

Looks fine to me. Much better than both mine ate at that age. Not sure why you'd be embarrassed about them having one biscuit.

This is Mumsnet so there will be some people who will tell you there isn't enough protein and it's terribly unhealthy because there are some people with really unhealthy relationships with food on here.

@NerrSnerr oh I'm not, I was just expecting to get jumped on for feeding him a biscuit .

The main meal he reliably eats ALL of is breakfast.

@midgebabe I think so - most days anyway. Certainly not everyday. We always have some sort of veg at dinner time. He definitely takes in more fruit than me though

I’m surprised you are worried too - looks fine to me. Can you work red pepper/carrots into the mix with cucumber? Dips can help.

Sounds totally fine and normal.

@Potterspotter thanks. He's hit an miss with red pepper. Sometimes he will eat it and other times no. Yesterday I tried to give him a yellow pepper and he looked at me like I'd shit in his hummus 😂

Oh. He eats a lot of baked beans too. Forgot to put that in there. If I asked what he wants, every meal it would be "beans"

Yum - I wouldn’t worry, you offer the veg, they don’t always eat it, I found a fair amount of variation in how hungry they were day to day. You’re doing a good job.

If you want to get more veg into him there are ways of making it less scary. Whizz it up and stir it into tomato sauces, houmous or pesto, hide it in mashed potato or macaroni cheese, dab a little butter on things like broccoli to make them more palatable, hide a few peas or spinach leaves under the cheese when you make toasties, or add spinach to smoothies - you can make green lollies out of it and call them something fun like 'Dinosaur swamp lollies!'

Don't forget things like lentils, chickpeas and beans count too. If he likes baked beans (presumably the tinned stuff?) you could stir a frozen icecube or 2 of home made 'tomato with hidden veg sauce' in while you heat it, so it has a bit more nutrition.

If you can, buy peas in the pod, and show him how to open them and pick the peas out. It adds a little fun to it and may help develop a love of peas!

If you have endless time on your hands, you could, now and then, make cute pictures with his food before you serve it - smiley faces etc, using olives for eyes, a red pepper mouth, sweetcorn hair, broccoli ears etc.

Grow stuff with him. He's more likely to accept cress in an egg and cress sandwich if he's watched it grow as 'cress head hair', and he'll be keener on tomatoes if he's helped to water the plant and picked them himself.

Avocado is great for children! Would he eat that, mashed on toast, or stirred into pasta?

Looks fine to me. Given many kids at that age and beyond only eat things that are beige, I think he's doing very well! I just gave my 15mo DD baked beans for the first time yesterday and she LOVED them so think that will now be a weekly staple!