Is my son eating too much crap?

[Bog]

Sorry I have another thread on here but everyone here is very helpful and for traffic.

Son is 18 months old.

For breakfast he has either rice crispies or weetabix with marmite (not much) on toast

Lunch is usually half a cheese or ham sandwich with either a banana or half an apple, or Raisins. Sometimes I add a few of those veg crisps for kids or 3 of those organix animal shape crackers.

Either mid morning or afternoon he has a baby biscotti or organix snack

For dinner it's veg with some kind or protein. Frozen birds eye chicken, fish fingers,scrambled egg or the frozen baby food shapes. Annabel or something or other. But is this too much rubbish? Usually after dinner he has a pudding of petit filous or a suckies yoghurt.

He drinks water during the day and has a nighttime bottle of milk.

The dinner protein is pretty shit tbh (apart from the eggs). Fine occasionally but not everyday. Would you not judge give him a normal dinner? At that age my kids just ate the same dinner as us (or a variation of it),

Yes. Where are his at least 5 portions of veg and fruit a day?

There's not much variety, and not much fruit and veg either.

I would drop the pre-prepared snacks and just do fruit and veg, chopped up with something to dip them into.

Thank you all so much. I need to up my game then. I'm just so tired after working all day.

I’d add fruit with breakfast, add carrot/cucumber/pepper/tomatoes with lunch, then swap protein to something less processed with dinner (most days anyway) and add broccoli/peas

He’s lacking on fruit and veggies, and I’d say eating quite a lot of processed food otherwise

Some easy swaps:
add blueberries / raspberries / pear slices to his breakfast
switch crackers / crisps at lunch for slices of pepper / cucumber / tomato
switch afternoon snack for a rice cake with peanut butter (as an aside, the organix bars have masses of sugar)
dinner - those are fine sometimes but really easy to make your own breaded chicken or fish; or give him a portion of whatever you’re having. Add peas / sweet corn / broccoli
switch sugary yoghurt for natural yogurt and add some tinned peaches / plums / pears etc

I thought he was having too much fruit but I will increase it

It's not awful, but you could make a few easy changes.

Add some fruit to breakfast.

Add some veg into his lunch. Also maybe offer tuna, houmous, peanut butter as dips or in the sandwiches to vary up his protein a bit.

Get rid of the biscotti/organix stuff and give him some fruit/veg and bit of protein at snack time.

Do homemade meals for dinner as much as possible, doesn't need to be complicated. Batch cook and freeze stuff like Bolognese if you can, that makes it much easier.

Yup, get some whole foods in. There’s a lot of things which aren’t very taxing to cook they do the job, and batch cooking is well worth it.

Your post looks like he only eats half an apple a day, is there other fruit in there somewhere else?

Thank you all so much.

Sometimes he has a banana and half an apple. Then Raisins if he hasn't had a poo. I worry its too much sugar on top of the other things. God I've made a right mess of his diet.

I think this is fine and it's similar to what my DC are at that age. One piece of advice I found helpful was to take the macro view, look at what your kids eat over the course of a week and check all the major nutritional needs are being met eg fibre, fat, protein etc.

My DD, who is 4, will basically only eat bananas, strawberries, carrots and cucumber so I give her those and I don't beat myself up that she isn't yet eating broccoli. It'll come.

@Bog your doing an amazing job! Just like the others have suggested with adding more fruit and veg,

Try getting grapes-cut them up , great finger food , carrot sticks , bananas , tangerines , can be snacked on through out the day.

It's not a terrible diet by any means but I would up the fruit and veg

Oh don’t beat yourself up OP, it’s mainly fine.

just add a couple more veggies / fruit in here and there and have more evenings where there’s a better main protein option and it’s fine. Ditch the daily processed snacks if you can, but again moderation is the key. We can’t be perfect all the time.

I already know my DS aged 3 diet is going to be a disaster for the next week or so but I’m at peace with it ha!

Rule of thumb is each lunch and dinner plate should be 1/3 complex carbs, 1/3 protein and 1/3 veg. There should be at least two servings of dairy a day too. There should also be fat in there and plenty of fruit as snacks. As much of the food as possible should be unprocessed. You could switch fish fingers to fish fillet baked with some breadcrumbs on top. You could have a chicken breast fillet, either plane or with a simple marinade. Honestly though it doesn't sound like a terrible diet as is! Some toddlers only eat white bread and crackers! You're doing fine!

Also @Bog what are you eating for dinner? You don't need to make 2 separate meals. Your son can eat what you eat? Simple things like chicken breast and rice / spag bol. Experiment and try and see what he likes. Also can batch cook and freeze on weekends.

He has the healthy version of what I have. My wife tried to get me to like veg but that was a battle she couldn't win. So those birds eye chicken chargrills that are plain or the sticky ones. To be fair he doesn't have a big appetite which my wife never understood as "we're both pigs maybe there was a swap at the hospital????"

Don't beat yourself up over it. I'd say he's doing absolutely fine.
He's eating a variety of stuff including some fruit and veg, meat and eggs.

Nah you’re alright, he’ll be doing just fine

Just make a few easy swaps and that will work well

FWIW, a good way I get veggies in to my toddlers diet is by doing a little omelette with mixed veggies - peppers, onion, spinach, mushrooms, eggs and a handful of grated cheese then cooked slightly sliced up. Really quick and goes down well

No, you haven't! You've got plenty of time to tweak it, and starting this thread will give you lots of pointers. It isn't the worst diet I have ever seen for a toddler by any means.

I expect there will be the usual judgey posts from people whose children eat 30 portions of vegetables daily though.

Its not bad, slightly more processed food than I would be happy with personally.

I would swap the baby biscotti for fresh fruit or veg sticks, easy and probably cheaper.
For the evening meal "proper" protein rather than processed would be better - chicken breast, fish pieces, pork chops etc.

If you have the time, maybe expand from "protein and veg" by making some meals like spagetti bolognese, casserole, curry, fish pie etc.

I would be more concerned about your own diet than your child's if you don't eat any veg and only have chicken chargrills for dinner. Good for you for trying to improve his diet though.

At 18 months he's still developing his tastes and exploring food. I really wouldn't be too concerned, just make sure he's trying different flavours. It sounds like he's eating quite a lot and has a good appetite.
I'd be focussed on making sure he enjoys mealtimes, developing good habits and trying new things. If he's generally well and happy, there's no big issue.