Anyone seen Gina's sample 18 month old's menu in her toddler years book? have a related query....

[lovinbeingmum]

Ok, so this may sound silly but the question arose because I have been really struggling with DS' food intake.

Background: Gina in her contented toddler book mentions that their food intake can drop quite a bit in the second year. To avoid panic she's provided a rough guideline for what the intake could be like...

For breakfast she's mentioned milk, yoghurt, toast and '50g of cereal with milk and chopped fruit'....

50g of cereal! ho hum......so the question....

is that 50g of cereal pre the adding of milk?

In our case just the one sachet of oats so simple (30g) becomes almost 300ml with the addition of the fruit and milk and I'm lucky if I can get DH to eat 50g of that mix.....

am a bit stressed because over the last five days he's actually lost a bit of weight. I can take not putting on weight but loosing it.....that can't be good...

How old is he, and why are you weighing him so often?

It is normal for appetite to slow as their growth rate does - and IME breakfast is the meal where it shows up the most.
Our 18 month old will eat about twice or three times the amount of breakfast that our 4 year old does.

Just offer him food, if he is hungry he will eat and if not he won't. Try to stop stressing because it won't help.

I don't eat 50g of cereal at breakfast. You-know-who is not a dietitian, just offer normal cereal and give seconds if they want it, or add a banana as well. Or if you want to especially energy dense foods, a second breakfast/elevenses often goes down well - buttered malt loaf or a crumpet, toast, bagel, raisins.

There is very rarely any need to weigh an 18mo twice within a week - are you worried about something in particular?

She must mean 50g including the liquid. Otherwise that is a huge portion - 2.5 weetabix for example.

KLAXON!!!!
Careful now

Unless there's a underlying health issue, I cant see why you would need to weigh your child twice in 5 days and be worrying about the exact weight of the cereal youre giving him?

Toddlers are grazers and get distracted really easily so if they get hungry then spot something interesting they forget about eating. The key is to offer little and often, leave a little bowl of fingerfood laying around so they can pick at it when they feel peckish. Offer foods that are high in calories and are good for them, little cubes of cheese, mashed sardines on toast fingers, peanut butter on toast/sandwiches/crackers, avacado, yogurt with some granola etc. Toddlers seem to live off fresh air sometimes and weightloss is normal when they become more active, they slim down pretty quickly when they start running around all day.

Honestly, stop weighing, you'll know if your child isn't thriving, weight can vary depending on how hydrated they are, have they just had a poo/not had one today, is thier bladder full etc. I don't weight past 6 months and not very often before that. Don't worry about portion sizes, you don't need to weigh the cereal etc, just grab a small handful, splash of milk and you're done, offer a yogurt/banana/cereal bar about 20-30 mins later. Dd3 is 2.5 and is still a grazer, she has a small bowl of cereal when we get up at 7am then a cereal bar or banana after the school run (9.15) then PB on toast/crumpet before lunchtime nap (11am), a 1 slice of bread sarnie and maybe a couple of crisps when she wakes up (1.30) a fruit corner at around 2.30 and the grazing continues until she eats a few bites of her dinner then milk then bed.

Thanks so much guys! for all the suggestions...

I know I shouldn't be stressing and he'll eat when he's hungry. I keep telling myself that. Plus it's not like I'm actually weighing the cereal every day...It's just that we had three back to back days with hardly any food intake and well....I panicked...am sure you've all been there at some time or the other :)

Of course in retrospect it could have been teething, lack of sleep, weekend partying with dad, constipation....a thousand and one irrelevant, temporary reasons....whew....

I think you need a different book

www.amazon.co.uk/My-Child-Wont-Eat-mealtimes/dp/1780660057