What is a typical day's menu for your DC?

[FlatsInDagenham]

I'm thinking about improving the diet my DC (4 and 1 yo) eat as DD1 has been catching every bug going lately and I want to do what I can to boost her immune system.

A typical day for her:

Breakfast: shreddies or porridge, sometimes followed by toast with butter and jam.

Mid morning: milk and a piece of fruit.

Lunch: cheese sandwich and yoghurt

Mid afternoon: water or milk, a biscuit and a piece of fruit

Evening meal: pasta with creamy tomato sauce (made with onion, carrot, passata and cream cheese) followed by yoghurt or ice cream.

I can see already I'm not giving her enough fruit and veg. Please inspire me with your typical menus!

Well, today we've had: porridge with raisins stirred through, the croissants as a second breakfast / mid morning snack when we got back from tesco.
Lunch was a sausage sandwich with caramelised onions and mushrooms in it, followed by grapes, mid afternoon we had an orange and some natural yoghurt, and dinner was beef stew and dumplings with carrots and peas, followed by a homemade muffin.

Probably not the best day, tomorrow I think were having wraps for lunch, and roast lamb for dinner.

What about adding some fruit to breakfast (dried or fresh), and some veg sticks to lunch (cucumber, carrot and cherry tomatoes goes down well here).

It maybe that we're not a big dairy family, but there seems to be lots of milk based produce in there. What about swapping the cheese sarnie for tuna / roast chicken or similar sandwich or wrap?

Cereal and an apple for breakfast

A clementine and an apple for a snack

A pack of Pom-bears

A ham sandwich

A banana for a snack

Cauliflower cheese for tea
Trifle or yoghurt for pud.

My DTs are 3 years.

Sorry, meant to say your DC's diet looks fine to me.

i bet you'll get a lot of wholesome foodie types on here. I do not consider myself one of them
Breakfast: cereal, fruit juice
Lunch: chicken/ham sandwich, crudites, fruit
Pm snack: fruit, cheese
Dinner: baked fish with tomatoes, roast new potatoes, broccoli, and a biscuit
I'm sure we could do better, but we generally hit the 5 a day.

Not much better here tbh. Mine are 3yrs and 18m. On a good day, they have:
Breakfast: shreddies and cheerios with milk. Handful of blueberries.
2nd breakfast: toast with butter and jam.
Lunch: Scrambled egg with a bit of cheese grated through it and some mixed herbs, half a muffin, some tomato and cucumber. Yoghurt for pud.
Snack: some raisins or maybe a rice cake with peanut butter spread on it.
Dinner: mince and tatties with peas. Mince made with onions and carrots. Have been known to throw a bit of frozen spinach in. Rice pud (from a tin/pot) and a satsuma.

Ds (eldest) has very dilute squash to drink all day. Won't take water and has been severely constipated in the past which he is still medicated for so need to hydrate him. Dd has water. Both have milk at bedtime. Ds doesn't always drink his now.

It's difficult as ds won't eat veg. Peas and sweetcorn just. I make chilli and put any and all veg in and he'll eat that but won't have soup which would be my go to lunch as it's so easy to hide loads of veg, make tons and freeze. Or pasta sauce blitzed up.

agree it's hard when your dc don't do variety
we eat a lot of peas, sweetcorn and broccoli here, as they are the only veg dd2 will entertain.

Dd is nearly 2. She's going through a fussy phase but she's had

Breakfast: 2 bowls of shreddies with whole milk and some blueberries

Snack: banana and one of those Ella's kitchen nibbly fingers

Lunch: ham and philli sandwich made from one piece of bread. Carrot sticks thrown in the floor

Snack: homemade sugar free blueberry muffin (we've been snowed on so lots of baking done)

Dinner: fish pie and peas, little yeo yoghurt and a satsuma

We quite often do soup at Lunchtime as you can hide veg in it and she loves the novelty of dipping toast on. Can't see anything wrong with what your children are eating!

We also blitz veg to make pasta sauce. Dd will eat any veg if it's covered in a cheese sauce.
Main meals tend to be fish pie, casseroles, pasta in veg and tomato sauce, spag bol or chilli, mild chicken curry, roast dinners. (plus fish fingers and waffles on busy days).

Lunch is sandwich / jacket potato with beans or tuna / soup and toast / cheesy veg. Not very original!

OP's child eats about 6x more f+Veg than my nearly 5yo. I don't see that DS has immune system problems, either.

The only thing in OP's diet that struck me was that the child is eating milk products at virtually every meal. I doubt that affects immune system, but it's not that varied. Maybe sub fruit juice (or posh smoothie, even), other bread spreads.

Plus wheat at most meals: shreddies/toast/biscuit/pasta. It's a lot of same-same-same-same.

But honestly if she were mine I'd be fairly satisfied with the diet as it is.

I think that diet looks pretty similar to what we have here, DC are the same age, 5 and 1.

Today they had
Breakfast - pancakes with lemon and honey, and with grated dark chocolate and cinnamon.

Lunch - french stick, various types of cheese, cucumber, garlic sausage, hard boiled eggs, satsuma.

Snack - banana (DD1 didn't want one)

Dinner - pasta with pesto, philadelphia, broccoli and grated cheese (both of them ate around the obvious bits of broccoli but ate the bits they thought were pesto ). Home made raisin and ginger flapjacks and an apple between them for pudding.

Wow your dc seem to eat lots my dc have 3 meals a day no snacks unless they are at school as they are not bothered with them
It's usually cereal with semi skimmed milk or toast with butter or jam for breakfast

They will have school meals and we pay for fruit snacks throughout the week on weekends they tend to ask for scrambled,poached or boiled eggs or just a sandwich

For tea they have a full cooked meal like shepherds pie, curry, pie, roast, bologneise, carbonara, meatballs and spaghetti or fish all served with plenty of vegetables

For drinks they will have the odd glass of milk but usually it's just water as they aren't that keen on juice

Great suggestions, thank you. Maybe there is too much dairy, I'll try to reduce that.

Today:

Breakast: Poached egg, beans, piece of bacon

Lunch: haddock, peas, slice of wholemeal bread. Satsuma

Dinner: roast beef, sweet potato, asparagus, more peas. Yogurt and strudel for desert

Snacks: cashews, an apple and a milkshake

My 20mo has had the following today:

Brekkie: Porridge with blueberries and chopped apricot
Snack: A banana
Lunch: Toast with beans, a yogurt and some grapes
Snack: hummus and breadsticks
Dinner: sausage with carrot and swede mash, brocolli, sweetcorn
Pudding: rice pudding with more blueberries (she loves them!)

That's fairly typical for a day she's at home, if at nursery she has a more 'snacky' lunch.

Breakfast: cereal (weetabix/cheap verion cheerios/shreddies/rice krispies) or porridge

weekend breakfasts include eggs, maybe croissants or pancakes

They get goverment fruit at school, I think they eat this daily.

Lunch: Packed lunch six days a week: Sandwich, fruit, youghurt maybe some crackers or a cake. Sometimes soup or spaghetti hoops in a flask.

Tea: At afterschool club. No real idea, tends to sound a little carb heavy is supposed to be 'healthy'

Dinner: Rice and curry/Fish veggies and potatoes/Pasta and sauce

DC are ds 6 and dd 2

Breakfast - big bowl of Cheerios for ds and teeny bowl for dd, she has a yogurt and grapes too. Ds has banana.

Snack - ds usually has cereal bar at school, dd has pancakes / crisps / cheese / mango

Lunch - usually a sandwich of some type with quorn / tuna / cheese / ham & yogurt & cheese if not already had, pot f raw veg for ds or fruit for dd.

Snack - biscuit / sometimes chocolate / fruit / ds likes a small salad

Dinner - eg tomato and vegetable pasta and yogurt for afters

Drinks of water and milk and sometimes apple juice.

I'd like it to be more varied but ds in particular is picky and dd gags and vomits on certain things.

Remember that a portion of fruit/veg is supposed to be the size of your/their palm so it will be A LOT smaller for a 2 year old than it is for an adult.

Think of the size of a banana,or even a satsuma, compared to the size of their palm and you'll probably find out that they are eating far more than you think.

Breakfast dd ready brek with apple/DS two rounds of 50/50 bread with jam. Both had milk to drink.

Snack. Both gone to school with raisins.

Lunch dd packed lunch (don't think she'll get much fruit or veg as DS made it. He's a big fan of brown food ). DS is having school dinners.

Snack dd will be offered milk and fruit at school. DS works through without the afternoon snack and break now he's in KS2

Second snack. We are off to DMil after school so they probably have cake or a couple of biscuits and milk.

Tea spag Bol. I stick loads of veg in it, probably about the same amount as meat. Yogurt for pud.

Any snacks requested after that will be fruit.

Could have written the rest of nextphase's post myself

I think your dc diet sounds fine!

mine (4and2) would usually have

breakfast- porridge with berries (i buy frozen berries and chuck a handful in when cooking) with a glass of apple juice. this way I've got 2 of the.five out of the way before 9am

dinner- bread, cheese and an apple

tea- lasagne, shepards pie- the main family meal, which usually includes around 3 portions of veg.

the younger one eats fruit throughout the day, a banana, and a satsuma, or grapes, or slice of melon (she once got into the fruit bowl and ate 4 Clementines, skin and all!) but I try to limit it.

the eldest won't eat any fruit save for.raisons, which she usually has on return from school.

I offer a min of 5 f and v a day. They don't always eat it, but it is offered and included in all meals.