Portion sizes for a toddler

[OriginalHugsy]

Reading the healthy start book for raising a healthy child trying to get my 18 month old to read it as she doesn't seem to listen to me and it says don't feed them too much and don't feed them too little...
It said to give them portion size for them which is so not helpful to me being the most indecisive I've ever been in my life. So how much food do you give or does your toddler eat at any meal time? a good range of meal times from different people would be useful.

Dd (26 months) stocks up most at breakfast. She could easily eat 1 weetabix, 2 slices of toast with butter, a small bowl of blueberries, raspberries and strawberries and a yogurt. And then have a snack or something later on.

Lunchtime she will maybe eat a couple of small sticks of cheese, some carrot and some raisins.

Tea, how much she eats depends on what it is. She will eat

Sorry pressed post too soon!

For tea she can eat 5 fish fingers (but leaves the peas and chips) or if it's something like a roast dinner she will eat as many carrots and broccoli dipped in gravy that she can, one or two roast pots and maybe half a chicken breast.

Breakfast here is cereal and fruit - anywhere from 1-3 weetabix (or equivalent in shreddies/cheerios/rice crispirs) and a banana, apple, pear, satsuma. Milk to drink

Depending where we are he might have a biscuit (or several) or something mid morning

Lunch is a sandwich, one slice of bread, which he usually eats half of. He'll eat crisps, fruit and a cereal bar at school but not that much for me unless we're at home and I boil him an egg!

Dinner tonight was 3 chicken goujons, 2tbsp mash and half a mug of green beans. Pudding was a cake, it's usually a fromage frais and fruit.

He self weaned at 15m and never wanted bedtime milk after so all nutrition comes from solid food. He's now 2.6 but that's been standard intake for months!

I've got 18 month twins, who have eaten today:-
Dts
Breakfast was a handful mini banana weetabix (probably 1 1/2 full weetabix worth), a pancake (ready made asda one) and a banana.
Lunch was a slice of toast with 1/4 tin of beans, a box of raisins and 1/2 bag organix crisp things.
Tea was about 3 tbsp bolognese (including the veg mixed in), about three or four pasta shells, a petit filous, and 4 strawberries.
Snacks - he's had a snowball, a fruit bar thing, 1/2 apple, and 1/2 roll with tomato sauce.
Breastfeed first thing, Mid afternoon and bedtime.

Dtd
Breakfast - a couple of teaspoons of mini weetabix (she refused the rest), a bite of a banana (which she finished later) and a tiny bit pancake.
Lunch - 1/2 slice toast, possibly a spoon of beans at the most, a box of raisins.
Tea - loads of pasta, a little spoon bolognese, petit filous, and a strawberry.
Snacks - 1/2 apple, a couple bites of roll with tomato sauce, a coco pop Cereal bar.
Breastfeed first thing and bedtime.

They're both given the same amount, he eats more than her most days.

DD (19mo) has had today
Breakfast: small bowl of porridge with spoonful of Nutella
Lunch: peanut butter sandwich - 1 slice of bread, cheese triangle, 1/4 breadstick
Dinner: vegetable rice, lick of a sausage lick of a cherry tomato , Barney cake thingy
Snacks: mini cheddars, pack of fruit smoothie things (freeze dried strawberry and banana)
She is very fussy and refuses veg or fruit unless it's hidden, drinks water all day and has milk at nighttime.

Mine varies so much day to day that I don't think it's possible to even give an idea! I got a child's portion of pasta for him today thinking he would never finish it and he asked for more so had to get another.

Some days he barely eats. Sometimes he eats more than an adult!

Dd 26 months has had today

Breakfast - rice crispies (small ikea plastic bowl) and a large banana. Cup of milk

Snack - slice of toast with philidephia

Dinner - one fish cake, two potato shapes and two table spoons of mixed veg, pudding half kiwi and three strawberries

Tea - 2 children's ikea plates of pasta with chicken and tomatoes, pudding a satsuma

Before bed cup of milk

Today my 22 month old had:

Breakfast - Porridge with half a banana (small IKEA plastic bowl)
2nd breakfast - 1 slice wholemeal toast with butter and scrambled egg (approx 1.5 tablespoons)
picnic lunch - a ham sandwich on white bread, cucumber slices, grapes and strawberries
Snack - 1 mini milk
Dinner - pasta bolognese, a mini yoghurt, 2 little rice cakes
Drinks - water during the day and a cup of milk before bed

Usually, she would have a snack mid morning rather than 2nd breakfast, but there is no way she would allow us to have a cooked breakfast without also being given some.

We've had a weird day today, and I'm also worrying that I'm over feeding them. DTDs - 21 months

Breakfast - bowl of shreddies each with half a crumpet each (barely eaten by one)
Snack - box of raisins and a couple of mini breadsticks
Lunch - ended up being split either side of a nap! Before nap they had a couple of tbsp of rice with veg, Dairylea dunker (neither of them touched it). After nap they had 1.5 sausages each, some pork, garlic bread (barely touched), cucumber, tomatoes, melon, blueberries, grapes, cheese
Dinner - half a tin of pasta shapes each with half a slice of toast, handful of Pom Bears, big Petit Filous pots, more blueberries, mini roll.

My hv gave me some info from a website called Little Peoples Plates - it has tons of info plus a table showing range of portion sizes. I was really stressing about portion sizes so having something to look at helped me! Google it - I can't post a link from my phone but will try and do later. My lo really varies though - some days eats tons and some days next to nothing.

I'm having a similar issue- my 13month old had no interest in food until 10 months, then had a lot of illness and lost any interest again. She lost some weight and we were very worried. About 2 weeks ago she started eating again and it's like there's a hole she can't fill! I don't know whether she's trying to put on the weight she lost, or whether she was just eating so little before this that it seems like a lot to me now!

Yesterday (we were out for the day):
Small bowl (about 2 tbsps) of Rice Krispies
Half a slice of toast
4/5 grapes

Breastfeed at 10

4 rice cakes on the tube

Slice of bread
1/2 avocado
Mini baby bel
Refused fruit

A prawn, some pasta (few strings of linguine), 8 chips and some bread (from DH and my plates at lunch!), and a few breadsticks

Yet more rice cakes and a little box raisins on tube home

Baby bowl of Mac n cheese with cauliflower and peas (homemade, about 4 tbsps) followed by a quarter of an orange, she was still looking for more food so she had some sliced apple with cashew butter

Breastfeed before bed and one overnight

A handy tip I read was to measure in their handful sizes. Two handfuls of carbs, one of protein, then one or two of veg. I find it easier to gauge how much to give that way.

Hmm, watching with interest, wondering whether I could give mine a bit more as he seems to be having less than a lot of toddlers here (though he's nearer one than two). He would definitely eat it if I gave him more. He doesn't seem skinny though and has loads of energy so don't think he's exactly malnourished! I'm now working on clinic day but maybe I'll try to get him weighed before too long and just check his weight is ok.

PS typical day for my 15 month old:

Breakfast (7am ish): 1 weetabix with milk
9am: 150ml milk to drink
10.30: 1 banana
Lunch: 1 slice toast with cream cheese followed by either fruit or other pudding eg half a hobnob.
3pm: Rice cake and raisins
4.30pm: 100ml milk to drink
6pm: 1 fish finger plus pasta or mashed potato (maybe 1/4 of an ikea children's plate) and peas (maybe a few teaspoons - he'll eat them if mixed in with something else). Pudding: plain yoghurt, eg a tablespoon.

lmeg up til 2 weeks ago my 13 month old ate about half of what you are describing. I don't think her current appetite will last longer than it takes to get back to the weight curve she was on prior to 2 straight months of constant viral infections.

No wonder my boy is a chubster.
7am-big bowl of porridge (4 heaped tablespoons) and some raspberries
10am-small bowl of cheese pasta (leftovers from yesterday)
12-he was at a birthday party and managed 2 slices of garlic bread, 7 cocktail sausages, handful of strawberries, melon and grapes. And two slices of cake
4pm-small yogurt pouch thing and 1/2 a banana
530pm-spag Bol (homemade)-fairly big bowl. Satsuma. 6 tinned peach slices and some fresh pineapple.

He's 17 months. It was a particularly heavy food day-it's never normally so full on, or as varied. It's normally just porridge, pasta and fruit.

This is an eye opener.

I only have an 8 month old and some playgroup friends report theirs pretty much eating as much as all your toddlers! Plus breast and bottle milk!
I was freaking out as she's tiny (drifted from 9th to 2nd percentile) and thought she was starving but it looks like they just have talented little eaters for their age!

I was going to say similar to Dansak - a good way to measure portions is to think of hand size.
A portion for you is a handful (or hand 'sized' piece of meat or whatever) and, proportionally, their hands are that much smaller, so their portions should be smaller. Equally, a 6'4" chap, would tend to have bigger hands and therefore need more food to sustain himself.

Only a guide, but a nice simple one to keep things in proportion.

Squizita- a lot of babies eat more at 9 months than they do at 18months. It's to do with growth rates. Mine certainly didn't but I think she made up for it with her 10-12 breastfeeds a day at that age! Have you read "My child won't eat" by Carlos Gonzalez? It really reassured me as I watched my friends babies polish off little jars, full yoghurts etc while on a good day my little girl would lick the butter off toast, eat 5 peas and maybe 1-2 pieces of pasta!

Milky Oh now I'm worried again.

My DD does eat. She's just small and doesn't eat all this PLUS milk (remember at 8 or 9 months they're getting 500+ calories of milk a day). Her typical meals (not including breast feeding on demand) might be half a weetabix and milk at breakfast, an oaty biscuit as a snack, 1/3 ikea baby bowl of mushy risotto or something for lunch, 2 mini rice cakes with cream cheese snack, 1/3 bowl of porridge or 1/2 a large baby food pouch/jar for dinner.
So she's not a food refuser. She just eats less than other people report their babies do. Mind you their babies are bigger so presumably have bigger stomachs?

Should I be reading self help books because she doesn't eat 5 fish fingers and mash for tea at 8 months?

...10 or 12 breast feeds poor you! Mine thankfully is more 7 to 8.

my toddler had a bowl which was 10cm round, and was about a cm deep with food at most, that was my portion control :)
but they were both big kids, tall and skinny and never stationary.

Today has been quite a good day for my 19 mo.

Breakfast: whole portion of ready porridge (adult portion)
Snack: slice toast with butter - ate 3/4
Lunch: two of his handfuls of hummous (literally ), 2 slices wafer thin ham, two small crackers, cucumber slices and tinned peach slices were utterly rejected. Oh, and a small banana.
Snack: goodies soft oat bar
Tea: two fish fingers, maybe a pieces of that frozen mixed veg, 2/3 slice of toast (I forgot carbs until the rest was nearly ready )

Actually, on reflection, that is an excellent day. He was such a poor eater until he went to nursery, I tend to be pessimistic about his intake. He's basically refused tea for the last two days, so it's still very variable.

Squizita your daughter eats WAY more than mine did at that age! It's not a self help book, just really reassuring if you are worrying about your DD growth etc. My good friend is a paediatrician and recommended I read it when I was obsessing about my child's disinterest in food. If it helps my DD dropped from just below the 91st centile to just above the 25th between 10 and 12 months and nobody was worried- HV, GP or the paediatrician she sees for an unrelated issue. They said she has a small frame, and was just dropping to where she should have been all along. Haha the breastfeeding sounds really frequent but it was 2-3 mins frequently- I think she just had a tiny appetite from the start. Now she eats, frequently and tiny amounts and has 2-3 breastfeeds. But now she shows an interest in food whereas until recently she had absolutely none.

Oh, and I have found this article reassuring and helpful numerous times.