How much do your 2 year olds eat?

[Whathefisgoingon]

I feel that mine doesn’t eat much at all, so curious to hear from others.

This is a typical day -

Breakfast - 1 scrambled egg, half an avocado, couple spoonfuls baked beans, slice of toast. He always has a smoothie with berries, banana & milk to go with - he usually has most of this.

Lunch - He rarely eats much, I offer sandwiches and be might have half. If I give pasta, he’ll have a couple spoonfuls. A yogurt.

Dinner - Whatever I give him, he has a couple spoonfuls. He never finishes his plate of food.

I offer him snacks through out the day, mini soreen, fruit, lentil crisps, and he tends to finish these! He seems to prefer snacks to meals.

Before bed he has a cup of milk.

He has always been slim, he was born on the 10th centile and weighs around 13kg at 2.5 years, which I believe puts him around the 40th centile. I feel like I should try and get some weight on him, change back to full fat milk etc.

He’s my first so it’s possible I’m over thinking it!

My 2yo goes through phases. Some days she’ll eat more than me, other days she seems to exist on thin air.

I just make sure to offer a few things I know she likes along side anything new and try not to stress about it.

A typical day.

Breakfast - some mouthfuls of 1 scrambled egg (if we're lucky)

Lunch - a few nibbles of a cheese sandwich and a handful of crisps

Dinner - 2 fish fingers. Sometimes she will eat some of the beans.

Needless to say we are under the care of dieticians.

Breakfast - Porridge with Raspberries
Am snacks - yoghurt and some kind of 'baby' crisps
Lunch - i make a sandwich with two rounds of bread, sometimes eats all of it sometimes half
Pm snacks - carrot sticks, cucumber, cheese
Dinner - things like curry, pasta etc the usual, generally eats about half what I give him

Mine mostly grazes. Some days he will eat a proper meal but mostly he seems to pick at things throughout the day (to be clear, I offer him a proper meal at every meal time!). He has tracked just below the 50th line since about 3 months old. No idea how he manages it as I always feel like he doesn't eat enough - and nursery agree he has a tiny appetite - but he's obviously getting what he needs!

Also, I read somewhere to not judge food intake by day but by week. As days vary so much.

It varies so much with our 2 year old (dinky 2nd percentiler). I think it depends on how "busy" she's been, how tired she is at mealtimes, which way the wind blows 🤣

For example Wednesday she ate:
Breakfast: pancakes
Am snack: offered a banana which she declined so I made it into a milkshake which she drank
Lunch: a fish finger, didn't touch her peas at all
Pm snack: some cheese
Dinner: spaghetti bolognese (her fave) and she barely touched it, she ate some pasta and a bit of a garlic bread

Then in comparison yesterday she ate:
Breakfast: pancakes
Am snack: fruit smoothie
Lunch: leftover bolognese which she demolished a full bowl of
Pm snack: cheese (this girl is obsessed with cheese haha)
Dinner: a full chicken leg, sweet potato fries, a couple of normal potato wedges and all the peas on her plate.

I try not to stress about it but I know that's easier said than done, my biggest stressor is how much fruit/veg she's eating as some days I can offer her so much and she leaves it all 🤦🏼‍♀️

A topic day

Breakfast- single weetabix with milk followed by a banana

Lunch - sandwiche (1 slice), cut up apple, small yogurt, cake or biscuit

Tea - 1 sausage, table spoon of mash & veg that doesn't get eaten

She also has 2 snacks, one is normally a pain a chocolate (older sibling asks for after school), for the other either cheese & crackers or hard boiled egg.

He's eating a good breakfast so probably not especially hungry when topping up with snacks. Doesn't sound too bad to me. You'll get people saying cut the snacks but I find a lot of dc that age prefer to graze

But yes full fat milk, full fat everything for now. I still buy full fat and my dc are 9 and 12

My son is nearly two. His eating is mostly good now but can be up and down. Today he had:

Breakfast: One slice of peanut butter toast.

Snack: Banana.

Lunch: Ham sandwich with cucumber and tomato as a side. Yoghurt for desert.

Snack: Malt loaf slice.

Tea: Cheese omelette with carrots.

B - plain yoghurt and an ikea kids bowl of fruit (thats the size of bowls we use for her)
S: babybel, a few crackers and berries
L- half a sandwich and mixed berries or something like scrambled eggs with parmesan
oat milk before nap
S- something like turkey slices or hummus and bread
D- bowl of whatever we are having, so skewers, curry, salmon etc and usually wants plain yoghurt or fruit after dinner.

milk before bed (but have to limit it to 150ml, she eats a lot of cheese because she has a low tolerance for milk)

A lot of cake with her dad on weekends 🙄but I don’t really keep anything apart from fruit in the house (DH and I are crisp people generally).

only drinks water and milk, its been impossible to get veg into her for the last few months. Thats the minimum she will eat, a lot of the time it’ll be more than that in terms of portions. She’s very tall though (99.5 percentile) and the top end of the healthy weight for her height.

My boy is just 2

some days are a huge bonanza of eating e.g

B - 2 weetabix and some fruit
L - sandwich, cut up veggies, chunks of cheese, yoghurt, more fruit
D- huge amount of pasta, more tomato chunks, banana, strawberries, glass of Milk, biscuit

other days

B - banana
L - licks butter off bread, half a semi-circle of cucumber, chews and spits out piece of tomato, strawberries (has no off switch where strawberries are concerns)
D - refuses everything and settles for a slice of buttered toast and some more strawberries

he is on a high height centile and never stops moving so I am guided by his appetite and try to respond to his hunger. Most days his diet looks very unbalanced, but over the week I think it’s fine

Mine doesn’t seem to eat much at all according to these posts! However she is 95th centile for height and weight, and extremely active so I guess she get what’s she needs.
B - 1 slice toast (used to be bowl porridge but won’t eat it now)
snack- a cracker. Maybe an apple or pear. Won’t eat bananas recently.
L- half avocado, baby bel. Used to have egg but now refusing
dinner- maybe 2 fish fingers, or a sausage, chicken etc . Half sweet potato, some broccoli or other veg/ peas/sweetcorn

Today;

Breakfast- kale omelette
Lunch- pepper, baby corn, onion, chicken fajita
Dinner- macaroni cheese with broccoli
Supper- melon and blueberries

My son is very active and doesn't get snacks but he's on 91st centile for weight. He's still on full fat milk, that might be why he is a high weight centile.

Is your child active? If they're running around playing they must be getting enough energy from food.

Mine doesn't eat much.
She doesn't really eat breakfast, maybe a few spoons of Cheerios or less than a quarter of a slice of toast.
Baby cereal bar and fruit at 9ish

Lunch she will eat a small tub of fruit, small tub of veg, couple of my crisps, maybe quarter of a sandwich, a babybel or frube.

Dinner it varies depending what I make, but usually more than the other meals. 2 fish fingers and half a potato waffle with some beans, or a small IKEA bowl about half full with something like spaghetti Bolognese or fish pie etc. Rarely clears the plate.

Mine still has quite a lot of milk at bedtime and overnight so I guess she is getting calories from that. She's very lean and active, growing and bright, so I guess she's getting what she needs.

Breakfast sounds very fulfilling so maybe not hungry by lunch especially if there’s snacking in between

Hi, I know its been a year since your response but I am wondering how much is your toddler eating now at 3 years old ? my 2 year old seems to survive on thin air many days 😞

Oh my how the tables have turned for me and my son with dinner times. Once my boy ate omelette, fried rice, any kind of mixed stir fry, potato, shepherd's pie etc...

He now eats the same breakfast, lunch and snacks but generally has next to nothing for dinner. Everything he used to like he now declares he doesn't like. It's so frustrating. We've given up trying to encourage him to eat now, we just serve him the same food as us (nothing objectionably spicy) and he chooses whether he eats it or not.

Mine eats a lot! Or I feel like she does. She generally eats 80-100% of what she's offered, anyway. We have pretty structured mealtimes at home as follows:

Cup of milk (~5 oz) when she first wakes up.

Breakfast - shredded wheat or porridge plus slice of buttered toast.

Lunch - could be anything, yesterday was jacket potato with beans

Afternoon snack - usually fruit, yesterday was a banana

Tea - main meal of the day, yesterday was fish and rice with veggies, day before was spaghetti and meatballs in tomato sauce. She usually has a small scoop of ice cream for pudding.

She has no other snacks and, other than the milk first thing, she only drinks water.

That's just when she's home though; she's at nursery 5 days a week. There she has a mid morning snack with milk and has her tea mid afternoon, so we give a bit of supper when she gets home. This might be a flapjack for example. I suspect their portions are smaller than mine. The menu is definitely more varied! Anyway, she apparently she almost always clears her plate there and often asks for seconds!

If he’s at 40th percentile why on earth are you considering attempting to fatten him up?

I would understand if he was below 10th percentile but 40th is just fine. Mine is 20th percentile and I’m quite happy with her weight especially since considering these numbers are based on a country full of overweight children as the base line!

Percentiles are just a comparison but not necessarily a marker of good health. Your little one is just fine! Perfect even I would say.

Please OP try not to worry so much. If he is happy and otherwise healthy and running around and playing his weight is just fine.

Please do not mistaken percentiles as some kind of goal of getting your kid to 100th percentile. Higher isn’t necessarily better. 40-60th percentile simply implies average weight.

I think my 2 year old eats well. They usually ask for a 2nd bowl of cereal in the morning, sometimes a 3rd or a piece of toast or fruit too.

Lunch is hit and miss. Often not much bread consumed but will eat lots of fresh veg, cheese, crisps/cracker type things etc

Tea they will eat a smaller portion of what we have. But last night happily consumed 2 sausages, mash, 3 florets of broccoli and 2 cauliflower.

They don't have a morning snack at home and only occasionally an afternoon snack. But on childcare days will have 3 meals and 2 snacks there and then come home and have tea with pudding with us.

Our health visitor advised to continue with whole milk until 5 unless children were hugely overweight. If they ask fir a snack they get one unless a meal is imminent, but I would say that's only about once a week.