8 months - adding 3rd meal

[modge]

My DS is coming up for 8 months old and is happily established on 2 meals a day, breakfast and lunch. I think he's probably ready for a 3rd meal and I wondered if anyone had any advice as to what a full day's food should look like? Currently he has something like weetabix and fruit for breakfast and then a fairly decent lunch e.g. pasta with veg, bread with cheese, yoghurt and fruit. Should the 3rd meal be as substantial as lunch, e.g 2 "cooked" meals a day and multiple courses?

I realise I could just try offering food to see what he's interested in, but wondered if there is any guidance as to the general daily food intake for this age (I'm also admittedly a bit nervy about messing up sleep so might be overthinking things!)

Healthy food that it’s easy enough for you to put together every day, usually similar to whatever you’re eating. That’s pretty much it.

We do meals that are either exactly what we’re eating ourselves or similar enough. So lunch might be a sandwich and a few puffs or cucumber sticks or sliced tomatoes and then maybe a bit of fruit or some yogurt. Sometimes I do a deconstructed version of my sandwich, so bit of chicken or cheese, some breadsticks, then cucumber/tomatoes/fruit, etc. If I’m having pizza and salad, it’s pizza and salad. I tend more often to do cold picnic foods for lunch though as I don’t usually cook two hot meals from scratch a day.

Dinner is whatever we’re eating (tonight: roast chicken, potatoes, broccoli) which is always hot. I keep some easy options in the freezer, like filled pasta or mini pasties, that I can pull out if whatever we’re eating isn’t very baby friendly.

Thanks, @mindutopia that sounds very sensible. DS is still toothless which I think is a bit limiting in terms of things he'd probably like but can't quite manage with just gums but I'm sure he'll grow some soon! I might try introducing some picnic tea foods this week rather than a full scale dinner (there might be slightly less chance of having to add in a 3rd floor mopping to go with a 3rd meal, too...)