What to feed my toddler

[Southerngirl75]

I need some meal ideas on what to feed my DD. She is almost 2 and hardly eats. Some days she will eat a few cheerios for breakfast, NOTHING for lunch and maybe a bite of something for dinner. I know they say that kids will eat when they are hungry and I believe it. Some days DD eats a lot but most days she will hardly eat anything. I have talked to her doctor about it and she says not to worry. It is hard not to worry though when you child won't eat anything some days. :(

She loves any type of fruit and she loves pasta. Besides goldfish and m&m's (I know baby mommy but I only let her have one or 2 a day) she won't eat anything. I feel like I am running out of ideas. Some days I just stare into the fridge trying to figure out what to give her to eat. I just need some ideas for all meals. So what do all you ladies feed your toddolers? Help, please. :)

[Hallie_D]

My DS is the same way. It is so frustrating, isn't it? Besides fruit and pasta, he will eat yogurt, Israeli style couscous (sort of like pearl pasta--bigger than regular couscous) which I doctor up with plenty of butter and olive oil to get some fat into him, chicken nuggets with ketchup (he gets the vegetarian version), occasionally a cheese quesadilla cut up into small pieces, cottage cheese, rice, veggie "meat"balls, pizza, french fries and scrambled eggs (also with ketchup).

Oddly, he will also join his father in eating corn chips with extremely spicy salsa--he mostly sucks the salsa off the chip because that is the part he likes.

Note the lack of any vegetable, unless you consider salsa, ketchup and/or red sauce for the pasta to be a vegetable! Also, with the exception of yogurt, scrambled eggs and sometimes couscous, he will usually only eat a few bites of these foods, even if he has been begging for them all day. Even french fries!

We give him a multi-vitamin with iron so we know he has something healthy in him every day. The rest of the time, we try not to panic when he's only eaten about 3 tablespoons of food all day. It is hard, even after all this time--he is 2.5!

HTH,

[jadamom]

Seems like every mother goes through this.

For breakfast, DD will eat turkey sausage, sausage, pancakes, eggos, oatmeal, cereal, or scrambled eggs.

For lunch, it's PB&J, ham & egg sandwich, hot dog, or pasta.

For dinner, it's chicken nuggets, chicken & rice, or spaghetti & meatballs.

For snacks, it's soy yogurt, grapes, strawberries, cherries, bananas, raisins, or any kind of cookie or cracker.

You will notice there are no vegetables on this menu...DD will only eat them pureed from a jar. I guess I'm lucky she will at least eat that. I put Kix in it. Hey, whatever works!

[tippy]

I have been blessed so far (knocking on wood right now!) that ds is a pretty good eater.

Here are some things he typically eats (granted there are others he will flat out turn down no matter how many times I offer them). Also, he is not a "biter". All his food has to be cut up into small pieces for him to eat. Other than canned peas (I rinse and drain them) he typically will only eat jarred veggies. That being said, if he is teething or not feeling 100% he usually won't eat much either. His number one all time favorite food that he would eat three times a day if I let him are mashed potatoes. Tonight I mixed in a jar of beef and carrots baby food and he ate them with no problem although he would never eat beef and carrots alone. I use an awsome brand of instant that I get in Costco. They are by far the BEST instant potatoes I've ever had. They are called premium idahoan potatoes and come in a big red carton.

Breakfast:
Homemade banana French toast with a little syrup
scrambled egg omelet style with american cheese melted on it.
1/2 english muffin lightly toasted with smart beat and melted american cheese (cheese just melted not browned)
fried bologna (he loves any kind of bologna :( I give it to him very sparingly and not very often).
pealed with casing removed: oranges, grapefruits
ripe kiwi
organic cinnamon raisin oatmeal
organic frozen blueberry waffles (lightly toasted so still soft) with a little syrup
the yolk from a fried egg
His all time favorite is an egg mcmuffin without the ham.

Lunch-
Amy's mac-n-cheese
Simply organic cheesy macaroni (I add ground turkey and peas)
pasta with peas and onions with grated cheese and garlic (the onions are minced very fine and cooked till they pretty much disappear but add nice flavor)
Wonton Soup (I pick out the meat and serve it separately from the noodles. He drinks the soup from a cup.
Tuna with mayo on unsalted saltines
PBJ on whole wheat toast (very lightly toasted served open faced)
Dr Praeger plain or spinach potato pancakes with cream cheese on them


Dinner
Anything I would normally serve for lunch or:

Mashed potatoes (I usually use instant) with flounder and peas.
Turkey meatloaf with edemame or peas added to it.
He loves Far East rice pilaf (I add 1/2 the spice pack to cut down on the sodium).

Wow, didn't mean for this to be so long. Sorry. HTH

Teva
Mom to AJ born 1-8-03

[JElaineB]

DS eats plenty usually, but we have some pretty standard toddler fare usually for meals. The key thing is to offer a good variety of foods and let them decide how much to eat. If your DD is gaining weight fine and the doctor says not to worry you probably don't need to worry! I will say if I give DS something that he just doesn't want but I know he is hungry I will make him something else. I know some people don't do this because it might turn into being a short-order cook down that road, but that is what works for us now. Here are some typical meals for us:

Breakfast
Mini pancakes, mini Eggo waffles, or buttered whole wheat toast
Sometimes a sasuage or a piece of bacon
orange juice (we buy calcium fortified)

Snacks (usually one snack in the morning and one in the afternoon):
fruit - esp. orgage slices, apple slices, pear slices, bananas
crackers of any kind, especially Goldfish
cookies such as animal crackers or Nilla wafers

Lunch/dinner main dish:
Mac & cheese (we use Easy Mac most of the time)
Grilled cheese
hot dog (cut up)
pizza, cheese or pepperoni
pasta/ravioli with tomato sauce or meat sauce
Quesadilla (flour tortilla with melted cheese inside, folded over)

We try to give him foods we are eating at dinner too, but he often doesn't like them. He does like meatloaf (with ketchup) or any pasta dish we serve.

Lunch/dinner side dish: (usually 2 or 3 items)
vegetables - esp. string beans, peas, raw tomatoes, cooked carrots
fruit (see snack list above)
beans, such as baked beans or other cooked beans
cottage cheese
slices of American or cheddar cheese
bread/roll with butter
some form of potato (mashed, french fries - not too often)
applesauce

Occassional treats:
corn chips
ice cream
chocolate

Things that I would like him to eat but he won't at the moment anyway:
eggs, yogurt

I also give him a cup of 2% milk after lunch and after dinner.

I'm sure there are more things he will eat but these are the big ones I can think of right now.

Jennifer
mom to Jacob 9/27/02

[Southerngirl75]

Thank you all so much for the wonderful tips! I really appreciate it. It is so great to get ideas from other mom's as to what to feed my toddler. Thank you! I printed out everyone's replies!:D

[MartiesMom2B]

Hallie:

I just want to let you know that ketchup is indeed a veggie in this household!

-Sonia

[Hallie_D]

LOL!! If you think about it (and if you use Heinz--I don't know about other brands but they are probably the same), it is really TWO vegetables, because not only does it have tomatoes, it has corn syrup. And everyone knows, corn syrup is made from...CORN!

:D

[lisams]

AND ketchup has lycopene in it, an added bonus :-)

Lisa

[sarsah]

Don't feel bad. The only veggies my 19 month old DS will eat is corn & ketchup. Every now and then I can get him to eat peas, but very rarely. He's better with fruit -- grapes, apples, cantelope, strawberries & bananas. For meat -- he'll eat chicken nuggets, turkey hot dogs, spaghetti sauce with ground beef and pepperoni pizza.

We had to meet with a nutritionist a few months ago because he was not gaining weight like he should and she said to just keep offering him whatever I make for the rest of the family.

Sarah......mom to Jason (5/25/00) & Devin (5/12/03)