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Babies: 9 - 12 Months
maceymay1816
member
Portion Sizes for Infants
maceymay1816
member
Hey ladies, I lurk on here often and I'm hoping someone may be able to give me some good advice or recommend some websites to get advice from for portion size for my 10 month old. She has no teeth, but does great with finger foods. She literally spits out baby food if I try to feed it to her. My concern is that I am overweight and I want to start her off with good eating habits. I just don't know how to figure out what appropriate portion size is for a child her age.
I make sure she gets her veggies and fruits in, as well as proteins as much as possible. Currently I have been allowing her to determine when she is full, she usually will become disinterested and then I stop giving her bites, but I don't know if that's the best way to determine portion size.
A typical day for her includes:
Breakfast: A few wedges of oranges or a whole banana, plus a piece of toast or a small pancake
Lunch: Half a cup of veggie or fruit, plus 2 chicken nuggets or a grilled cheese sandwich minus the crust
Dinner: Bites of whatever is on my plate, veggies first, a few bites of chicken and a few bites of potatoe or pasta.
Dessert: Since I am 7 months pregnant we usually have some sort of dessert after dinner, she'll have a few bites of whatever I'm eating, unless it's ice cream which she wants to have all of it. lol
Sorry this is long ladies, I just want to know if I'm feeding her appropriately. People in my family have struggled with weight over the years, including me and I don't want to set her up for failure by making bad mistakes now, so your advice and opinions are appreciated. Thanks.
Married 8/23/09
Dx: Endometriosis
mc 2003, mc 2005, mc Oct. 2009 and ectopic pg Feb. 2010
Baby Girl Gracie Mae born 5 weeks early on 7/6/11. Baby boy JT born full term on 7/5/12.
We are blessed!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Portion Sizes for Infants
I have also been concerned about portions sizes since starting DS on table food. I asked my pedi and she said a serving size for a fruit or veggie is 1TB or 1oz of purees.
I think they are suppose to get at least 3-4 servings of fruits and veggies a day.
The serving size for grains/cereals are 1/4 cup, I believe (at least 2x a day). Meat is 1TB also, only needing like 2 TB a day.
My pedi also said as long as he gets one "complete" meal a day, including a meat(or protein), veg, fruit, grain, dairy that is good. All the other meals should be balanced but don't have to have all foods.
She also recommended he still be getting 24-32oz of formula from 8-12 months old.
HTH
This is for toddlers, but since your LO is almost a year it might be helpful.
https://www.wholesometoddlerfood.com/Toddlers.htm
DD1 Feb 2010
DD2 Sept 2011
Agreed.
LO will let you know when she has had enough. I have heard the recommendation (from a local nutritionist) that you should not override a baby's "I'm full" signal by insisting her eating just one more bite. So far my LO will let me know when she is done, whether it is the bottle or solid food. Every baby is different, so I'm not necessarily going to follow a chart to tell me how much she should eat at what time, or the total throughout the day.
Becoming overweight is an issue to me, too. My H is heavy, and I have gone through a short period in my life where I was as well. It is no fun. What I do plan on is all of us eating healthy food, and being active. Setting a good example is key, and I hope that I can get my H to do so
Even if I had a really fast metabolism, and so did H, I would still feel this way about healthy food. Not everyone shows on the outside how unhealthy they are on the inside.
If there seems to be foods for which LO has no limit, then I would just give the recommended portion size.
Babies know when they are full. My LO will push the bottle away or refuse to eat any more when she is finished.
For now just focus on offering healthy foods and limiting sweets.
He also loves ice cream
I think at this age you let her tell you when she is full, unless she is overeating and throwing up because she is not recognizing that she is full.
I would not be giving her dessert everyday either, while they are young and dont know the difference between healthy and junk food, I would provide healthy options. Babies dont need sweets.
The way I've had it explained is that my job is to offer healthy food at meals and snacks and my baby's job is to decide what to eat from that and how much. I give him a few things to choose from, and if he finishes something I offer more of that. He lets me know he's done by throwing everything on his tray on the floor. *sigh*
As long as you offer appropriate choices, you don't need to worry about portion size. If you respect when she says she's done, she won't over eat.
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My DD2 is a good eater (and she's a big baby!), so I also worry about her health since obesity runs in my Dh's family. Right now we only do basic food groups with no junk food or deserts at all for her. We allow her to eat until she starts playing with her food.
DD1 is very thin, but we still waited a long time to introduce much of any junk food or deserts (probably until she was closer to 2 years old). I wanted my girls to know that junk food is only a "treat" for special occasions, and so far this has worked ok.
Now if only I could get rid of my own chocolate addiction!