toddler meals/meal planning

jobiann · October 2014

I was hitting a rut last week with toddler meals but the last two days I went onto Pinterest and pinned and printed a ton of great new ideas. DH and I constantly wonder why is this so difficult. He eats basically anything, how come we find ourselves struggling to come up with new meals. Why? Because we do the same thing for us. We are terrible!!! We both work full time jobs and are honestly exhausted by the time 4:30 rolls around.

So we've started, once again, doing our weekly meal plan that includes J's meals and lots of pre-prepared (is this a word) meals and crockpot meals. Now, we are not the best at always eating together but one of our goals is to eat together more often. Usually J eats at 5 or 5:30 and we don't eat until 6:30 sometimes 7. So we are going to compromise and eat at 6:00pm, still and hour and a half before J's bedtime.

We have had some success this week too in serving his meals in these cups....but honestly, once he is mostly full he just wants to play with them.

So if you've stuck through this post. Please share anything new you are trying with your LO. Anything they really really like (or meals you all really like). Or any toddler plates, bowls, spoons, forks, cups, bibs, etc.

I know we've done this before, but it seems like J's tastes change constantly, I thought it would be good to do a new post.

brachysira · October 2014

Dh has decided he is into extreme couponing (although not nearly as much as the show). He gets what's on sale, and I figure out how to make meals from it. If I succeed without much waste, we'll try a farm share next year. M has always hated beans, has hated most veggies since 12 months, and has recently vetoed most meat. But in the winter, we eat a lot of beans and I always try to include veggies. Meals range from things like traditional chili to weird soups and curries I find online. She gets what I make, even if I know she won't like it--I have to be healthy and not eat chicken nuggets every day and I'm just not into blending up broccoli and saltines and frying it or whatever. We encourage her to try a bite, which she usually will. She always gets and eats a piece of fruit and drinks her milk. She can have components of what we are eating instead if she wants--like she likes tortillas and cheese, but not both together. She gets snacks of Cheerios and always eats a good breakfast of items such as eggs, whole wheat toast, oatmeal, and yogurt. She'll occasionally surprise us and have some salad or something, so we just keep trying to give her foods we eat, and leave it at that. She's 29 lbs and tall, so she's probably getting what she needs and probably too many graham crackers too.

this decaf life · October 2014

jobiann said:

So we are going to compromise and eat at 6:00pm, still and hour and a half before J's bedtime.

DD started eating better when we did this. She used to eat at 5 and we ate at 645, right after she went to bed. We now all eat at 6 and it seems to have worked really well. She eats the exact same thing we eat and uses the same dinnerware/utensils as us. Well, we have mini spoons & forks that came with our silverware set so she sometimes just gets the smaller version just because it's easier to fit in her mouth.

DD also seems to respond to us stealing the food off her plate. If she won't eat it, we will! And sometimes that makes her protective? Jealous? Not sure what exactly the response is but she'll laugh at us and then pull her plate closer and oftentimes take a few bites. This is what happened with broccoli. I stole like a whole plate of her broccoli once and now she's nuts for broccoli. It's easily her favorite.

She's still picky sometimes but she is offered the same thing we eat and if she doesn't want it I try to make as little fuss as I can. It's hard because it's so effing stressful sometimes but I [try to] calmly let her know that this is dinner and if she doesn't want it then she'll just have to wait until the morning for something different. If she gives the food a really good effort and genuinely looks like she doesn't like it I'll give her some extra cheese or a couple crackers because I want to, hopefully, reinforce that at least it's good if she tries a few bites. She has to stay at the table with us until we all finish and sometimes she'll give in after a few minutes, when she realizes she is not going to get away from the food, and start eating. Otherwise she goes to bed without a whole lot for dinner and wakes up hungry for breakfast.

I'm most stressed when I know she would either like the food if she'd simply try it or when she loved the food yesterday and now won't touch the leftovers for lunch.

I was apparently an incredibly picky toddler and continued to be picky until I met DH. Like crazy, foods can't touch and I didn't eat any vegetables besides broccoli, picky. I really can't afford to let DD be too picky because with all the moving we'll do during her life she'll need to be willing to branch out a little and at least try something.

Last note - I've started adding some chia seeds/nutritional yeast to foods when appropriate just to add a little extra protein. I often bake chia seeds into bread/pizza dough because I know for a fact she will always eat bread. I try to pump up the value of everything she eats knowing that some days she simply won't eat a lot.

ambmama · October 2014

Here's us: I work from home and pick T up and get home around 5. H usually gets home at 6:30, so I give T a small snack and milk quite literally as soon as we walk through the door. I hen let him play and do any dinner prep I can. If I can tell he's hungry I just start dinner - h doesn't love to eat right after he gets home so I usually either eat with T or I'll wait for H depending on how hungry I am. I don't make anything special for T. We eat a lot of chicken and he loves sauces so there's really no reason. I always add fruit to his plate and give him half of a frozen go-gurt as a 'dessert.' If I notice he really isn't eating something I'll heat up some beans/green beans/whatever, but we've noticed the less of his go-to favorites we give, the more he's willing to try what we are having. Good luck!

ReeceFamily · October 2014

On principle I have tried to make one meal for all of us to eat. This hasn't worked all that well in the past - I think I make too many casserole-type things that have multiple flavors mixed together and she likes her food prepared more simply ( except that she wants cheese on everything). And she's just been either not that into food/not hungry or super picky and she'd eat NOTHING. So now I give her some of our food plus I throw some of her greatest hits onto her plate like avocados and cheese. Want to guess how many nights she only has avocados and cheese for dinner

?

This seems to be turning around a little bit lately. I find if we let her have bites of our stuff (and she wants to use a real fork lately, too) she'll actually try stuff and has figured out that she LIKES it. The other night I made roasted broccoli and she couldn't get enough of it, she rediscovered her love of sweet potatoes. She also ate some salad. Granted it had Trader Joe's super yummy ranch dressing and croutons, but still.

spainy17 · October 2014

Ugh we are not great about any of this either. I get home about 430 and her dinner is around 5, no later than 530 so it is hard. I either feed her something we can both eat and eat with her (like last night we had spaghetti, watermelon, etc.) or else I feed her something quick and easy and I eat with DH later. He normally doesn't get home in time to eat that early. I am hoping once she is older all three of us can eat together.

We rotate a lot of basics like grilled cheese, chicken nuggets, rotisserie chicken and veggies, etc., that I know she will eat and occasionally try new things. I find it frustrating when she will eat a ton of something one day and refuse it the next. I always pair her meals with a squeezie (she will always down it so that makes sure she has a good start), a veggie, a fruit and the main meal.

jobiann · October 2014

I knew I wasn't alone, but as a Mom I still worry he's not eating enough or not the right things. Uhg, I have a feeling I'm going to struggle with this until he's 8!

@esmereldasspark We are guilty of the lunchable thing, J loves them, I pair it with a fresh or steamed veggie and fresh fruit and he only gets one of the cookies! We are not the type of parents who believe a lunchable once in a while, or a piece of Pizza Hut pepperoni pizza or an oreo will hurt him. 90% of his meals are prepared at home, so it's nice to cheat some days! Just like we as adults do!

BabyHope2013 · October 2014

DS has been on a kick with cold stuff lately. We usually get home around 6 or a little bit after and I have to make dinner for us all to eat together around 645 when DH gets home. DS is often hungry and either wants to "help" cook or cries and clings to me. So I have been buying myself some time with giving him some cold carrot sticks or a little dish of frozen peas. I figure that often the veggies is what he leave behind when we eat anyway, so it's an easy way for him to consume them at dinner. He likes that he can walk around the kitchen and eat them and that they are cold, instead of warm/room temperature.

Chappy_jr · October 2014

I am no help because DS has refused to eat dinner for two weeks (no more than a bit or two) and seems to only be eating a few bites at daycare, where he goes three times a week. Dinner is hell because when you ask if he is hungry, he'll say "yes" but then will not eat - even when I offer two options that I know he has liked in the past - and will scream or throw his fork.

We're getting concerned but I have a lot more success with breakfast and snacks, which we haven't been eating at the table, so I'm experimenting today to see if I can change his association with that. We ate breakfast bars at the table this morning so that was a success, at least.

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