Food. With a little one to feed everyday, food is never far from my mind. It doesn’t really help much either that I am also trained in nutrition so I tend to be thinking about food – a lot.
I am going to start regularly posting daily meal plans adapted for older babies and toddlers. My intention with these meal plans is to give parents some new ideas for meals for their little ones. I know what it is like to have to constantly come up with ideas for baby friendly meals and – especially once my son started eating more – I have had to become even more organised with his meals.
I am not posting these meal plans with serving sizes for a number of reasons. Firstly, I am trying to support my son’s ability to self-regulate his food intake. I do this by offering him developmentally appropriate foods and allowing him to choose how much (if any) to eat. I don’t push him to eat if he doesn’t want to. Secondly, at this age there is so much variation between babies – some babies are active and crawling, maybe even walking, other’s not so – that food intake is going to be very different between babies. Lastly, food intake is also going to be affected by the volume of milk intake. My son is not so interested in taking much breastmilk anymore and much prefers to be eating food. I know other babies however, who still prefer to take a larger volume of milk than solid foods.
Here’s what’s on the menu for my boy today.
Milk
Breakfast
Apple and Cinnamon Oatmeal
Fresh sliced strawberries
Water
Milk
Lunch
Chicken and Apple Meatballs
Roast Sweet Potato Fries
Banana
Water
Milk
Snack (sometimes)
Diced Peaches
Dinner
Pumpkin Risotto
Steamed Peas and Carrots
Plain Greek Style Yogurt
Water
Milk
What are your little ones eating?
photo credit: o5com
