How much does your toddler eat?
Feeding our little folk is such a big thing for us mamas. Especially in the younger tender ages, when we want them to grow, but also develop healthful eating habits and preferences. I am often thinking about this these days, as my littlest is just about 10 months old, enjoy trying new foods, tastes, textures, smells. I am a bit more sensitive about it all, as he is pretty much off-the-charts on the little growth percentile graph.... I'm talking negative percentile. Ah, well. I'm not too worried about it, but I do wonder what are delicious, enticing, amazingly nutritious things we could feed the littlest of the littles? I am glad that I'm not the only mama wondering. An urbanMama recently emailed:
I was wondering if you could do a post about what and how much does your young toddler eat? My daughter is 16 months old and it is a constant struggle wondering if she is eating enough.
I also have a 16 month old daughter. The amount she eats varies greatly between meals. Generally she is a good eater but she has days when she isn't eating much. I found that the only way to get her to eat fruits is to continue to offer fruit variety of baby food. She won't eat fresh fruits. And we have so much of great fresh local fruit in Portland! I used to worry about how much she eats (or rather how little) but I learned to accept that over the course of several days she will eat as much as she needs. Of course, it helps to know that she is gaining weight properly.
Posted by: ajy | July 21, 2010 at 08:03 AM
My daughter is 14 months and eats very little, but still nurses a ton. She's growing and appears to be healthy so I don't worry about it.
Yesterday she ate (this is how much I'd guess made it in)... About 1/8 of a peach, the centers from 10 cucumber slices, most of the guts of 6 grapes, 1 oz of goat milk yogurt, 3-4 olives, 2oz water, 4 cherries.
I've had the best luck getting her to eat by trying different sizes and shapes, and different degrees of cooked. She will eat raw carrot coins or sticks, but prefers them roasted and cut in wedges, for example.
Some other foods she enjoys: oranges cut in half and sliced for easy eating, cukes sliced or peeled in long chunks, brown sticky rice, black or garbanzo beans, baked sweet potato scraped into pieces with a fork, bites of all fruit/yogurt popsicles, frozen grapes (I bite in half for her), sliced mushrooms, sugar snap peas (I open the pod and give her one side at a time).
Posted by: Heather | July 21, 2010 at 08:34 AM
I too have one of those little guys. 4th percentile, to be exact. I've worried about him, but his doctor says he's just fine as he is on a steady growth curve, just down at the bottom.
I've always just fed my guys what we're eating. I started by putting it through the food mill, then little pieces. I would also give lots of protein/good fat foods like cheese, avocado, edammame, egg, etc.
I subscribe to the motto that it's my job to offer good stuff and their job to decide how much and what.
Posted by: tracy | July 21, 2010 at 09:12 AM
My daughter is 14 months and her intake varies. She has a mini whole wheat pancake, about 10 blueberries and 5 oz. of milk for breakfast each day. Sometimes she might have a scrambled egg, cereal Os, or a different fruit. She eats a mid-morning snack of crackers, oatmeal, fruit, or something of that nature. Lunch is typically beans, a grain, veggie,cheese, fruit and milk. If she's home with me I'll sneak some tofu in there - she likes it cut into small cubes. I use a firm, fortified kind. Her afternoon snack is also crackers, cheese, fruit or the like. Her least favorite meal is dinner. I think by dinner time she has already had most of her daily calories and does not have much of an appetite. Nevertheless, she usually has a small amount of pasta, tofu, peas & carrots, fruit or yogurt,and milk. I can tell if she's having a growth spurt based on her intake. Oh, and it might help to know that she has 14 teeth already, which makes eating all these foods possible.
Posted by: Amy | July 21, 2010 at 09:17 AM
I had a little man on the negative end of the growth chart who is now 5. He is catching up, but still following his own curve! My mom (a pediatric nurse for 30+ years) always told me if a toddler over the course of the day ate what a whole meal would consist of, they are good. Also just keep offering them the veggies and fruits, include them in picking out your healthy foods and include them in the cooking, this makes eating healthy a positive experience and cultivates young foodies...
Posted by: katie | July 21, 2010 at 10:03 AM
As far as how much, what I guess and is reflected here, is that it varies. I'd take comfort in that and knowing that at this age, they are much more instinctual about meeting their needs, and will take what they need. And as Tracy says, it is the consistent growth that is important. I think there are calorie guides in books like Super Baby Food and the Sears nutrition books, and also, I think, on Kellymom.com. I would just recommend avoiding processed foods and stick with whole, nutrition dense and varied foods, if you want to be sure that they are getting the most supportive foods. Also the medical community considers milk a solid food, it is very nutritiously dense.
I don't know if this is helpful or not, but I heard that Europeans feed their babies/toddlers purees and fortify them with formula, for much longer than we do here, like age 3. My little one isn't quite ready for food variety yet, we just started giving her mashed banana 2 days ago, but I'm going to get an electric mill (I had the crank one with my first, didn't work at all), and do purees of our food (will keep me giving us healthier meals).
Posted by: Colleen | July 21, 2010 at 11:09 AM
I have also been concerned about what my toddler eats, but at 18 months old he is in the 75th percentile for his weight so I think he is definitely eating enough. For our family, though, the problem is nutrition. I worry whether he is getting all of his vitamins and I wonder whether there is a baby multi-vitamin (preferably in liquid form) to make sure he is getting what he needs. With both my husband and I working full-time and constantly on the go, I am embarrassed to say that the foods we feed our son are more in the convenience category (crackers, animal cookies, rice/corn puffs, cereals, fruit/cereal bars, toast, string cheese, dried fruit). For dinner he eats what we eat, which is usually eating out. I know it must be doubly bad for him since it's not good for us either. It is next to impossible to get him to eat any fresh vegetables and the fresh fruits he eats are limited to skinned apples and a bite or two of banana. I almost started jumping up and down when he took a liking to edamame. Any suggestions on how to improve his diet with our limited time to prepare/cook meals? We end up eating dinner at 8 pm when we do cook at home and I feel like that is too late for our son to wait.
Posted by: Lisa | July 21, 2010 at 11:30 AM
Lisa, will he drink smoothies? Or eat fresh berries?
When my son was that age, we discovered he would eat steamed veggies if they were very soft and accompanied by mayo and ketchup for dipping. We got relatively good mayo and figured it was an okay compromise.
Also, while we also struggle to get our son to eat whole veggies, we find he'll often gobble down soup, so I make soups with homemade broths and figure lots of vitamins go into the liquid. I know you don't have lots of time but its easier than you think--you don't have to do a lot of chopping, just throw a bunch of stuff in a pot and let it simmer for a few hours--and it's be really good for all of you.
If you can, plant things like cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas, blueberries, strawberries, etc in your garden. I think kids love eating anything they've picked themselves.
Good luck!
Posted by: Camellia | July 21, 2010 at 01:47 PM
Some of the best advice I got was this: you can control what and when they eat, but not how much (which means, sometimes, nothing at all). Keep offering throughout the day, and as long as the growth is steady, it's fine. They might eat nothing but fruit one day, nothing but milk the next, but over the course of a week they naturally achieve balance. Or so "they" say!
My daughter was negative on the charts as well, and still won't eat big, single meals, but eats small amounts all day long. As long as you're offering variety and she's growing, don't worry too much.
Posted by: AT | July 21, 2010 at 03:01 PM
I've been blessed with kids who have no problem gaining weight normally but even they sometimes just don't eat. I've heard that you should look at their intake over a few days instead of day by day or - worse - meal by meal. Just offer nutritious food and they'll eat eventually. As long as there isn't anything medically wrong, kids are wonderfully self regulating.
Even now, at 2 and 4 each of my boys really only eats one good meal a day. The older one just picks at breakfast and lunch but digs into dinner. The younger one eats breakfast and a little lunch but not dinner. They've both always been at the 90th percentile and frankly, I'm not sure how they got there.
p.s. my secret weapons are muffins and smoothies - you can put just about anything in them and my kids (and husband) will eat them. And you can pack lots of good fat in there for those little ones under 2 that need it.
Posted by: momof2 | July 21, 2010 at 07:49 PM
Lisa, I like to steam a bunch of broccoli and carrotts at once and keep them in the fridge for instant veggies. Easy to take a small tupperware of them (or frozen peas) out and about. Even in a restaurant I've never felt bad about pulling out a little tupperware of veggies for my toddler. Also, my kids are more likely to eat veggies enthusiastically if I put them out at the beginning of (or just before) the meal, when they're most hungry. My other easy, on-the-go food is hummus (with raw or steamed veggies or whole wheat pita).
Posted by: Emily | July 21, 2010 at 08:11 PM
What about utensils? Does your toddler want to feed him or herself? Is it a power struggle?
It has gotten to the point with my daughter that I rarely offer foods that need a utensil opting for finger foods almost 100% of the time, besides nursing, which she still loves at 16 months!
Posted by: Sahi | July 22, 2010 at 12:47 AM
I second Camellias thought .... My toddler ate nothing until she got some say over what she was eating. Now she is old enough, three, to stand up at the counter and help me prepare all of our meals. If she made it, she'll eat it.
Her favorite foods are the things that she planted and watered in the garden, sushi at marineopolis (she can choose her own plates), and the pickle and mayonaise sandwiches she makes for herself while I'm still sleeping.
When she was small, I would strategically place food around the house for her to 'discover' on the fly. Otherwise, she wouldn't eat.
Posted by: lea | July 22, 2010 at 04:36 AM
Has anyone dealt with a toddler taking a dive on the growth charts? My 15 month old son was in the 60th percentile but has barely gained weight and fallen into the 40th over the past few months. I think this coincided with a) becoming a lot more mobile and b) family travel where he didn't eat as well as he normally would have. The pediatrician has also suggested that he is nursing too much and that fills him up and leaves little room for solid food. any opinions on whether dialling back on the breastmilk creates incentive to eat more?
Posted by: Lee | July 22, 2010 at 09:38 AM
My eldest son did not show much interest at all in food (other than milk) until he was over a year old. He also didn't have any teeth until then. He loves fruits and veg, but those don't have a lot of calories in them. He's varied from about 40th perdentile in weight (when he was born), down to about 4% and now up to 10% at age 3. Since he's very health, has skinny genes (his dad) and his height growth was constant, his doctor wasn't worried. I remember reading about breastfed babies generally (although obviously not always) having a different weight growth pattern than the standard charts - being leaner after about 1 year. I make sure food is available, but do not force him to eat (well, more than a bite or two of new things anyway).
Posted by: sara | July 22, 2010 at 11:24 AM
We would really appreciate names of doctors who have been understanding of small toddlers.
Our toddler is very small and healthy with small family but the doctors tend to panic.
Thank you!
Posted by: A mom | July 22, 2010 at 11:14 PM
@Lee-my daughter has always been a light eater. but I definitely did see an increase in her eating when we weaned
(at 18 months). But her overall weight/body structure did not change, I think she just replaced the milk calories with food, with no net gain in calories.
Posted by: jessi dey | July 23, 2010 at 09:24 AM
My daughter is 18 months and has always been on the small side of the growth charts. At her last appt, she was only 23rd percentile for weight. But she eats well - 3 big meals plus 2 or 3 snacks a day. So our doctor doesn't seem concerned.
I would echo what the mama above said about changing shapes/sizes. Sometimes she won't touch the watermelon unless it's in tiny cubes, and sometimes she wants her steamed sweet potatoes in long batons. I usually start off bigger at the start of the meal (she can bite off chunks now), and if she seems lukewarm, I'll cut things up with the side of my fork and see if she likes it.
Some of her current favorite foods: goat milk yogurt, dried cherries, strips of nori (plain or wrapped around a little bit of rice), steamed broccoli, Kashi hearts and o's cereal, Annie's whole-wheat bunny crackers, any kind of bean, thin-sliced meat, and goat cheese. We try to add fat in the form of olive oil, butter, or dairy to every meal and snack.
Posted by: Jess | July 24, 2010 at 05:20 PM
I should add that my husband and I both work full time, and I commute an hour each way, so I feel for Lisa. We have become masters of the 30 minute meal by preparing big meals on weekends so we can have leftovers, and cooking really simple things (leftover rice stir-fried with egg and frozen peas - 10 minutes) so we can have food on the table by 7. Sometimes frozen ingredients are our best friends. Not ideal, but better (and actually faster) than eating out.
Posted by: Jess | July 24, 2010 at 05:24 PM
I often worried about this when my daughter was a toddler, but when I asked the doc she said not to worry. Children will eat what they need, one day they might eat a lot and the next just pick and it's fine, nothing to worry about. She also said to offer a variety of foods and even if my daughter didn't like something one day, introduce it again in a week or two and she might like it. Their taste changes a lot when they are very young, and to prevent a child that's really picky don't totally cater to their taste (obviosly don't force your child to eat something he or she doesn't like) but don't narrow down their menu to the just a couple of things because they're in a picky phase. Just keep offering a large variety of good food. I took this advise from my doc and my daughter is not picky at all!! And she made it through the times she didn't want to eat, she grew just fine! Don't worry too much, all kids go through this.
Posted by: another mama | July 26, 2010 at 12:22 PM