Refusing to Eat Cereal

It only takes a minute to make oatmeal, and think of the healthy habit you've started! Those packaged cereals are fortified, but many of them, besides Cheerios, contain too much undesirable stuff, such as sugar. They have very little fiber. If you do want to make other things, just make a batch of pancakes on a day when you have extra time, or at night. If you have a toaster oven, it takes about 2 minutes to heat up and serve a pre-made pancake.

Then oatmeal it is. It is healthy and filling. I do not see it as a problem.
Many 2 yo kids are very picky. Be grateful he is eating well.

Oatmeal is great, and if he's eating something that healthy, he really doesn't need the variety. He just doesn't care for cold cereals, everyone has things. It only takes a minute to pop a waffle in the toaster. It's also okay for breakfast not to be traditional breakfast foods - a cheese sandwich on whole grain bread is a healthy breakfast, as is yogurt and fruit - no preparation needed

Don't worry about it. Cold cereal is not really all that good for you anyway. I notice most of what you mention is wheat based--that's not really variety. How about giving him a bowl of fruit or a smoothie instead? Neither take much time to prepare.

We don't normally do "breakfast foods" in our house. Things we eat are veggie sticks, salads, soup, bread with veggie spreads and pate, fried rice, chili, stew, casseroles, miso soup and rice, fruit, smoothies, etc., basically whatever is handy in the fridge.

Leftovers are really great for those with little prep time. Make up a plate for the morning when you are cleaning up after dinner and just pop it in the microwave for breakfast (unless your kid is like mine and wants everything COLD straight from the fridge :D).

make extra pancakes & waffles on the weekends & then freeze them. also if you have ever used phyllo dough, i make scrambled eggs & sausage & fill them in phyllo & roll them up like an eggroll (you could do a square like a toaster tart but it is just easier to roll them), also yogurt with grahams or fruit & muffins are good.

Be thankful he eats oatmeal and not all those sugary cereals and breakfast items that give no nutritional value - including Cheerios. Perhaps an instant oatmeal might cut down the prep time, but if he'll eat the stovetop ones, I envy you greatly. My son won't eat ANYTHING and lives off Pediasure. Wish I could trade places with you! I'd love that problem. :)

Its ok if he doesn't like cereal, some kids just don't. I wasn't crazy about it growing up. Some other easy breakfasts might be fruit, yogurt, granola bar or nutrigrain bar, toast, bagels w/ cream cheese.... frozen waffles or pancakes are easy too if he likes them. I hear ya on needing an easy breakfast sometimes!

We have a similar problem! I like to make the food at home from scratch if I can, so I make a huge batch and freeze half of it. Waffles, pancakes, french toast, etc. I add flax powder and even ground carrots to the french toast and pancakes/waffles. I also make banana bread, all with whole wheat flour. Start early and it won't seem odd to them. Hope this helps!

Why oatmeal is great stuff! Are you using the instant kind or the other kind? If you are using the real kind then you could add fruit and nuts, whatever you want.
As for the preparing you can use the instant kind, not a whole lot of preparing. I'm not a fan of it, but it works.

I'd try some introducing healthy dry cereals packed up as a "mix" with other foods : raisins, nuts, pretzels, etc for snacks when you are out and about. Let him experience this as a dry food first, and then offer it every once in a while as a snack before trying at breakfast, as it's the first meal of the day. Another way to introduce it may be as a yogurt topping, with fruit and granola or the like. Sometimes kids don't like cereal in a bowl with milk as it gets soggy, so see if you can be flexible in its presentation until he gets used to it. Kids have their phases and two is still young! Good luck!

My youngest is not a cereal eater also but loves graham crackers so I will substitute that sometimes.
On the weekends my husband will make either waffles or pancakes and I ask him to double to batch so we can have them for breakfasts during the week. It works out great since I can just throw them in the toaster on low and they are heated in no time.
Hope this helps!!

Stick with the oatmeal! Maybe he just prefers the softness of it and the warmth to cold, crunch cereal. Oatmeal is probably the best cereal out there anyway in terms of nutritioon. Why not try other warm instant cereals like Cream of Wheat, farina and grits? My kids still love them today and they are teenagers! My 2 year old loves "scream of feet". (he loves silly named food, so I'm sticking with that for now).

Hope this helps!

Hi P.,

Yeah, it's normal, but my kids started it around 3. About 4 months ago, right before my daughter turned 3, she decided she didn't like milk. Mind you, she was on milk based formula, drank milk exclusively and had never had chocolate or strawberry milk to turn her from plain white milk. Then one day *poof* "no, mommy, I don't like milk." For 4 months she hated milk. If I tried to give it to her she threw a t-total fit. Then, two weeks ago she informed me she liked it again. I will probably never know why.

If you want to introduce new foods try it as a snack. We did cereal in a baggie, fruit in a baggie, even cheese in a baggie. For some reason the novelty of carrying a snack sized baggie around made it more fun or "cool" I guess and they were more open to trying it. Then we moved those foods to meals and they were open to eating them there.

L.

Do you mix the cereal with milk? My son likes it dry with his milk on the side.

My kids used to looooooooove oatmeal (we called it porridge like the old fairytales) then they loooooved cereal, then they loooooved pancakes. Now they eat cheese and crackers. Go figure. In my book as long as they have a carb and protein I don't really care what they eat. In Europe they typically don't eat cereal and waffles and since my family is European I grew up eating cheese and bread or bread and sandwich meat for breakfast. I still don't like sugary things for breakfast....and it's completely fine. Maybe experiment with a wider range of options besides typical breakfast food.

You can call it backwards day and serve a meat and potato (leftovers) for breakfast and eggs for dinner :) GL!!

I wouldn't worry about it. Oatmeal is way healthier than cold cereal anyway. In fact Cheerios are just processed oats plus sugar, salt and some stablizers and preservatives. He is better off eating oatmeal.
However-if you are time crunched, you can always get quick oats which you can microwave. I also keep whole wheat bagels in the freezer. I cut them first and frezze them so I can take out a half a bagel at a time.
Yogurt is also really good and that takes no prep. I will mix plain yogurt with banana or blueberries or strawberries or even just a little maple syrup. Then you have control over the sugar and there is no cooking!