What to Feed My Toddler?

Hi, L. -
I have a 5 year old and twin girls, 2. From the time that they were each about 1, they have all loved,loved, loved, Nancy's Quiche Florentine. You can cook them up in the microwave in less than 3 minutes, cube them up and they're ready to go. The kids get protein from the eggs and cheese and a pretty good serving of spinach, too. I serve them with applesauce. The other thing my toddlers have all loved is what we just call "cold lunch". I have the deli cut me a really thick slice of turkey, ham, roast beef - whatever they prefer - and cube it up. Give the kids a plate with cubes of meat, cheese, fruit, crackers, avocado - whatever. They love that, too. There's always ever-lovin' mac & cheese. Michelina's makes a frozen one called Wheels & Cheese that my kids love because of the shape, and I serve it with broccoli. Some of their other favorites are Campbell's Mega Noodle Soup, and hot dogs and beans. Have you tried your son on baked beans? They're full of protein and pretty sweet, so he might like them.
Good luck. It's always so hard. I'll be reading the replies to your post to get new ideas for myself, too!

A little piece of advice from a mom with a lot of kids, the youngest of whom is just two: Serve him a smaller portion of what you fix for yourself and your husband. If he doesn't eat it, assume he's not hungry. Put the food in front of him at every mealtime. If he is hungry, he will eat. If you cater to this habit now, you'll be setting yourself up to be the short-order cook type of mom who fixes something different for everyone at every meal.

Continue to make snacks for him at regular intervals, too. Make sure they are nutritious and that if that was the only food he ate in a day's time, it would be okay. (apple slices with peanut butter or almond butter, cheese cubes and grapes, etc.) A lean protein source with a fruit or vegetable and maybe a carb (like crackers or cheerios) would be fine for snacks.

Mealtimes, though, need to be what everybody else is eating. All but one of my kids worked through this stage and now eat olives, feta, onions, peppers...stuff that most kids won't even try. The one kid that never worked through this stage, sits and picks out the stuff he doesn't like with a fork. If he's going to have food dislikes, *he* needs to be the one to do the work to cater to it, not me. :)

Hi L.,

I feed my toddler broth based, low sodium, veggie and pasta soup for lunch (its what I have also). I usually either make it or get Campbells Select Harvest Light. She gets a variety of veggies from it and loves it. Then for dinner I give her smaller portions of what we have. Snacks are usually yogurt (Cascade Fat Free, sweetened with juice and has about 12 grams less sugar per serving than most others), cheese and fruit. She also loves to snack on fresh crunchy celery and carrots. Good luck!

For the most part we feed our kids from our plates, or the same as what we are eating (unless overly spicey) My DD has always been a good eater. DS loves juice and carbs. dad would worry and cave to his wants. We took juice away and gave him water instead and we tooks the carbs away too. He was given a choice to eat what was in front of him, or not to eat at all. After a couple of days he started to eat and drink better. We still have to watch him. A couple of days with family eating what he wants and we are right back where we were and we are back to water only to drink and fruits vegetable and chicken..