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When your baby first starts to eat it is all rather entertaining, the food throwing, and the sticky faces. Suddenly your baby is a toddler and the food is still often on the floor and then there are the refusals, nothing can prepare you for a toddler who refuses to eat.
Why Bother Feeding A Toddler
This may sound like a shocking statement, but there are times when there is so much food on the floor that you wonder why you have bothered trying feeding a toddler. Mostly feeding a toddler is not about nutrition, it is more about learning to sit at the table with the family, learning to use a knife and fork and mostly learning that everyone else eats as well.
What Foods Should You Be Feeding A Toddler?
The whole toddler phrase is about learning to live in a family, they are like sponges who watch and learn all the time. Most will want to have the same on their plates as everyone else; the catch here is that they will probably want to eat something completely different. This means that somehow you have to get food they may eat on their plate, while making it look like yours. If your toddler wants to be independent it is important to put food on their plate which they can eat themselves, this means either something easy to spear with a baby fork (such as pasta) or food which they can eat with their hands (so avoid gravy on the Sunday lunch!) Since part of feeding a toddler is about associating what they see with how it tastes, it is best not to let them see any packets. This mostly applies to yogurt, it is amazing how a toddler will recognize a yogurt pot and will basically not want anything else. If however they have never seen one, and have always just had yogurt out of their bowl, it means that you can vary the contents of the bowl quite easily.
A Days Menu For Feeding A Toddler
Breakfast needs to be enough to make sure that they don’t get hungry and hence whinny during their morning activity. Try two courses such as cereal or porridge, followed by toast and jam. Morning is also a good time for fresh juice. Lunch often has to be something quick, especially if your toddler still naps, otherwise they will be too tired to eat and the whole day's food gets confused. Perhaps something simple like quiche or sandwiches, followed by fruit and/or yogurt. Finally supper, this is an important meal when feeding a toddler as it can affect how your toddler sleeps (and how early they wake up). If you try feeding a toddler meat when they are tired you may find that they leave it, the whole chewing and digestion can be a bridge too far, so this is a good time to put fish on the plate. As you want your toddler to keep trying new foods, it is a good idea to try to put two vegetables on their plate in the evening, make sure that one of them is a known success. For example if your child will always eat raw carrots and only sometimes broccoli, this is a good combination as some of the vegetables are guaranteed to be eaten. This can be followed by milk. In addition to these three meals you will need to have snacks when feeding a toddler, try a biscuit at ten thirty and an apple or pear at three. With even this simple menu your toddler has had five pieces of either fruit or vegetables; juice, fruit with yogurt at lunch; apple/pear snack, two vegetables at supper.
Remember that feeding a toddler can be stressful, but you will all survive.
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