One of the biggest things I was worried about when I was pregnant and once Jase was born was what he was going to eat as a toddler. I'm not sure what brought on this worry, but I assume it was all of the books I saw in stores about toddler food, the fancy plates for kids, ect. I know I was also worried about having a picky eater. Both my husband and I eat pretty much anything (aside from the I hate foods) and I was worried if I had a picky eater I would be super frustrated. I was also worried about making separate meals for Jase because, lets face it, I'm lazy and don't want to.... I don't want to make more food then I need to! Here I am today and I can say most days Jase is a great, well rounded, eater. I don't think this is because of anything my husband and I did, but mostly what we didn't do. Also I can only speak from having a 1.5 year old, he still has growing to do and his eating habits maybe be different next year.
We started Jase on pureed food and basically offered him all options, the only thing I stayed away from was stuff with meat because pureed meat just grossed me out. Once we saw that pureed food was no longer satisfying him we started adding in real food. From this time, Jase started to eat what food we had on the table, at this time is when he started to get an opinion on things he liked and things he didn't like. For example he loved pureed peas, hates regular peas. Just the other week I finally got him to eat guacamole, he's been turning down avocados and guacamole since day one of really food.
Today Jase eats all sorts of stuff and his pallet surprises us daily with some of his favorite foods being most all meat, kale, carrots and celery. Other favorite foods are anything sweet, like cookies, muffins and cake. Point being he's pretty well rounded and will choose healthy food over non nutritious food just like an adult does. They only thing my husband and I have been consistent with is offering Jase what we're eating. We also don't stop offering a food he at one point refused, he may change his mind in a week, month, day or never.
For dinner he eats what I make, sometimes he won't eat everything we offer, but he doesn't get another option. The only time he does get something different is when he's not feeling well. Now, I don't think we are strict about this so much out of wanting him to be a good eater, but out of wanting him not to be a bad one that we would have to cater to. Again, I'm lazy and not making two dinners. Lunch time is when we bend a bit about meals. For example I may make him a PB&J and myself a turkey sandwich. For consistency though, I still offer him adult food, he just gets smaller portions.
Jase may not eat everything offered at meal time, I try my best not to let that bother me. There are nights when I make a meal and all he eats is the meat, or only the fruit, ect. Jases' pediatrician told me at his one year appointment that I need to focus on his whole week of food intake instead of his day or meal intake at his age. Toddlers have days, just like us, that maybe they don't want chicken or the veggies you cooked, but maybe tomorrow they'll eat everything they missed out on the prior day. My child, just like every child, has days where all he eats are gold fish crackers and those days are hard, but I try to remember to look at the big picture. This has helped me relax a lot and also realize, overall, we are lucky to be blessed with a child that eats well without too much effort.
Because of everything I've just written, I'm afraid I don't have any clever toddler meals to tell you about. I'm very basic and just can't bring myself to cut my child's veggies and fruit into stars to get them to eat, I just don't have it in me. What I can say is that if a child is hungry, they will eat what you offer (of course this is allergies and other sevear things aside). Just in case for the future I am also holding onto all all the toddler meal books I have because hopefully we'll have more children and maybe that one won't be so easy. ;-).
What ways do you get your toddler to eat a well rounded diet. What did you do that worked, what didn't, what would you change?
<3Lindsey
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