Time for another edition of Finn’s eats…which also encompasses to his recently “not” eating.
Before you have a toddler…”I’ll introduce my baby to all sorts of foods so they will be well-rounded and not picky.” Once you have a toddler…”Graham crackers count as a meal.”
Early in our BLW adventures, an Instagram friend commented that she doesn’t stress about food because it’s one of the few things that babies/toddlers can control. That has REALLY stuck with me and given me a lot of trust that Finn will eat when he’s hungry. I want to honor and hone is intuition around that as much as possible.
As of now Finn loves ground meats like meatballs and meatloaf, shrimp/scallops, cheese, grilled cheese, graham crackers, oatmeal, any kind of crackers, veggie burgers and sweet potato/spinach kale bites, smoothies, scrambled eggs and toast in all forms. He will not eat fruit unless it’s cooked into oatmeal or blended into smoothies. He won’t eat veggies unless they are cooked into a meal.
So…fun times! All that being said, I am trying to stay focused on the long view so I give him things I know he likes but keep offering things I know he doesn’t too. I truly believe he will come around. I’m also going to do the Feeding Littles Toddler Course in the next few weeks.
It takes a lot of work to plate and photograph Finn’s eats, and he’s not exactly patient at mealtime and sometimes on the verge of a meltdown, but I shot the last five days of for you!
BREAKFAST
Greek yogurt blueberry pancakes with a thin spread of almond butter. Scrambled egg cooked in butter. Ignored the pancake ate the egg.
Cottage cheese scrambled eggs, fruit and banana zucchini oat bread (similar to this recipe). Ate all of the egg, none of the fruit and a couple bites of the bread. No fruit.
Cottage cheese scrambled eggs, Dave’s Killer Cinnamon Raisin Bagel with butter and cream cheese, fruit. Ate all of the eggs, sucked the cream cheese off the bagels and ate a good bit of the bagel too. Left the fruit.
LUNCH
Grilled cheese on Dave’s Killer Bread White Done Right with blueberries. Mostly played with the sandwich but ate 1/4 and didn’t touch the blueberries.
A cheese ravioli, roasted sweet potatoes, cheese, a single roasted brussel sprout, baked salmon. Ate not even one bite of this.
Toast strips with peanut butter, roasted sweet potatoes, roasted Brussels, cottage cheese. Ate zero. Was ready to nap.
Cheese quesadilla cooked in butter, grapes, turkey. Ate a few bites of the cheese quesadilla. I ate the rest.
DINNER
Buttered toast, cheese ravioli, cherry tomatoes. Only ate the toast.
Sauteed sweet potato and kale/spinach bites from ALDI. Raspberries, cherry tomatoes and cheese. Will let you guess what he ate…ALL of the bites.
Same bites as above (ate them all) plus cottage cheese, a bite of salmon and a bite of brussels sprouts.
THE END
Holding onto faith that Finn will come around to loving his fruits and veggies. In the meantime, trying to keep meals fun and I’ll keep offering him a variety of foods.
Always open to hearing toddler wisdom from those who have gone before me!
Oh my gosh, aren’t toddlers fun!? My son is the opposite in that he survives on a mainly fruit diet most days! Oh well. Our philosophy is the same, he’ll eat when he’s hungry. It’s certainly not worth stressing over if your child is thriving.
You are so right!!!
I’m loving this post. I need more ideas for food for Reese! I’ve never loved cooking or making a wide variety of things for me, and we’re probably in the same routine with her. She tends to love some things for one meal (ie, eat 6 grapes), and then look at me like I’m a crazy person for offering her the same food for the next meal. We do a lot of chicken/chicken nuggets and a sandwich made with sunflower butter on a pita. She seems to love those most days. Her favorite is salsa chicken…chicken and salsa in the crockpot. Complexity is at my level haha. She’s allergic to eggs, so that limits us for breakfast, but I mix apple butter or peanut butter in with baby oatmeal or give her a waffle most mornings. I try to do some protein at lunch at dinner, with fruit and dairy. Loves baby yogurt, usually cheese sticks. Raisins any and all day. Fruit is hit or miss. Veggie tots had been a winner, she rejected them last time and I ate them all. Win some and lose some!
Oh great reminder on the salsa chicken!!! I bet Finn would like that since he likes soft meats. I actually haven’t tried raisins with Finn. I’ll do that. And gosh, I hear you on thinking a food is a winner and then they decide “nope…just kidding.”
If he’s in meltdown mode at meal times it might help to move mealtimes to earlier/not right before he needs to sleep.
We realized that ours was so tired at night that he couldn’t deal with dinner/new food then…so we started giving him vegetables for breakfast and fruit and yogurt (something he’d always eat) at dinner.
He’s also always more likely to eat if it comes from a grownup plate, so sometimes we share meals. He’s awesome at going out to eat for this reason.
And then we started daycare and they give him three meals a day (and dinner is at 4pm) and it’s been such a relief!
Everyone’s different and we had to try a few things I thought would never work but they did!
I definitely think it could help to move both lunch and dinner earlier because he’s often pretty tired for those meals. Great tip on the plate as he’s always interested in what I’m eating. I don’t feed him from this toddler plate but use it to shoot these meals. I either put the food on his tray a little at a time or let him move it from the plate to his tray. Wow on daycare feeding him, that is awesome!
My almost 4 year old still doesn’t eat three “full” meals a day. It’s really not what he eats each day, but over the course of a week how much he eats. For example, he will eat a giant breakfast (pancakes, eggs, sausage, fruit, a glass of milk), but then have a couple pretzels for lunch, because he’s still full. Kids, especially little ones, are still adjusting from nursing on demand to our meal schedule, and don’t always need meals three times a day. I usually try to pick two mealtimes a day depending on our schedule to do a sit-down meal, and the other one is my low-stress meal. Also, at Finn’s age, my son was very into dipping – ketchup, ranch, yogurt, hummus, basically anything with that sort of texture was great for him, because he enjoyed the motion and it was sort of easy for him to eat. Kids rarely avoid a picky eating stage (although some do), but a lot of them are still just understanding food for what it is, and can’t always override the part of their brains that is exercising control over what they do and don’t eat. They also can sense frustration and are starting to learn how they can push boundaries, so, although it’s hard, it’s a great place to ease up with them.
Definitely time meals so he is not tired–tired kids are never going to try new things, or even eat well. And I second the eating off a parent’s plate. We noticed with all four of our boys, they were much more interested in the food on our plates than theirs, even if it was the same, just cut differently. My husband theorizes that it’s a survival skill; if they eat what they see somebody else eating, they know it’s safe! So offering him bites off your fork, or spoon, might be much more appealing. I would also suggest letting him experiment with spoons and blunt toddler forks–we used to spear a piece of our food on a kid’s fork and hand it over, and they’d often eat it like that!
My son is about 6 months older than Finn and what ***used to*** work for him was giving him protein and veggies in the morning because he was definitely the most hungry in the morning. There were many mornings he ate roasted salmon and broccoli for breakfast! I say ‘used to’ because for the past month or so, he barely eats anything. He weighs 30 pounds, so I’m not worried. Just like you said, I want to respect his body’s hunger signals and not put any of my weird food things onto him. I don’t care if he eats at mealtimes, but he must stAy seated for 10-15 minutes (he sits in a regular chair, refuses the high chair now). I think sitting at the table is an important skill whether or not he is eating.
Toddlers are just the worst when it comes to food. My first started out eating everything, then for a while liked nothing, and now is overall a good eater, but has some serious aversions to a few things based on texture. I’ve really learned to go with the flow and when she’s really hungry she eats. It gets a little easier once they can verbalize. She’s almost 4 now and if she really hates everything I put on her plate we can still work out some kind of compromise. My second kid is the opposite, she never ate everything! What she likes changes daily so I just keep trying stuff and some days she likes something and then not the next. Hang in there! It does get easier, especially once they can talk and tell you why they don’t like something.
I can relate to this 100%! My 2.5 year old has never been super “into” food. There have been many, MANY meals where barely anything is eaten. Most of our veggie success is those spinach bites (thank goodness for those things), or spinach in smoothies, or veggies in toddler pouches. It’s so hard to keep putting things on their plate that you know will be ignored or thrown on the floor. I’ve found mealtime to be one of the most challenging parts of parenting. Hang in there! You’re giving him really great options.
It’s really comforting to read this post and the comments from others struggling with toddler eating. Our son is so so so picky and will not touch fruit. I find that so odd as I love fruit sooo much! He goes to daycare and we are told that he is an amazing eater there. The only thing he doesn’t eat at school is fruit, otherwise he eats everything else and they serve him a great menu – lots of lentils, beans, veggies, etc. It’s spanish immersion so it’s definitely a more latin type of menu but he pretty much always eats everything. Home is a different story. We tend to feed him the same meals over and over. He doesn’t eat dinner with us since he goes to bed so early and I don’t have enough time to make a meal for all of us since we get home at 5 and he eats at 5:30-6. He loves eggs, banana muffins, banana pancakes, yogurt, cottage cheese and peanut butter sandwiches. He won’t eat grilled cheese which I just don’t get at all! Those vegetable bites from aldi look really yummy and super cute. I need to try those. He used to eat cauliflower and broccoli tots but after loving them for months he refuses to eat him. The most frustrating part of feeding him is that the loves to throw food. I try to expose him to things but if it’s new/unfamiliar to him, he tends to just throw it off his high chair. I asked if he throws food at school and they said that never happens so I guess he saves that for us! 😉
I’ve read so many books and articles about toddler eating. It’s definitely the most frustrating thing right now! I’m just glad our son has gained weight since turning 1. he used to be 4th percentile but shot up to 25th percentile at 15 months so now I worry less when he doesn’t eat well for us!
Thank you for sharing! I too was convinced I would have a toddler who ate healthy… thankfully, he loves fruit, but beyond that, his diet consists of crackers, pouches, granola bars, yogurt, peanut butter and jelly, and chicken nuggets. (And of course as many cookies and slices of pizza that he’s allowed.) Made himself throw up the last time I made him eat a piece of zucchini! Ha. You’re doing everything you can and he will grow up happy and healthy!
Have you tried freeze-dried fruit? We have a picky toddler as well but it seems like he is more averse to the textures than actual fruit itself. Freeze dried fruit typically has no added sugars or preservatives and is the texture of a cracker so it works for our toddler. A lot of times they come in single serve pouches which is convenient too. Obviously it is more expensive and not as great as just eating real fruit, but I’ll take the little victories where I can.
Some brands we like:
Simple Comforts (Kroger). This one was the best when they are very young because the fruit isn’t too crunchy and kind of melts in the mouth so they aren’t a choking hazard. Not sure you would have Kroger where you live, but my MIL used to order these online from them.
Crispy Green (high end grocery stores). These are our fav now that he is better at chewing.
Simply Balanced (Target)
Bare (lots of places)
He also likes some dried fruit now as well, although some of that does have added sugars.
Good luck!
Toddlers are the worst when it comes to food. I naively thought I would have a toddler that would have a sophisticated palate. Instead I got a picky eater that thought pretzels off the floor was more appealing than what I wanted to give her and who had the clever idea of mashing up her fruit snacks in her toy box to pretend she ate them. Also she decided that the chicken nuggets she liked one day (and I bought a bunch in excitement) were too “spicy”. Luckily now she is getting better at eating but boy it was a battle. I think the proper way to look at it is to just relax and don’t try to be overly controlling over what the child eats. They generally won’t let themselves go hungry and if they are thriving and healthy, then just relax. It should pass.
Ah he is just too cute! Thanks for sharing!!
-Kate
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I have been meaning to comment since you posted Finn’s 15 month update. First, he is adorable!! And you are such a wonderful and intuitive mom!
I thought 15 months was the toughest age. They are into everything, can’t really talk, and have tons of energy. I was so tired! I loved 18 months. I felt like everything calmed down. So hang in there:)
I’m on the same struggle bus! I have an almost 3 year old and 1 year old. The 1 year old either stuffs it all in,or windshield wipers it on the floor! She’s my wild one. Case, my toddler, is a certified carbaholic. He squeals in delight at the sight of French bread for a side. I bargain 3 green beans per bread bite, but he could seriously live on pancakes, pb and j, and bread in all forms. We love those veggie puffs, too. Corn and peas are mostly good bets, but man, I’m crossing my fingers for the day when I can throw down roasted veggies or a salad. I’ll even go for the horrible ranch. That days coming right?!?! 🙂
The meals are so small. My 14 months eats a lot. Like a pancake, one egg and a handful of berries just for breakfast. And 2 hours later he is eating again. I make him a lot of meals full of veggies, fruits, protein and only give him bread once a day or pasta a few times a week. He is always hungry and always running around. He likes everything.
Hi! Thank you for these, give me hope with my baby and also offers some ideas. Im wondering on days where he doesnt eat, do you offer more milk? Does he have milk before naps/ bed time? Just wondering hoe to navigate the “not eating” stage at 15 months. Thanks!