I'm sooo overwhelmed... Feeding 1 yr old

[Hethir09]

I guess what I need is a guideline. A TF food pyramid of sorts. For birth we did the Bradley Method. I really liked the food charts they gave us for the Brewer diet. I need something like that. Perhaps a sample day as far as what to eat. What do YOU feed your baby/early toddler? What guidelines do you follow when planning meals for your entire family?

A bit more info: We've switched over to organic, natural and homemade everything since having our son but diet is the final, most difficult frontier for me!! We ate sooo horribly but are slowwwwly switching over. I am so picky when it comes to what my son can and can't eat. I'm sooo picky that I find myself paralyzed. I know I want him (and us) on a TF diet. I (for the most part) understand what types of things constitute that way of eating. Also, we have a VERY tight budget right now and it seems this is an expensive way of eating at times. I just found he that he is most likely dairy sensative. This throws an even bigger wrench into meal planning. I'm still bfing so we need to cut out dairy as a family. ARG!!!!!!!!! TIA!! :-)

[serenbat]

Our toddler eats everything that we eat-nothing different at all.

I see lots of post on the cost and frankly I am baffled by this? To us, we spend far less than people that don't eat TF-I guess it depends on where you are at but I don't get it at all.

We get eggs for $2.00 a doz. in the store non-TF type eggs are more than that-for example.
There is very little difference in cost of most veggies and fruits with organic.
Dairy is only slightly more but we don't do tons of that either.
Fats - we do not too all butter, we do some, some oils, some chicken fat, some pork fat, some lard (and that is real cheap)-so unless you are eating a large amount of certain high priced items, I really don't know.

Most of our meals each would run around 3-4 dollars US for 2 adults and a child, that being broken down.

We don't do tons of grass-feed beef ($5.99LB- makes two meals out of a LB for us) so we are not spending like some but compared to packaged non-TF foods we still are far cheaper. We do fish/shellfish and foul as well as some pork. Beef bones are also super cheap-$2.50 a LB.



as far as feeding a child I would do nothing different than what I eat- we did this from 6months on ward

we do not have any reason to restrict things from our diet

what are you eating that you would not give really is my question?

I would never make two dinners unless you dealing with major allergies and I don't count dairy as that big of a deal. Many do very little for non-allergy reasons.

[Magelet]

serenbat, it really depends on where you are. for us, pastured eggs run 7-8 dollars a dozen. organic produce is often a good bit more expensive. etc. That said, we just do it in ways that are more affordable.

Above all, our biggest expense every month (above even pastured meat, since we stretch that) is fat. Olive oil, butter, coconut oil are expensive. We also eat beef fat and chicken fat, but that comes from beef and chicken that we buy. we eat a lot of fat, and it costs a lot of money.

Hethir, it sounds like your asking two different questions.
How to feed your family TF on a budget?
And
How to feed your toddler?

On the first, by stretching meat into stews, soups, with soaked beans and grains, etc. by making and using broth which is protein sparing. by lots of other things. there are lots of threads (even threads lately) about how to do TF and how to do it on a budget, check it out.

I agree about feeding your baby what you eat. Except I'd really go light on grains, because I've heard they can't really digest them until 1.5-2 or so.

[Ruthla]

IMO, you don't need to do anything special for feeding your toddler. Nurse on demand, and offer the child what your'e eating whenever you have a snack or meal. Some meals the child will eat more than you do. Other times, the baby will have a bite or two and that's it for the meal.

It really is OK if your baby has days where he eats nothing but nurses tons (just be prepared for "breastfed baby poop" when that happens.) It's also OK if he nurses less and eats more on other days. Plus you'll have days when he's less hungry overall or hungrier than usual.

Your job is to OFFER healthy foods, and your child's job is to eat what he actually needs. Try not to get all worried and worked up about how much or what the baby ate each day, so long as s/he's not filling up on junk food.

[Eresh]

We're looking at purchasing a cow share (only legal way to get raw milk here) which is a one time fee $16, yearly fee $40, and monthly fee $35 plus a prorated amount of any vet bills for 1 gal/week. I can get eggs as cheaply as $5 for 2 dozen if I travel ~40 min round trip but my local farm is $4 / dozen. We're on the edge of Northern Virgina.

Since we're transitioning now to a more TF diet, moving DS off of sweets and processed foods is something of a challenge but less than I thought. The biggest challenge has come from DH who's food mostly comes from 7-11. He keeps sharing his pop tarts, donuts, and cheetos with DS DS is actually happy to eat eggs, yogurt (sweetened), nuts, nut butters, waffles (NT recipe too), pretty much any kind of fruit or berry, cheese, oatmeal, and a couple of veges such as carrots, peas, and sweet potatoes. Most of these he's been eating since 1 or so. He doesn't like any kind of meat but so long as he's eating eggs, yogurt, butter, and nuts I'm not too concerned.

In the great toddler food experience, I've noticed several things --
1) He doesn't really get bored with foods and doesn't care so much about variety. He would happily have scrambled eggs for dinner every day.
2) He's much more willing to try something if it's an interesting shape or color, especially if I describe it in a way that interests him (eg. "broccoli trees" .. which he ate for a while before deciding he didn't like the texture).
3) Texture can be a deal-breaker for him. He doesn't like the texture of meats, raw carrots, and a lot of nuts ... and broccoli.
4) "They" can be right about repeated exposure. I don't know how many times I ate all the cooked carrots before he actually put one in his mouth. Now they are one of his favorite foods.

Things that I'm still working on are good snack foods for DS. I'm trying to make crispy walnuts based on NT to see if he likes them. I may drizzle some maple syrup to lightly sweeten them since he adores the slightly sweetened walnuts from TJ's (but those have sugar and corn oil in them). And I want to try making my own granola since he also loves store bought granola.

[spughy]

I agree with the pp's who said just feed him what you eat. Take it as incentive to improve your diet if it needs it - and remember that all his nourishment up to now has come through you, and your food, anyway. I think that feeding a child different foods than what you eat is probably not setting up the best food attitudes and "culture" for him.

Nina Planck's book "Real Foods for Mother and Baby" is a good resource - I just finished reading it and I actually liked it better than her first book, although I disagree with a few things (like giving a baby cow's milk if he is still breastfeeding) overall it's really good, and has a lot of very sensible ideas for toddler snack foods and so on.

[katemorrow]

I don't know if you drink raw or pasteurized milk so far, but my son gets a contact rash on his face and gets all congested if he is exposed to pasteurized dairy products (milk, whipped cream, etc.) but is fine on raw milk. I actually found out about traditional foods and realmilk.com when searching for an explanation to his dairy sensitivity. He never did have digestive issues, though. Worth a try!

[leighann79]

Here's a pyramid for you. http://www.nourishingourchildren.org/Pyramid.html

[SomethingAnonymous]

Originally Posted by serenbat

Our toddler eats everything that we eat-nothing different at all.

I see lots of post on the cost and frankly I am baffled by this? To us, we spend far less than people that don't eat TF-I guess it depends on where you are at but I don't get it at all.

lol where the heck do you live?

Regular eggs here are like $.99 for a dozen.. while eggs from local people who have real free range chickens are $3.49

Organic produce is at least double what regular/conventional produce is. Sometimes way more than double. Over the course of a month it's easily $350 more or so to eat this way.

I am very jealous of all the people on here who say they can get food cheaper from farmers markets and such...lol- it's completely the opposite here!

But I do agree with what you said about your toddler eating your food. Our 11 month old is just eating whatever we eat- we do nothing special at all except maybe give him smaller pieces. He usually only eats "food" for dinner with us. The rest of the day he is breastfed.

[emmaegbert]

okay well we're ovo-lacto vegetarians so don't always fit in great with the TF/Primal/Paleo, but we eat no processed foods, very low sugar, low grains (adults almost no grain). So, here is what my 14mo ate today (as others said, its no special food- same as what we were eating). She still nurses on demand if we're together, but this summer is spending 7 hours away from me, 4 days a week. She drinks water those days or if she's home, some expressed breastmilk in a cup.

breakfast: she usually doesn't eat much this time of day. I served her some berries, a tiny bowl of soaked oatmeal from her brother's serving, and she asked for some bites of the yogurt and grain-free "granola" I was eating. Unfortunately, she does not like eggs or avocados, which the rest of us eat almost every day for breakfast.
"second breakfast" she climbed into her brother's chair and ate some of his leftover oatmeal.
lunch: she ate some of her dad's veggie stir fry and a home-made zucchini-banana muffin (some flour, almost no sweetener, chopped pumpkin seeds and raisins).
dinner: she ate with gusto a small bowl of the sprouted lentil, kale, and veggie soup we were eating and then asked for some more of mine. I offered her some of her brother's sprouted grain bread with melted cheese but she distained it. She ate a couple pieces of lettuce off my plate. Then she had a big bite of her brother's wheat-free fig bar that he had for dessert.

So... doesn't sound like an IDEAL diet, but its just a true life day we had.

[crunchy_mama]

At that age neither of my other kiddos were doing much eating but mostly nursing for about 90% or so of their nutrition what food they did get was just a bit of what we are eating nothing special. Of course I am not feeding my toothless 7 m.o. raw carrots- but when we have baked sweet potatoes she might get a taste of that- or some good grassfed meat when we eat it- liver perhapas- other cooked veggies and fats. I don't do dairy grains/gluten or soy- so those won't be fed to the baby. I won't introduce eggs until probably a year or so- same with other higher allergen foods- like strawberries. Grains are pretty rare- but the newest won't be fed any until well after a year.

I think you need to just do it- make the switch- as you are finding it is hard to feed a kid healthy when you don't eat healthy yourself. I don't have any particular guidelines in feeding- I try to buy healthy foods ie grassfed meats, good fats, good eggs, veggies and then just through it together however I feel like.

[serenbat]

lol where the heck do you live?

in PA- 2hours from Philly & NYC

two grocery stores have started their own "organics" and they have wars and it is GREAT!!!
this goes for fresh veggies as well

one sends me coupons off their store site for organics, the other gives them when you go in!!! +++++++++++++

now with fresh markets, some stuff is even cheaper yet!!

sorry!!

[katylin]

serenbat NY vs. Seattle

I am bummed to say that Organic (labeled) food is more than 4 times the cost here in Seattle. Partly because the produce stands do not carry it as a standard. So at the grocery store an organic cucumber is about $2.50 where as it will be $.50 at Lenny's Produce Stand.
Same with meat. Organic meats are over $9.00 a pound at PCC or the local grocery store, where a package is about less than a pound...
Organic milk is $6.00- $8.00 a gallon, non-organic but hormone free milk is $2.50.
Forbes Magazine ranked costs of food in the US, and I know Seattle was up there; but with coupons and weekly ad buying, we the cheapest we can make a real meal is about $10 for two people. Mac and cheese is not a meal.
two salads, (no fancy cheese or nuts) and two proteins cooked as big as a palm or stack of playing card, and two sides of veggies or fruit is just $10 no matter how you fluff it with rice or grain.

I have a blender. Yes, it was equally priced to our outrageously priced foods. But I have used it almost six years, and now with a baby, I simply cook a small portion a little longer, drop everything from each side into it, and pulse it for a moment. Babies don't care if there is some fruit in the veggies, and some veggies in the meat. Even cooked meat, like beef, pork, chicken are fine with a touch of water... the only thing I may leave out is the hot spices.

Blend... scoop serve.
I can also store anything made like this for a day in the fridge just as we eat our left overs so can baby.
It makes life easier at home.
I have small hand crank baby food machine for eating away from home, not as easy or as simple, but sill much easier than carrying jars and boxes.
(you can blend a hamburger but you could never hand crank one! )
Cheers K

[serenbat]

I am bummed

have you looked for non-certified organics?
sorry to say but we have tons of places like this- farms/stands that just aren't certified they are all organic but don't get regulated

aren't your fish price quite good?

I am in PA by the way, not far from NYC or Philly, really the whole area is turning towards organic more and more!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have one (this really is a small farm but they produce) and they go to 5 different farms markets a week plus sell at their place---and I hate to say this too (but it is kind of great!) we have the OLDEST farmer's market in the county 20 minutes from me--they are going to have their B-day

www.eastonfarmersmarket.com

far more organic in the stores (HIGH demand and getting larger, whole sections devoted just to organics) and we are 30 mins from NJ--the whole state (almost) has farms stands---

have you used this site or ones like it?

www.pickyourown.org

I find a lot here but again, I deal with several farms that don't advertise at all, some not even a sign, let a lone a web site

[babywearer_anon]

I think I know what you mean about being picky with what your toddler should eat. We avoided all the common allergens. Dd is 13 months now so I guess it could be time to start introducing some of these, but I am not rushing to do so.
(we avoided wheat, citrus, strawberries and other seasonal berries, dairy, soy, corn, eggs, tomatoes and probably a few others I can't think of right now).
I just started dd on goat yogurt and she loves loves loves it. She also loves bananas but I have to be careful because they constipate her if she has too much.
Avocado is a good one for her.
I should say that my dd only became interested in food at about 10 months and is still an avid nurser, so she still doesn't eat all that much.
Today for b-fest she had a few spoonfuls of goat yogurt mixed with a tiny bit of cooked oatmeal and steamed butternut squash which I cubed.
What kinds of other food ideas are you looking for?? Snacks? Finger-foods? Is your toddler quite interested in food? Still breastfeeding?