What has your toddler eaten today?

[McGucks]

Mine is 17 months and still nurses all the time (every 2-4 hours, depending on activity).  He has never been a big eater of solids.

Today, so far, he ate: 

breakfast:  about two tablespoons of oatmeal with almond milk, 2 strawberries

lunch:  about a T. of low-sodium V8, a Sunchip, a bite of bread, 1/4 of a banana, and a bite of cheese. 

Is this crazy?  The breakfast was the most he's eaten for me in ages.  He always eats better for DH.

He is very healthy and round (chunky).  Sometimes I feel really badly that he doesn't eat more solids, though I know he's nutritionally sound due to breastmilk.

[wishin'&hopin']

My (nursing tons) 17 month old has eaten (as of 2pm):

half of a piece of toast with butter

3 peas

about 8 cheerios

half an apple

4 ounces of blueberry kefir

half of a tortilla

1/4 of a piece of bread with butter

4 bites of a tomato

[wishin'&hopin']

Which reminds me...I should go sweep up the 30 cheerios that didn't make the cut and became floor bound.

[stephbrownthinks]

3:30pm and my 16m DS (no longer nursing but drinking raw milk and almond milk) has eaten:

Breakfast:

Smoothie made w/:

3/4 C yogurt

few tablespoons blueberries

1/2 banana

tablespoon almond butter

teaspoon flax seeds

handful of spinach

piece of cauliflower

1/2 c oatmeal

Lunch:

Leftover garlic mashed potatoes (1/4 c maybe?)

1/4 c chicken breast

few table spoons peas

3/4 c. keifer

Snack:

1/2 hard boiled egg

1/2 apple

He PACKS in the food. And he's small too. My milk dried up after I got pregnant, so maybe if he was still nursing he'd eat less? Although he does drink between 12-24oz of mixed raw milk and almond milk a day.

For dinner I think we're having grilled cheese and tomato soup. He'll probably eat 1/2 a sandwich and a cup of soup, drink some keifer, and con me into some fruit too.

[McGucks]

stephbrown--I am vacillating between (so healthy!  so creative! so balanced!) and wondering what your grocery bill must be.  I rarely think about the fact that I should perhaps be grateful he doesn't eat that much because groceries are so darn expensive these days.  Fruit is SO expensive.  The cheapest fruit we got this year, wonderfully, was at a pick-your-own no-spray blueberry farm.  

I will be interested to see what we hear from others...

[ThreeTwoFive]

24 months next week, nurses 2x/ day

breakfast:

1/3 C granola with yogurt

2 pear slices

lunch:

more pear

raisins

string cheese

pasta

snacks:

banana

bunny crackers

dinner:

chicken

mixed vegetables

half an avocado

half a pork-mushroom steam bun

juice box

rice

[wishin'&hopin']

from 4pm to 6:30pm at our house--(see above for the morning and lunch meals)

1/2 cup of mac and cheese

1/2 of a cucumber

a T of raisins

1/4 cup of sweet potato/apple smoothie

3 baby fistfuls of cheerios

6 sweet potato fries

This was a huge amount of solid food for him.  He nurses around 5-6 times a day.

[mamadiamond]

dd (15months) nurses every 2-3 hours. today she ate 4 animal crackers, 1/4cup veggie puffs (like cheetos but organic and with veggies in them), 3oz apple sauce, T of mixed veggies (which she eats out of the can cold...yuk, but at least she's eating veggies), T of grits with vegan cheese sauce, a few sips of almond milk.

when i can afford fresh fruit she eats a banana or nectarine every day, but fruit is wicked expensive so that is usually only the first few days after payday/WIC.

it feels like she hardly eats at all, but her weight is fine i guess since she is still nursing so much.

[expat-mama]

WOW. I thought my DS eats a lot...now I know he does. He's 14 months. Here's yesterday:

Breakfast: 1.5 cups of plain yogurt with about 3 tbsp of puffed rice mixed in. About 12 blueberries and 4 strawberries. And some crusts from my toast. Lots of water.

Lunch: 2 scrambled eggs with cheese. 6 cherry tomatoes. 1/2 an apple. Lots of water. Oh and then a few cubes of watermelon.

Dinner: 3/4 chicken breast (curry chicken) with 1/2 cup of peas and 1/2 cup of brown rice. The carrots went directly onto the floor. A nectarine for dessert. Lots of water.

AND he has at least 2 snacks a day in between these meals or he gets grumpy. Snacks are sometimes handfuls of puffed wheat with cinnamon, a rice cake with pb or cheerios or baby mum mums if we're on the go. Fruit- he'll eat a whole kiwi, lots of berries or cherries or grapes. Toast with cream cheese or a baby bell and a whole banana. And lots of water.

He still nurses a bunch- all night pretty much , and 2-3 times a day and then before bed.

He's not super chunky or big. I've had people say he's really muscular and "thick" for his size though. He loves his food like his dad. He'll eat pretty much anything.

[somegirl99]

14-month-old DS mostly nurses and throws food to the dogs.  So far today (breakfast and snack): 2 bites of dried mango, 2 bites of a roasted plantain chip, small sip of water.

[stephbrownthinks]

We don't always have healthy creative balanced days:) We spend between $50-75 a week on groceries, usually around $60. I'm part of a CSA ($18/wk) so that's where we get the majority of the veggies and fruits. Occasionally a coworker or my parents will drop us off a box of produce from their garden as well, which will cut down our grocery bill even more.

I do make DS a smoothie every morning with a variation of what was listed. That is his guaranteed healthy meal of the day:) I normally blanch and freeze some veggies from our CSA, and freeze any fruits that we won't be able to eat before they go bad. Then I make little premade bags of "smoothie mix" fruits, veggies, almond butter and flax seeds and keep them in the freezer so that in the morning all I have to do is put yogurt and a smoothie mix bag in the blender. If its too thick I'll add some almond milk too. I put everything in one of those take and toss straw cups so DS can feed himself while I load up the car. I have to be out the door at 6:30 am so this is the only solution I've found to be able to get him to eat a healthy breakfast without a huge cooking production from me:) Its also the only way I can get him to eat some veggies (like lettuce and spinach).

Originally Posted by caedenmomma 

stephbrown--I am vacillating between (so healthy!  so creative! so balanced!) and wondering what your grocery bill must be.  I rarely think about the fact that I should perhaps be grateful he doesn't eat that much because groceries are so darn expensive these days.  Fruit is SO expensive.  The cheapest fruit we got this year, wonderfully, was at a pick-your-own no-spray blueberry farm.  

I will be interested to see what we hear from others...

[gitanamama]

Great thread--makes me feel better about those days when my little guy subsists on breast milk and crackers, but not so good about the variety of food I've been providing lately (it can be hard to stay motivated to prepare lots of healthy toddler food when most of it ends up on the floor---or in the fish tank, as was the case today.) At 16 months, my son still nurses just about every hour, so I'm not too concerned about nutrition, although he's so active I often wonder if he's getting enough calories. 

So far today, he's had:

Breakfast--part of a scrambled egg and a few sips of kefir and some OJ diluted with H20

Snack--1/3 of a banana and some cheddar bunnies

Lunch--a few spoonfuls of pinto beans/brown rice, 3 cherry tomatoes (sucks out the juice, spits out the rest), 2 bites of cheese, 6 grapes (same technique as tomatoes)

Afternoon snack will probably be 1/4 almond butter/apple butter sandwich and dinner will most likely be 1/4 mashed potatoes, a few pieces of broccoli,  1/2 a hardboiled egg, and some raisins. 

It's fascinating to read how much some of these responses vary--a great reminder that each little body is very different!

[octobermom]

18 months old nurses about every 4 hours or so during the day and every 3 at night.. Yestersay she also consumed

2 scrambled eggs

2 organic whole milk blueberry cups

1/4 grilled cheese

a handfull of grapes

an in and out burger meat patty

about 5 fries

a tablespoon or so of ketchup

umm about 10 sips of rootbeer 

a tomato

a slow melt popsicle

lots of water

some gerber bannana puffs

[octobermom]

oh and yea our days dont always look so unbalanced eaither..Thursdays are our activity days and its also the day we ussually meet DH for dinner out because of his schedule.

[maptome]

DD is 2 years old.  This is a GOOD day for us.  I never thought I would feed her most of this stuff, but, here it is:

2-3 bites of Grape Nuts and milk that she mooched off of DH

1/4 c plain yogurt sucked with a straw

2 T of butter gnawed off the stick

1 entire banana for the first time ever! usually she just takes a couple of bites

2 fish sticks

1 piece of processed sliced cheese that she ate off of her bare belly

dried figs and mangos

cheerios and raisins

1/2 a plum

1/2 of a "green" vegetable pouch

I'm hoping she'll eat some red lentil dal that I'm making with dinner.  She'll probably also eat a slice of deli turkey.

[newmamalizzy]

I don't know why I'm finding this thread so entertaining, but I totally am!  Toddler food has been SUCH a struggle for us.  I think today went something like this:

4 oz toddler formula at wake-up

Breakfast: 

3-4 bites of pumpkin-apple cake

2 grapes (gitanamama - mine does the same thing with tomatoes, blueberries, grapes, beans....she's just starting to figure out chewing now that she has molars)

A few sips of whole milk

Snack:

1/2 string cheese

3 "Nilla" wafers

a few gratings off an apple

Lunch:

10 - 12 mandarin orange segments

2 or 3 mouthfuls of veggie chili w/barley

a few nibbles of tortilla chip

Snack:

2/3 of an Earth's Best smoothie pouch

8 - 10 baby-sized goldfish crackers

Dinner:

3 tbsp. or so of alphabet noodles with tomato sauce

6-7 raspberries

the tops off of 6 broccoli florets

a few ounces of milk

Pretty average solids intake for her today.  She gets 18 oz of toddler formula each day, too.  I have to say that our grocery bill with this baby has been astronomical, especially considering how little she eats.  Trying to give her lots of fruits and veggies, but sheesh!  So much of it ends up as waste.

[Erin77]

My 12 month old has been eating like crazy! He nurses 4-6 times a day but eats like a bottomless pit!

Breakfast

half a homemade blueberry jam muffin

2 slices of nectarine

10 blueberries

Lunch

a 4"x 1" piece of fish loaf

2 round slices of cucumber

Dinner

1/2 a pear

2 large spinach ravioli, no sauce

Snacks: 1/2 rice cake, handful of Chex cereal, bunch of water

He pulled the pear our of my grocery bag- I usually let him take everything out of the bag- and started eating it before I could even slice it for him. I guess he really likes pears! He has six teeth now, and he really got down to business on it! Ha.

[sunnygir1]

OP, I just wanted to say that reading your original post the words, "The breakfast was the most he's eaten for me in ages.  He always eats better for DH." really stuck out for me.  I know we just say things a certain way, but I wanted to encourage you to think of it in a different way.  He's not eating for you, he's eating for himself.  I know it's frustrating to make food for someone and then have to eat it yourself or throw it away -- it drives me crazy.  But, he is learning how to nourish his body, and the best thing you can do is to offer him a wide variety of healthy foods and let him do with them what he will (within reason, ).  Don't worry about trying to figure out what he will eat.  Of course you can give him things you know he likes, but don't stress out about whether or not he eats it, and don't limit the variety to things you "think" he might like.  It'll all even out.  This is the perfect time for him to be exploring foods while he has your wonderful breast milk for nourishment.

Ds is 2, and here's what he's eaten:

leftover popcorn from last night

breast milk

1 slice of gf raisin toast with df butter (he fed the crusts to the dog so it wasn't really that much food)

1/4 banana

water

almond milk

breast milk

1/4 to 1/3 c rice pasta with pesto and manchego cheese

water

Sometimes he eats a ridiculous amount of food.  Other times he mostly plays with it.  He's a big eater in general, though, and he only nurses 3-5 times a day.

[McGucks]

Today has been a low food day.  He's nursed, eaten a bit of apple before throwing it all over the place, some Oatios, some organic raisins, and a few bites of a homemade blueberry muffin.  And some water.

That's all, folks.  It's mid-afternoon here.  DH is gone tonight, and I oftentimes don't do a big meal when he's gone...just a snack.  Our LO will probably eat a grape or a couple. 

I try to remember that, eventually, he will migrate from nursing so much to more solids...and I'll be sad.

I made a good, homemade potato & onion soup last night.  He wouldn't touch it.  Oh well.  My older son liked it!

[wishin'&hopin']

As of 2pm

6 ounces of blueberry kefir

1/2 piece of wheat toast with butter

1/4 cup of whole wheat bunny crackers

3 bites of frittata with squash and cheese

1/2 an apple

a small bite of tempeh

2 ounces of whole milk (the first time he's been offered that at a meal--we were drinking some milk and he wanted some)

I've lost count of the nursings...