What does your toddler eat?
Moms View Message Board: Parenting Discussion: Archive January-June 2005:
What does your toddler eat?
OK ,so I've read Ellyn Satter's advice on toddler feeding and while I agree that it is up to the parent to provide the what and when of the meal, the child is responsible for how much...if at all, There are several things I don't agree with.
We've run into a lot of problems providing consistant meal times and meals we can eat together as a family for several reasons.
1)My dh is a vegetarian, I am not.
2) I am pregnant right now and eating strange things at all hours of the day and night.
3) My dh works eratic hours, I work part time.
4) My two year old hardly eats ANYTHING!
eh hem..
I have a healthy child. He doesn't get sick (knock knock).I nursed him for a long, long time.But of course, no meat or vegtables, I worry, have mom guilt. He does get shadowy circles under the eyes and sometimes it's worse than at other times. When I completely take him off sugar they go away. Then I think, maybe some Yobaby yogurt is not so bad .
Lately he is pretty much living on cereal,(cheerios) and"moo" milk or soy milk .
Back to Ellyn Satter.
-She suggests that you don't allow your child to have milk between meals, just water.
Can't do it, he screams and cries "moo milk" or "glass of milk" . And I think, "hey maybe he needs the calcium, he has molars coming."
-She suggests when you put nonfavorite foods on the table for a meal you also include milk and bread, (at least the child is joining in the meal). Guess who is eating alot of milk and bread.
- She suggests putting dessert on the table with the dinner so it doesn't become a forbidden fruit and more desirable.
I won't even go there. Chicken and potatoes or chocalate pudding?Hmmm.
I've given floridix liquid vitamins in yogurt but he seems to be on to me.He won't touch the kids greens chewables.
He eats alot of grain, carbs, dairy products, the occasional treat. Maybe a raison and a peanut butter sandwich.
To my credit I will say that I buy mostly organic, low sugar foods. I bake homemade muffins and cookies, and I try to make eating times fun and pleasurable.I am trying to not bug him or say anything about how much he eats .(Sometimes he still likes me to hold the spoon and play, "small bite, medium bite ,big bite". Is that wrong? )
But, yes I feed on demand.
If my child is hungry , he's going to eat, even if it's a glass of soy milk and a graham cracker. I am not going to tell him,"Dinner is in an hour, you can have water only." (another suggestion).
But I am concerned about the dark circles under the eyes, his iron levels and all that.
Wow, that was a long post. I really needed to get that off my chest.
I am interested to hear what other toddlers are eating, and how you feed them .Thanks.
I've never heard of Ellyn Satter, are you getting this information from a book she wrote?
My youngest is 2 1/2 and he eats everything we do. While I don't make special meals for him, if he would rather have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich than the chicken or hamburger we are having, I'll make it for him. He has milk whenever he asks for it, has a snack whenever he asks for it and usually eats whenever I do because he is with me all the time. Since we eat a variety of foods, he is offered a variety of foods and does have his favorites, but since I'm cooking for seven people, he doesn't always get his favorites. 
If you think about it, their stomachs are small and they need to eat a lot of small meals and snacks throughout the day. As long as you are offering him mostly nutritious foods, and keeping the sugary junk food to a minimum, I'm sure he is getting enough to eat. Try writing down everything he eats during he course of the day to see just how much he is eating - you may be surprised.
As far as the vitamins go, if you really want him to take one, try a different brand or get the ones in the shape of his favorite character.
WELCOME to Momsview! 
I've never heard of Ellyn Satter either. ??
From a BTDT point of view... I found that my kids ate much better when I stopped pushing the issue and making such a big deal about it. Offer healthy meals and snacks and they will eat when they're hungry. Don't focus on what they eat daily. Look at their consumption over several days at a time. My DD will go for a long time seemingly just nibbling here and there. Then she will eat like a horse for a day or two. LOL!
I see nothing wrong with offering frequent healthy snacks and drinks of milk.
What does your pediatrician say? Is he/she concerned about your DS?
I was worried about my two year old daughter drinking too much milk, as well. I feel much better after our last visit to her pediatrician. She suggested a simple blood test (not painful, from her finger...no tears) and the nurse was able to tell us minutes later that she is fine! No iron deficiency.
So I've relaxed about her eating, and like Trina mentioned, it has been better because I am not stressed about what she is consuming. She eats a little bits of what we do as a family at each meal. I also put out nutritious snacks during the day.
Like you, if she asks for a snack and dinner is not far off, I give her a snack (or milk). It may mean she eats a bit less at dinner time, but I feel at the end of the day she has consumed what she needed to be healthy and feel good.
I don't see any problem with your ds having snacks right before meals as long as you are making sure that what he is snacking on is as healthy as what he would be having for dinner. Offer him strips of chicken, cubes of cheese, slices of fruit or veggies, yogurt, whole wheat bread, you got the idea. Kids need to eat so often that only expecting them to eat when we do is unfair. I have heard of Sattler and think that the basics of her ideas are good and healthy compared with how many children eat now. I don't allow my kids milk during snacktimes most of the time. They get milk with every meal and usually cheese or yogurt so I know they are getting enough calcium. I think that we have to let our kids control how much they eat and (most of the time) when they eat. I am in charge of making sure that what they eat is providing the best nutrition for their growing bodies. JMO, as always!
I used these vitamins when dd was little. I couldn't get her to take any of them. But these have a very citrusy flavor and I would put them in her apple juice and she didn't have a clue. After awhile she wouldn't drink her juice unless the vitamins were in it.
http://www.tropicalnutrition.com/site/page/pg420-de281-pr921.html
But frankly, until I got my child to eating, I wouldn't care what she ate or when she ate it as long as she got something in her. Unless it was pure sugar. That wouldn't happen. But there have been times when she's had a stomach virus and the only thing she'd eat was jello and soda. I really didn't care and it didn't last long until she got back to eating better.
Your question was "what does your toddler eat?
Answer: I put meals on her plater and she eats at least some portion of it. I do not make special meals for her or the boys when they were little.
I do keep prepackaged stuff around the house for difficult times when nothing will do but those are few. By prepackaged I mean single serving Goldfish, pudding, oranges, Ritz bits, peanut butter crackers, fruit chews, etc. She just likes to have own thing sometimes.
To answer some of you, Ellyn Satter is the author of "How to get your kid to eat...but not too much" also "Child of MIne-feeding with love and good sense" and some others as well I think. She coined the phrase, "Division of Responsibility"
the parent is responsible for what and when, the child is responsible for how much.
My girlfriend lent me this book (Child of Mine) and it makes alot of sense but I wish I'd read it a couple of years ago, you know, I just felt like I was doing everything wrong. But there are some things in her book that I don't agree with, like the dessert thing.
Anyway, thanks Sunny for the vitamin suggestion. Maybe there is a Wiggles vitamin.
I bet he would eat chopped liver if it looked like Greg,Murray,Anthony or Jeff.
I'm going to try offering more pieces of chicken, strips of vegtetables-thanks Tink.
He ate walnuts today.And he seems to like coconut milk. He heard the word milk so he wanted to try it, he is so funny.
My DD is a picky eater (almost 3) and never seems to be eating enough, or a variety. She dislikes meat, will pick around it every time. I bought the kids special straw sippy cups to put water in because I didn't feel like they were getting enough. The special cups made them more interested in drinking water, they refused before that. My DS eats well, but like I said, DD is PICKY! She has *always* had dark circles under her eyes, and they get worse when she is dehydrated. Maybe what you are assuming is lack of iron is really dehydration. Try the gummy vitamins if he doesn't like regular chewables. I'm still trying to figure out ways to sneak a better diet in, but in the meantime I just offer as much healthy food as possible, and lots of water.
I keep hearing about these gummy vits.I'm going to eat them all up if I get them, they sound delicious !(pregnant mom talking)
Palmbchprincess,is your daughter very fair? Freedom has always had the dark circles too and he is pale so it really shows up. DH has them too so it might just be his look, although DH is a carb-oholic vegetarian so maybe he's iron deficient.I don't know.
We do drink alot of water.I started him drinking out of the sports bottles before he was one and we all drink water all the time, so I don't think it's dehydration in his case.
She is very fair, and the docs said the dark circles also indicate thin skin under her eyes. I've talked to them a couple times about it, and they have never been concerned, so I guess she's doing fine. BTW, from a non-preggo gummy bear lover, I don't buy the gummy vites because I'd eat them all up too!
A word of caution - We tried the gummy vitamins a year or two ago and DD choked on one. (She's currently 6.5 yrs..) They are chewy and slippery. She's actually scared of them now. We threw away the bottle and haven't bought them since.
Clarabel, my mommy hackles went up when I read your son has eaten walnuts, but only because both my kids have severe nut allergies. Because this is a sensitive issue to my family I'm posting this helpful and informative article about food allergies and symptoms of anaphylaxis.
Food Allergies
Oh, no. I was excited about the gummy bears. Now I'm going to wait until he's 16.
I'm going to ask the ped about the dark circles, I bet it's the same thing.
Now about the allergies.That article said:
Foods to avoid until your infant is at least a year old include cow's milk and other dairy products, citrus fruits and juices, and wheat. Also, avoid giving eggs until age two, and peanuts (as smooth peanut butter) and shellfish until your child is at least three years old. Whole peanuts and tree nuts should be avoided until your child is four because of the choke hazard.
I have never heard to wait that long on the nuts.
Freedom has been eating peanut butter and almond butter since he was one . And walnuts or pecans baked into cookies since about 14 months. He has never had a problem yet.I also have always heard that after a year, eggs should be fine. I wouldn't give a whole nut, cherry tomato or grape or anything he might swallow, and when he had a plain walnut the other day , it was small pieces and I watched him like a hawk.
Maybe I should start another thread about this .
I always heard that allergies can be caused by particles of food passing through the immature digestive system of children(under a year) and the body attacks the particle and creates antibodies to destroy it and therefore will always see it as a threat.
If I can find an article that says this I'll post it.
My kids have also been eating PB since age 1. They have also been eating eggs since age 1, though I was told it was fine as long as they had already gotten their MMR shot. They had shrimp for the first time last week, but they are pretty close to 3. I'm pretty lax about the allergies, though I probably shouldn't be.
This is a pretty good article about food allergies.
http://www.allaboutmoms.com/feeding2.html
A good rule of thumb is to always gage waht yhey have eaten over the course of a week- not a single day. Keeping a log is a great idea! As long as the snacks/meals are healthy- I would not worry too much! try some iron rich foods- spinach etc if you are concerned about deficiency!
Here's my family's experience.
Desert is usually an after supper thing but's thats just convienience, not a rule. If the kids want an ice cream cone while waiting for supper or a slice of chocolate cake before they eat the main meal, they get it. The result is that sometimes they eat dessert before the meal but not usually and when they do it rarely means they don't eat supper. It's meant that 'junk food' holds equal footing with healthy stuff yes, but that means cut up carrots and dip are often a more coveted treat then a chocolate bar. Nobody believes that, not even me as I watch them, but it's true.
As for the sugar, I've noticed similar reactions in my kids at times but the best response I've come up with is keep candy availible at all times. We have year old candy hanging around now. Granted, when something new comes in it gets devoured but it usually only takes a week or two of a ready supply for the snacking to stop and the candy to lose its attraction. My son (3)was a chocolate addict (or so I thought) for awhile. I simply kept it availible and within a couple of months it was nothing special. He gave most of his chocolate to me this Easter.
You've noticed a reaction in your son to sugar but have you asked him about it? Maybe he doesn't feel great after eating it. If he says he has noticed something mention that you heard it affected some people that way and see if he'd like to find some alternative snacks next time you grow grocery shopping. My daughter (5 at the time) had one awful night where she had a couple of glasses of Pepsi and could not get to sleep though she desperately wanted to. We talked about it the next day and I explained about caffiene. She decided that she still liked Pepsi wouldn't drink it after dark. She's since realized sugary stuff does nothing for her hunger and will turn it down in favour of something healthier if it's offered when she's hungry. But it's always her choice. Granted, they don't always make the choices I'd prefer, but they have control over their food choices in a way I didn't as a kid and still don't. Treats and junk food were controlled when I was young and I still have trouble just letting go of the guilt and cravings that come with that. It's so weird not to se my kids covet that stuff like I did.
I should say, when I mention that we have candy and junk food around the house we also have a full and varied fruit bowl, cheese and lots of more healthy snacks availible as well. They've got a lot to choose from and we talk about what they eat and how it makes them feel. I could restrict them now but I don't think that will give them the tools they need to make good food choices when they're older.
Anyhow, favourite snacks for my son in this candy rich house? 3) chocolate or chedder cheese, 2) apples and 1) cottage cheese
My daughter 3) preserved peaches, 2) sour cream and onion chips or granny smith apples and 1) carrot sticks.
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