Monday, April 28, 2008
toddler meals
I know this seems to be a frequent subject, so sorry! What are your toddler's favorite meals? My daughter is semi-picky, and getting bored of my meals, so I need some new ideas. Also, have you found any ways to get non-veggie eaters to like them? I offer them all the time, but she isn't catching on. Thanks!
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My son loves pasta lately. We had fettucine last night and he devoured it. Which is great because he is a horrible eater. With vegetables it helps to cook them with salt and butter and the cook at the daycare I work at cooks them in chicken broth sometimes. Gives it more flavor.
I also like the gerber graduate meals. He is growing out of them now but he loves the soup one and turkey breast one. They are worth a try. I only used them on days when I felt like he was just not eating anything.
One more thing about vegetables is even though fresh vegetables are awesome andfrozen I just recently started to buy some canned ones and my son eats them way better. Just a thought.
My daughter is also picky but there are about four vegetables she will eat. Yippee! I called steamed broccoli, "trees", two weeks ago and then she wanted to try them. Actually it was quite amazing to me that she did eat them since she's so picky but I was pretty darn excited about it.
You can try pureeing vegetables (like in that book Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld) and mixing them in with a pasta sauce, mac and cheese, and lots of other things. Chantel gave me the idea to put like a jar of baby food vegetables (already pureed!) in mac and cheese. I did that once with squash and she ate it but I thought it smelled nasty! Whatever works though.
I make pasta for her a lot because I can count on it (I can also count on cheese and fruit). When I make it for her as well as my husband and I , I always use Barilla Plus to make it healthier. I like to put deli meat in quesadillas and grilled cheese sandwiches. She won't eat meat otherwise.
I think you're right to always offer. Don't give that up! I always still offer and it's worth it for that rare time when she'll actually eat it!
My pedi said I can give her half a Flinstone vitamin now. It guarantees she gets her daily nutrients and iron. She has a hard time understanding that she can only get one a day, but she gets over it! The chewy gummy ones don't have iron.
We don't really have any set meals, it varies from day to day and what we have on hand. We recently discovered that our son LOVES baked beans. I'm going to try refried beans soon...maybe a little baby sized burrito with cheese. He also loves any cut up fruit. I'm blessed to have a son who eats just about anything (I hope it lasts) so I don't have to fight him to eat veggies. He likes green beans, they're easy to hold. Basically, anything he can hold or feed himself he's willing to eat.
Cecelia loves baked beans also. That was one of her first meals. I feed C a lot of pasta and rice. She loves both, especially flavoured rice (ie- rice pilaf, herbed rice). She also loves fish... I don't know if that's normal for a one year old, but she'll eat a whole fish fillet on her own. I also make Shephard/Cottage pie for her and she loves it. Its ground up meat, veggies and a little bit of gravy topped with mashed potatoes. She thinks its wonderful and it covers most of the food groups.
my girl loves things like shepherd's pie as well! and it's great because it does cover all the groups, but she won't eat most other casseroles-I think the mixed textures can be hard.
she also loves tacos! really messy but she gets meat, tortilla, cheese and if I'm lucky some tomatoes and lettuce. she used to not eat the spaghetti sauce but now she will and that's helped because I can put carrots and mushrooms in it and get more veggies in that way-plus tons of tomatoes!
she likes"trees" as well and corn but not many other veggies.
This sounds totally crazy, but a friend mentioned that they'd had luck getting their kids to eat frozen vegetables (yes, as in still frozen). So, when my oldest started refusing veggies at around 18-20 months, I tried it, and it was a huge success! She would beg for them! It eventually faded away, and my second prefers normal, cooked veggies, but it's nice for me to have another idea in my back pocket. :)
My son loves fruit (you name it he will eat it, especially apples, pineapple, kiwi) and pasta. Sometimes I have a hard time getting him to eat grains - so in the mornings I give him cut up nutrigrain bars, or he will eat flavored instant oatmeal. He isn't that big a fan of meat, but will eat canned ham. So I make sure to get protein in with cheese and any kind of beans.
My son used to love veggies but hasn't as much lately. I agree with the comments earlier - add butter, salt, or some other flavoring. Also, since he wants to use a fork and spoon so bad if I put anything (veggie, quesadilla, whatever we are having for dinner) on a fork or spoon he wants to eat it. He will usually take 2 or 3 bites before deciding he doesn't like it, or that he likes it enough he doesn't want to wait for the utensil to get it in his mouth.
Otherwise, I just try really hard to give him whatever we are eating for dinner. I figure that way he won't get used to bland foods.
I guess I'm pretty lucky because my daughter still eats just about anything...but one thing I have noticed is that when I try to give her something new, she always refuses it for the first 2-3 meals that I try to give it to her. She'll only try eating it the 3rd or 4th (or 5th) time that she sees it. Then she loves it. I've seen that on a news show about picky eaters...that you shouldn't give up...just place a little bit of a new food in front of them consistently for many meals until they finally get accustomed to seeing it and decide to try it. This happened with spinach ravioli--she refused to eat it for three meals and then one day tried it..and now she eats more than my husband and me!
Her absolute favorite foods are cheese, quesadillas (I put black beans in them), spaghetti, veggies (she loves them frozen too), fruit of all kinds, and edamame (young soy beans). I love that she loves edamame b/c I get it at Costco in already cooked packages that I just have to microwave and it has LOTS of great protein for her. And she downs the stuff. :)
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