Meals for Toddlers–How Can I Mix It Up?

When you think about moving beyond bottles and feeding your baby real foods, it sounds like so much fun. If you’re anything like me you raced to the grocery store to get baby food as soon as the pediatrician cleared your baby. I remember beign so excited to get her started on solid foods and trying out new textures–the whole thing was just another reassurance of how exciting it is to be a mommy.

Fast forward a few months and to the point where you are teetering between real foods, baby foods, and still a regular flow of bottles as well. Not only is it expensive and you feel as though you are the grocery store every day, but it begins to become difficult to come up with new options for feeding your little loved one.

I had to create some new mealtime options that offered a more comprehensive menu full of healthy options. Here are some ideas that I’ve come up with and borrowed from others, they seem to work quite well with our eleven month old.

*Instead of the same old oatmeal baby cereal with a fruit, instead offer cheerios and bananas for self feeding and yogurt that you can feed to them. This gives them all of their major food groups and offers a nice alternative to the same old breakfast.

*Sautee some ground turkey or ground beef and cook up some noodles. We use this as a base for soup for the adults and then offer the pieces of each to our daughter. She gobbles it up and she’s getting some great protein! I mix in some shredded cheese and some diced pears and she not only has every single food group but also has an interesting dinner that she will eat every last bite of.

*Lunch time is always the most difficult here. I have made chicken noodle soup and offered the noodles, chicken, and vegetables–minus the broth it’s easy to eat and offers a nutritious balance. The old standard of lunchmeat can be dressed up a bit–offering ham or turkey is great but if you offer some hummus, cheese, and perhaps peas you can really pack a nutritional punch.

*Rather than serving the same old scrambled eggs, we use an old Italian trick. As we use eggs and breadcrumbs to coat our chicken before baking it in the oven, this makes for a great meal as well. Take the leftover breadcrumbs and egg, mix together, and sautee as a patty on the stove. We all love this and the baby is carrying on the tradition!

*You can create your own meals for your toddler based on their favorites. If they love veggie burgers, cottage cheese, and peas then you can make this into an interesting array on their tray. They’re sure to eat it and you can pat yourself on the back as you’ve given a nutritious and delicious meal!