Choosing foods

Don’t regularly feed your toddler foods you know he doesn’t like. It’s good to try to introduce new foods to your child, but do so slowly. If your child doesn’t like something, wait awhile to try to feed it to him again.

Meal times are hard enough as it is without trying to force your toddler to eat something he doesn’t like.

From creativehomemaking.com.

Toddlers and eating fruit

Fruit kebabs are a lot more fun to eat than plain old fruit. Use flavored yogurt or low-fat chocolate pudding for dipping.

From itsamomsworld.com.

Common Allergies

If you or your spouse suffer from allergies (especially food allergies) or your other kids are allergic you should definitely avoid the most common food allergy foods, such as nuts, shell fish and eggs.

From: childfoodallergy.com.

Portion control tip

Offer smaller portions to start and let your child ask for more.

This lets the child feel as though he or she has more control rather than you trying to force him or her to eat more which generally causes conflict.

From: childcare.net.

First foods

Pediatricians often suggest you introduce your toddler to vegetables first.

Steamed green beans, diced carrots or beets, or chunky slices of squash are fun to eat, easy for him to pick up, and nutritious.

From: pantagraph.com.

Choices for mealtime

Children love choices so put out some vegetables, a few bite-size fruits pieces, a little cut-up meat, some chickpeas or a bean salad, and perhaps a bit of pasta with sauce for dinner.

Your toddler can choose what they want and no matter what it’ll be healthy.

From itsamomsworld.com.

Snacks and mealtimes

To make sure your toddler is hungry at meal time, don’t let him have too much to drink or have a snack too close to meal time.

It’s easy to lose track of time and not notice it’s almost time for dinner when they’re begging for a snack. If they’re hungry they’re much more likely to eat their dinner.

From creativehomemaking.com.

Mini-foods are a maxi-hit

Mini sized food is always a hit.

Look for mini-pitas that you can stuff – maybe one could be a chicken salad sandwich while the other is peanut butter and bananas.

A sandwich wrap cut into bite-size pieces can also make lean meat, cheese and some salsa look more appetizing.

From itsamomsworld.com.

Snack food tip

Divvy up boxes of snack foods like crackers, pretzels, and raisins into snack-size zippered bags and keep a picnic basket of bags on the counter so you can grab a few whenever we leave the house.

From huggieshappybaby.com.

Calories and toddlers

The average toddler needs about 1300 calories each day. Bigger kids will need a little more and smaller kids a little less.

A good rule of thumb is that your toddler will need 40 calories each day for each inch of his height.

From: keepkidshealthy.com