Minimal Daily Diet for Toddlers

In the book Touchpoints, Dr. Brazelton wrote a minimal daily diet for toddlers. During toddlerhood, many toddlers will be very finicky when it comes to food. One day they may like apple and the next day refuse to eat it. I know this is true of my son. He was loving oatmeal and then one day out of the blue he just decided that he was not longer going to eat oatmeal. This is frustrating for moms and dads when they feel like they are running out of options to feed their toddler. Parents might also worry that they are not getting their child to eat enough nutritious food. This minimal daily diet is what toddlers should at least eat if they refuse everything else. This has been my saving grace on days when my son hardly eats anything and refuses almost everything.

The minimal daily diet for toddlers includes:

1. One pint of milk (sixteen ounces) or its equivalent in cheese, yogurt, or ice cream

2. Two ounces of iron-containing protein (meat or eggs), or cereals fortified with iron

3. One ounce of orange juice or fresh fruit

4. One multivitamin, which I use to cover for uneaten vegetables

This does not mean we should allow our children to be picky eaters! I first offer the food my son hates the most. I expect him to take at least one bite of it. I keep offering him the food he least likes until he stops eating it. Then, I move on to a food that he will eat without complaint (usually). I try to hide the food he likes, keeping it out of sight. If my son can see the food that he likes while I am offering him the food he does not like, he will stop eating the least desirable food. I also offer him the food he refused to eat at snack time or when he signs that he is hungry to me. He will usually eat the less desirable food if he is plenty hungry. Even still, I find that I have problems getting him to eat. On those days, I make sure we have met the minimal daily diet for toddlers.

Resource: Touchpoints p. 141

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Whole Milk at One Year Old

My son will be almost one in about two weeks. I decided that we would start the switch to whole milk from formula before he turned one. He is currently getting 4 bottles a day of formula. I plan on switching one bottle with a straw nuby cup every week. So far, this switch has been great and painless. Here are some suggestions to make the transition to whole milk easier.

Suggestion #1: Introduce a sippy cup or straw cup prior to their first birthday. I tried to put formula in a straw cup, but he would not take it. I think at that point, my son had associated formula with bottle. I gave up and just started to offer him water in his sippy cup. He was drinking 5-10oz of water from a straw cup. I gave him a take-n-toss straw cup to learn from. It is not spill proof so it make sipping from the cup easier. I also offered my son water from a nuby straw cup, but it is spill proof. I took a knife and enlarged the opening making the nuby no longer spill proof and easier to drink from. My son’s pediatrician recommended that I do this.

Suggestion #2: Do not give juice until your child is successfully drinking whole milk from a sippy or straw cup. You don’t want your child to associate that juice is the only things that comes out of the sippy cup. My pediatrician and trusted friends also confirmed this for me. I was told it is okay to put water in the sippy cup, just not juice. I stopped offering my son juice and I think that has really helped us with the transition from bottle to sippy with milk in it.

Suggestion #3: Gradually introduce whole milk. Don’t just stop giving breast milk or formula one day. Your child’s digestive system needs time to get use to drinking whole milk. You can do what I am doing and replace one bottle or sippy with whole milk a week until you are totally on whole milk. Or you could give your child a mixture of whole milk and formula starting with 25% whole milk and 75% formula. Then slowly increase the amount of whole milk and decrease the amount of formula every few days.

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Is My Baby & Toddler Eating Enough?

My son is 10.5 months old. Recently he has started refusing to eat baby food that is pureed or mashed. He will only eat a small amount. He seems more interested in eating table food or finger foods. So I have started to give him some more tables foods. However, it seems he is eating so much less than when he was eating baby purred food. I was concerned that he was not getting enough to eat.

I was recently reading though the book Super Baby Food and the book states that at one year old your child’s appetite will decrease. The author writes, “Your toddler’s growth slows at about the time of her first birthday. Whereas she probably tripled her birth weight during her first year, she will gain only between 3 and 7 pounds during her second. The small weight gain during toddlerhood will produce changes in muscle mass and in shape of the body, making your toddler look more like a child than a baby (p.116).” I also found an article on the Internet that address the decrease in appetite babies experience near their first birthday. I think that if you are struggling with knowing if your son or daughter is eating enough, you should read this article- http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/pa/pa_bappetit_hhg.htm

I found a great website that discusses exactly how much a toddler should eat and the portion size. I found this website very helpful! http://www.wholesometoddlerfood.com/Toddlers.htm

The Finger Food that my son will currently eat:

Veggies: diced red pepper, sweet potato, yellow squash, carrot (with cinnamon sprinkled on it), zucchini

Dairy: diced cheese (all kinds)

Fruit: diced apple (baked), pear, banana, papaya

Grains: Gerber Puffs, Cheerios, pasta, rice balls (over cooked rice rolled into balls with fruit, veggies, or chicken in them)

Meat (Protein): diced chicken

Milk (Formula): 22-24 oz (4 servings a day)

**  I usually roll the fruit and some veggies in powered oatmeal to keep it from being to slippery for my son to pick up on his own

I plan on adding more more finger foods to my son’s menu choices, but for now the foods that I have listed are good stand bys that I know he will eat.

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