Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Feeding My Toddler Monster

Okay, Mamas and Papas, I want to know, what do your little ones eat?
Today Hendrix had vegetarian quinoa stuffed peppers for dinner and baked sweet potato, black beans, and couscous for lunch. Snack was an apple and breakfast was mango and cereal.

On any given day what do your kid's eat?

In our house we try to offer our babes as much variety as possible. Henry will eat just about anything (except meat, we haven't gone there yet) and of course, junk food (duh).
His favs include
Apples
Bananas
Sweet Potato
Corn on the cob
Peanut Butter. Lots and lots of peanut butter.
Veggie tacos
Eggplant parm
Whole Food's garden veggie lasagna (this is damn good)
Chipotle lime tortilla crusted talapia
Scrambled eggs smothered in salsa and guacamole
Thai inspired rice stir fry with broccoli, baby corn, and peas...he actually liked this so much he kissed the broccoli. no joke.
Grillos pickles and Grillos pickled carrots
Bagels with veggie cream cheese
Veggie chix nuggets with dipping sauces like chipotle mayo and blue cheese
THESE delish broccoli cheese nuggets
THIS Mango pouch
and his favorite...PIZZA. Pretty much any kind of pizza with veggies he will eat.

For the most part we just give him whatever we are having. Spicy food do not bother him, in fact, its usually the opposite. He does have some issues with texture so, for some meals I have to feed it to him or put it on his fork/spoon for him since he hates touching most foods.

He dislikes
Bland foods such as plain pasta, plain eggs, basically anything plain
He doesn't love pear or hummus but sometimes will eat both.

This may sounds dorky but one of my fav things about being a Mama is cooking and feeding Hendrix healthy and tasty meals. I love that he is adventurous. I truly believe you can create a "picky" eater by only giving them the American stand kids food.

We do however, have a picky eater in our house. My step son is pretty picky although he is starting to get a bit more adventurous and I think that may come with his age (he is 9). He eats completely opposite Henry but we try not to push new foods on him, only offer. We have a rule that he does have to try new stuff ( a bite or 2) but if he doesn't like it, he doesn't have to eat it. End of story. Its not worth fighting over.

Oddly enough, when C was younger he would eat a LOT more. He ate fish, sushi, burritos, ect. ect. that he now will not touch. Anyone ever have a child get picker as he got older? Again, we don't push the issue but I do love it when he discovers something new and yummy to eat.

A little tip for those of you with picky eaters: When C was younger we had him make a list of foods he would be willing to eat and if the meal is on that list then he does have to eat it. We gave the list categories such as breakfast, lunch, dinner, fruit, veggies, and snacks and each list had a minimum of items on it. For example, the fruit list had to have 5 different fruits and the dinner had to have 15. He picked everything on the list with no help from us. This made life a lot easier. Its hard to explain to really young children that "I don't like" and I don't feel like" are two different things. This helped put to rest evening squabbles where he was more in the mood for mac n cheese versus a hot dog when hot dogs were already on the table, ya know? We no longer use this technique but it worked great for everyone when he was a tiny guy.

I also can NOT wait to pack Henry's lunches for school (when he someday goes). I used to have a ball packing C's lunches when he was with us. I would scour the internet for fun new lunch box foods. A fav is the vegan lunchbox. We used to have little bento boxes for C and Michael and I would get really creative with his lunches. Now, he is older and usually prefers to buy his lunch.

I would love to hear what you feed or don't feed your babes. Send recipes and suggestions my way!

Someone needs to do a link up for toddler/baby food recipes, no?



**UPDATE: C has decided he wants us to start packing his lunch again. saweeeet**

10 comments:

  1. Sebastian eats just about everything that we eat, too. Although, I'm a horrible cook (even when I follow a recipe it usually tastes like crap & we throw it out) so there are really only a few things that I cook over & over again. He recently got it in his head that he doesn't like veggies so now I'm trying to get creative and hide them in food. He has also decided that he wants "dip sauce" with everything he eats - preferably sweet & sour sauce. His favorites right now are beans (especially black), fruit, cheese, eggs, Morningstar Farms veggie sausage links and any kind of pasta.

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  2. great post! we lucked out with Sebastian as he has a father and Grandparents from Europe, so he is willing to try pretty much anything at this point haha but he still has his picky moment FOR SURE! One thing I like to make that is SUPER easy and the whole fam likes is Tex Mex Rice cakes! Here's the link... ENOJY!

    http://www.lilsugar.com/Tex-Mex-Rice-Cakes-11125640

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  3. That's so great that Hendrix eats such an array of foods. Q used to be like that until he turned about 20 months.

    While I try to feed Q a healthy range of foods, unfortunately his grandparents (my in laws and my dad) are his main caregivers while I'm working out of the home and they insist on spoiling him with treats (even though I've expressed my concern). Now he has such a sweet tooth, so I try to give him fruit instead of cookies, for example. But he does like rainbow pasta (made from veggies), hummus (especially Trader Joe's tomato basil flavor) on wheat toast, cheese, and this Thai noodle salad I make. I should post the Thai noodle salad recipe, although it's not super healthy in its original recipe. I do try to add things like shredded carrots and diced baked tofu to make it healthier.

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  4. Sounds like Hendrix loves quite the array of foods, that's great! Not to mention they all are so healthy!!

    My son C is such a picky eater that he makes me want to pull my hair out, haha. Now that he has started eating 'adult' foods he doesn't like the blandness of his baby foods. He loves cheese (any cheese), fruits (haven't found any he doesn't like), fresh vegetables, breads, spaghetti (very lightly sauced), lunch meats, crackers, macaroni and cheese, hard boiled eggs (not scrambled eggs, I can't figure out why haha), pastas, and most soups. He gets really fussy if he has had enough of one type of food or if one tastes better than the other.

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  5. Jack is going through that "limited food" stage. He used to be such a great eater, would try everything and lick the plate clean. Now all he generally wants to eat is carrots, apples, bananas, Annie's Mac N' Cheese, pasta (he's a carb fiend like his mom), sandwiches, etc.

    I hope he opens back up again to the world of food. I think it's a phase, but I miss the days when he wasn't so reserved.

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  6. Since you will get to pack lunches way before I will (I also can't wait!) I will share my absolute favorite site with you: http://weelicious.com/ She's got a button in the top leftish corner called school lunches where she takes a picture EVERY DAY of what she packs for her kids. Some of the best looking most creative things I've ever seen, and this is coming from a bona fide food snob. Also... those Tex Mex Rice cakes @lilsugar look like they could be a direct copy from her site, not positive but she does have them on there too.

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  7. i wish i had the skill/energy/confidence to actually prepare more meals! you've inspired me for sure.

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  8. I love that you're feeding your little one such a diverse diet. I tried to make sure I did the same with my little girl. So many children are such picky eaters these days. I think its because their parents cater too much to giving the child exactly what it wants.
    Studies have shown that it some times takes several several tries with new foods before the child likes and accepts it.
    Good for you :)

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  9. oh dear. i should make a post about my son's eating! he's such a picky eater, and believe me i love making my son meals that i think are good and healthy for him, but he fancies spam :( really it gets frustrating at times trying to feed your child new types of food, but for the most part my son is at least willing to try it once which is not bad.

    for the most part my mother loves feeding my son junk, lol

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  10. I love that you do this! I want my my niece and nephew to eat healthier meals. Hopefully I can convince them to actually try the food first.
    As for my future unborn children, I will definitely be feeding them meals similar to the ones you give Hendrix. Thanks for sharing!

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