Feeding 1 Yr Old on Road Trip

Since you are staying at hotels along the way, you could buy a small travel hot plate and small pot. Boil pasta, veggies, etc. Wouldn't take up much room in your car and definitely healthier than restaurant foods.

This one is compact, cheap and has good reviews -

http://www.amazon.com/Proctor-Silex-34101-Proctor-Silex-B...

She can eat what you eat most of the time. Ask the wait person for an extra plate. Also even if she doesnt like the Gerber meals, when she is hungry she will eat them. So bring some along for emergencies. But 1 year olds dont eat that much anyway so I wouldnt worry. In i week she wont starve.

There are a lot of very good suggestions here. One other thing you can do is make up a few meals ahead of time. Freeze them and pack them in a small cooler. You should have no problem getting ice for the cooler at any hotel. Then if you go to a restaurant that doesn't have something for your daughter you can just take out one of your meals and feed her. If you pack the food in little plastic baggies you just have to run it under hot water to defrost and heat up. Most rest stops on the road also have hot running water to defrost and heat the food.

I suggest you take a few extra baggies along in case you get food at a restaurant along the way and find something she likes. You can pack up any left overs for a meal later.

Let her eat off of your plate. For one week I would not be too concerned ab out "restaurant"
food. Breakfast should be pretty easy, oatmeal, french toast, eggs. She will be fine. Don't
worry about it. Just enjoy.

Hi G.,
At a year, she should be eating 3 meals a day. Can you stay in hotels that are the Suites kind so that you'll have a kitchen and can make or at least store and heat her food? I would say that since she won't eat a lot, in restaurants, order a meal that she can eat for yourself, same for hubby if married, and feed her from your plates. If they have any side dishes that you can order cheaply like fruit, pasta, veggies, order those for her.
Good luck

We have a number of roadtrips with our 2 young children. Honestly, there are times when they eat the "unhealthy" kids meals, chicken fingers, fries, grilled cheese, mac'n'cheese, pizza, pasta, but honestly, these are not all that unhealthy for a toddler, eaten in moderation, alongh with other things. We also tried to get hotels that had breakfast buffets... you can tend to get a variety of kid friendly healthy foods, ie. cereal, fruit, scrambled eggs, french toast etc. My kids were always good breakfast eaters, so I would get one healthy meal in at the beginning of the day. Also, bring a cooler with easy finger foods to travel with... my kids always like cheese sticks, yogurt, applesauce, cereal bars (get a hotel room that has a mini fridge).... make a toddler friendly snack mix with cheerios, gerber puffs and the gerber freeze dried fruits... If your daughter is a year old, she is probably ready for more finger foods and that would be easier to travel with than baby food. Banana's are also easy to travel with and you can feed it to her easily while in the car if you sit next to her.... Just some ideas!! Good Luck

Bring fresh fruits, small snacks like crackers, and order a side dish she can eat, like some veggies you can cut up small, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc. She's absolutely big enough for table foods, so she can eat whatever you eat, cut into small bits. I'm sure she will very much enjoy eating adult foods, so relax and pack some foods she likes, like fruits, veggies, etc that can be cut up small, and order foods in restaurants she can eat too and that can be cut up small like chicken, even steak can be cut up into bits for her.

Earth's Best is a healthy organic choice for baby food.
You could also keep a cooler with your own jar of unsweetened organic applesauce, Yo Baby Plain Yogurt and Tofu.
If you are up for making your own food, Beaba's Baby Food Maker is very portable. You could very easily make food the night before in the hotel and that could take care of a couple days worth of meals. I've bought the really small tupperware to hold the food.
Have fun! Safe driving!

We like to eat out/order in some, and we've figured out some good staples for our now-18 month old. Mexican - Get guacomole, and have them cut up a bunch of avacodo separately. Cheese quesedilla. lentil soup
Italian - pasta & sauce, pasta fajoule(sic?) soup, and believe it or not - eggplant rollatini
Chinese - veggie lo mein w/chicken, hold the sauce
For breakfast - toast or bagel and cream cheese, fruit , blintz

How unhealthy the restaurant food is depends on the restaurant. If you order healthy food for you, you can share a bit with her. And remember, kids can handle more fat than adults would consider healthy, at least on occasion.

We do what many other poster's recommend, order something that we can share with her. Also, bringing a cooler full of "standards" is a great idea. finally, I got those "baby food cubes" and found that if I started out with a frozen one in the morning, by the afternoon it was perfectly just-defrosted. Apple sauce and cereal was a good option for that.

We drove 2400 miles and back with our 3-year old, who is a picky eater, and what worked for us was to take a big Coleman cooler (and one of those foldable luggage carts to get the cooler from the car to the hotel room and back every night). I prepared food ahead of time (rice, ground beef) and brought things like frozen broccoli, bread, crackers, and cookies, and kept the cooler packed with lots of ice. We used a thermometer to reassure us that the cooler was cold enough. It worked out even during very hot summer days as long as we added ice a couple times each day. (I used zip-lock bags around the food to keep things from getting soaked.)

Another thing that worked for us was to stop at buffet restaurants (we like Golden Corral), so that we could put a variety of foods on our son's plate, and see what he was in the mood for. That way, we could go back for more of what he was eating, and not waste a huge serving of something that he didn't have an interest in... At other restaurants we just offered him things off of our plates.

He used to eat "baby food" from the jars, and it made traveling so much easier, but he just doesn't like the taste of it anymore.

Another trick we've found helpful is to stay at places with a kitchenette (stove-top and microwave), and bring a few dishes for cooking. We buy things from the local grocery store, and cook a few days worth of food on the road as we go.

Traveling with a toddler turned out to be easier than I had expected! Our son did need time each day to run around, though, and it was usually when we wanted to be sleeping or driving :( One-year olds might need to get out of their car seats pretty often.

I hope this helps!

Have you tried the Earths Best kind?

I found the texture to be thicker and it was the only kind my DS would eat (although the baby food phase didn't last long in our house at all).

You can always feed her off your plate. Plain grilled chicken, steamed veggies, things like that. Plus, some a couple of french fries won't do irreperable harm. :)

Have a fun trip.

Why can't she eat what you're eating?

There's no need to purchase a separate meal for a child when they're going to consume so little - even at 3.5 years and 22 months, our kids eat off our plates most of the time. As long as you're eating something relatively healthy, you should be fine.

We've traveled a lot with our kids right around that age. If you can, I'd recommend taking a cooler with milk, string cheese, perhaps yogurt, fresh fruit, etc. Most hotels, even those with "free" breakfast bars will have fresh fruit, yogurt, oatmeal, etc on their buffets. We've also asked the hotel for a refrigerator in the room (if not a standard amenity) and found a convenience store to get some items to have on hand.

Good luck!

It says that you're taking a Road trip. Is it possible for you to make and freeze her foods, then just pack them in a cooler? Just an idea.

I didn't read all the responses, but agree that she can eat most of what you'll be eating. Or, as someone mentioned, order off the menu, but modified--most places are happy to do this for a baby. For example, I have asked if they have applesauce. Of course it won't likely be organic, or unsweetened, like I would buy, but it's okay in a pinch. When I traveled with my son, I brought cheerios along, and also fruit, like bananas. That pretty much covered breakfast (also brought his baby cereal and gerber organic fruit to mix in). If you stay somewhere that has a mini fridge, you can feed these types of things pretty easily. Good luck.

We did a 2 week road trip last summer when my youngest was just a year old , she would eat jars of baby food , so I gave ger one of those and some fruit after wards like a banana or some strawberries , we didn't eat out every night as we were on a budget and moving around alot (west coats trip so doing canyons etc) , when we did eat out I made sure someone had a pasta dish and asked for an extra plate so I could give her some and also ordered a sized of veggies , most places bring out bread beforehand aswell so that was also good as she could have some bread. If you have room I would say to get a cool box and keep in the back of the car , you can keep yogurts and cheese and little snacks inside for her.

Order something for you that you can share with her. I traveled with a 1 year old from Denver to Fort wayne, Indiana, and it was no big. I had snacks in the car, and milk and water in a cooler.