Sample Menus for Baby Transitioning to Table Food

Hi T.,
I'm a home child care provider and I have 4 children of my own. My youngest one is 16 months. The other ones I watch are between the ages of 13 months and 18 months. I'm just gonna list the things that I feed them and you can take what you want from it.

Breakfast:
Pancakes (I add in strawberries or blueberries myself and then cook them).
Biscuits w/butter
waffles w/butter
toast w/butter
some times we have sausage links or patties with the pancakes or biscuits.
Cereal (dry)
muffins (for snack or breakfast)
french toast sticks (3 a piece)
(all the rest of these they have one of each but they can have more if they want)
Lunch:
macaroni and cheese
hot dogs
we make home made lunchables (deli meat (3 slices each, cheese sticks or slices (1 each), a fruit and a vegetable(a 1/2 cup and crackers 3 each (ritz vegetable or regular)
fish sticks (4 each)
chicken nuggets (3 each)
popcorn shrimp (6 each)
grilled cheese the younger ones 1/2 and the 3 and 4 yr old a whole)
pizza (1 slice but they can have more if they want)
for lunch everyday we have a fruit and a vegetable, these may be corn, seet potatoes, green beans, carrots, peas, broccoli, cauliflour, celery w/cream cheese, etc.
For Fruit: we have grapes (cut in half), fruit cocktail, pears, peaches, mandarin oranges, bananas, pineapple, apples and canteloupe. It's about a 1/2 cup each.

For snacks we have goldfish, graham crackers, crackers, muffins, cereal bars, rice cakes, cheerios (yogurt burst), animal cookies and whatever else I might be able to think of.

These are what I could think of off the top of my head. Hope this helps, W.

6 moms found this helpful

I worked at a child development center with infants and toddlers. They ate what the older kids ate with a few exceptions (for snack they had something softer while the big kids had veggies and dip). I think as long as your son can chew/gum it, it would be ok. I would stay away from peanut butter, nuts, popcorn, and other small things that he may not be able to gum like raisins. Great job for wanting to feed him healthy food! You will be introducing him to healthy foods and this will hopefully get him on the right track for liking healthy foods in the future.

My sister in law feeds her 10 month old avocado's all the time. They have lot's of the GOOD fat, which is essential for little one's brain development. She just slices it open and scoops out the soft part.

Now is a great time for you to introduce a wide variety of healthy food to your son. This will help him (hopefully) not be a picky eater as he grows (although he is likely to go through one of those stages, no matter how hard you try). Little one's can usually eat almost everything you are eating, you may just want to steam his a little longer to make it softer. Lot's of different kinds of veggies will be very nutritious for him--sweet potato, beets, carrots, green beans, peas, broccoli, and try some new veggies at the store that you've never tried before and just experiment. As you probably know, each color of fruit and veggie has a different type of important nutrient in it according to what color it is. Giving your son (and yourself) a colorful diet will help to ensure he is getting a wide variety of vitamins and nutrients.

Two great articles are:
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/3/T030800.asp "Feeding Toddlers: 17 Tips for Pleasing the Picky Eater" It has good ideas for introducing new, healthy foods to toddlers.
and
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/4/T040200.asp "ABC's of Teaching Nutrition to Kids" I thought this one was especially good because it teaches parents how to make learning about healthy food fun for kids. It talks about how to educate kids so that they make healthy choices on their own later on and so they know which kinds of food are healthy and why. The only thing I didn't agree with was that he suggested rewards, but everything else was pretty good advice. The article talks about referring to "grow" foods for kids. Kids can learn which foods are "grow" foods and which are not.

Best wishes!

2 moms found this helpful

For the last 3 months i have been introducing everything to my son. He is now 12 months. I try to give him a little fruit, a little starch, veg, and meat at every meal. Ii load up his tray and he eats until he is done, or signs or screams if he wants more. I started by cooking up plain chicken breats and cutting it into small pieces. Then if I cooked something for us, I would pull a litle aside for him with a little less spice. It worked well.

1 mom found this helpful

You've gotten some good responses so far. My advice would just be to try not to over-think it. He can eat almost everything you can eat. Just make sure it's soft enough for him to gum, and in bite-sized pieces. I love to use frozen fruits and veggies. It's so easy to pour out a small amount for my daughter and heat it up for her meals and snacks. The general rule for portions is 1 of their fist sizes for snacks, and 3 of their fist sizes for meals. He'll let you know if he needs more. It's fantastic you're health conscious, but remember babies need lots of good fats to help with brain development. So, milk, avocado, foods cooked in olive oil, cheese, etc. should all be in his diet.

However, at 9 months (and until 1 year) his main source of nutrition still needs to be breastmilk or formula, it provides special nutrients that help with his development, this is what is highly recommended by the AAP. Tablefood should only be sampled as extras in his diet. Same goes for baby food. At that age, nurse or give a bottle as normal and then let him have a small snack twice a day of table food.

1 mom found this helpful

My daughter was very happy to have whatever we were eating. If I was making something spicy I would take some out before I added the spice, because sometimes it was just too strong for her. Some little ones love spicy things, though. She often preferred if I fed her from my plate and I would just give her as much as she was interested in. At that age children are great at self-regulating their nutritional needs as long as you are offering them healthy foods (ie. not buttery, salty, greasy, or sugary). If he doesn't want a food one day, don't push it. He may be tired of it or it just isn't what he needs that day. You can keep offering and he will either take it or not. One thing that I found with my daughter was that she was very wary of eating anything she had not seen me eat, so if she didn't want something, I would eat it and sometimes she would want to try it then. It will take a little while for you to find your rhythm with your little guy's eating habits, but you will...and then he'll change them ;) Good luck.

1 mom found this helpful

I have a 10 month old....I would just feed your little one whatever you eat...Just cut it up small enough and make sure it is soft enough for them to "gum" it, and if it is a tough meat, boil it a little bit to make is extra tender. I NEVER have bought baby food (and my oldest is 16) unless we are traveling crosscountry and I needed to feed baby quickly....Just whatever you eat is fine......If you like the variety of what YOU are eating, baby will enjoy it too....They just like to have food, feed themselves, and be near you so sit at the table next to them.

1 mom found this helpful

I find that my 10 month old daughter enjoys cooked veggies, like green beans. She does not like mashed potatoes, (for some reason they make her gag.)
I also strain all the broth out of chicken noodle soup and feed her the noodles that have soaked in the flavor. That may be her favorite so far!

Just some ideas...good luck!

1 mom found this helpful

I remember having the same feelings when my kids were in this stage. It is a challenge to feed them nutritional things and also keep a variety. Although, I'm not sure if they care about variety as much as we do. A web site that was helpful to me was wholesomebabyfoods.com. Here are some of the fruits, vegetables, and snacks that I tried or heard of others using:

avocado pieces
baked sweet potato pieces
beans (almost any kind, prepared so they are very tender)
whole green beans to munch on
cooked whole grain or vegetable flavor pastas (no sauce)
frozen peas and carrots

1 mom found this helpful

"Super Baby Food Book" was my bible when preparing food for my kiddos. I recommend it to all moms. It offers great advice for foods from infant through toddler.

F.

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my 18 month old son has been eating off my plate and my husbands plate since about 9 months. we dont usually give him his own plate we just feed him off our plate. as for portioning i dont worry about it. he tells me when hes done. he will start playing with it. like if i am feeding him mashed potatoes and i put a spoonful in his mouth if he wants it he will swallow if not he will spit some out and start playing with it. thats when i knwo hes done. he may fuss at first but as soon as i take it away and he realizes its gone he is fine. he thinks he wants more but i knwo the signs and i am mom so i konw better.
for breakfast i will give him oatmeal(he LOVES that) or pancakes, eggs, biscuits, bacon (i usually use turkey bacon has less fat and grease) when i dont feel like doing much i give him cherrios.
for lunch i give him a pbj cut up really small he gets messy but hey how else are they gonna learn plus baths are so much fun at that age. or i heat up left overs from diner the night before if i have any. and if worse comes to worse and i get lazy i give him the good old mac n cheese. i usually dont do hot dogs as he isnt a fan of them.
for dinner pretty much anything i am eating he is eating as well. i usually dont give him too much of the meat depending on what it is just cuz he doesnt have all his teeth yet but i usually will make a piece of chicken for him if we are having steak or something else as tough.
good luck. hope this helps

1 mom found this helpful

Hello,
Here is a website given to me from another mom. I hope it helps you out.
http://www.annabelkarmel.com/Default.aspx

Good Luck,
M. W.

1 mom found this helpful

I am recently going through the same thing, we started at 10 months old and he is now 11 months and eating everything in sight. For the most part he eats what we eat at dinner except meats, he did LOVE easter ham though. We do lots of fruit and pretty much any veggie we have, no corn yet but peas, green beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peaches, applesauce, cottage cheese, spaghetti, spaghetti O's... I try to keep some phase 3 baby food on hand if I dont hink he can handle what we are having. He also loves oatmeal, cherrios, yougurt, pudding, graham crackers sticks. Hope that gave you some ideas!!!!!

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