My 15 month old is a good eater, but i'm running out of ideas of what to feed him. Lunch tends to be the hardest, he eats a lot of the gerber meals, but I think he's bored with them. Breakfast he'll eat a banana, toast, waffle, fruit, sometimes an egg.
I need ideas on what else to feed him, help!!!
Give him small cut up pieces of whatever you are eating. He'll get a lot more variety that way. My son was around 10 months when we started doing that. A lot cheaper and easier. But I always kept cooked pasta that he could eat with his fingers in the fridge in case he totally didn't like what I was eating. Good luck.
Do what I did not - but wish I had!! Start him now on things like avacado, hummus, various cheeses, hardboiled eggs, etc. I thought since my boys were so young, that we should go with just the basics - and lets face it, what I was familiar with.
They're now 7 1/2 and one has a great appetite and will try most new things willingly. The other is not so open. When they were around 2-4 years old, they both would eat whatever I gave them, but when they turned 4, I went back to work so we started using more basic foods and even though we were only so creative with their foods, this time frame changed things.
Either way, I do wish I had started with a wider variety of foods than I did at an early age.
At that age, my son was eating whatever the rest of us were eating.
We do mostly leftovers from the night before for lunch or sandwiches. I think lunchtime is really hard for anyone to come up with meals.
My two kids tend to like different things (of course) but one thing the entire family loves is spaghetti. To make it easier for him to eat just use elbow mac instead of spag noodles.
To make my spaghetti I start browning the meat.
Add chopped bell peppers and onion and after the meat is almost done then add minced garlic
After meat is cooked add one can of tomato sauce, 1/2 can or less of water, half can of mild rotel or generic tomatoes and diced green chilis
Add a little mustard , salt and pepper and brown sugar.
Put it on to simmer and then start your noodles
30 min later mix the noodles with your sauce and you are good to go!
Divided plates make mealtime more fun. I love thinking of different things to fill each pocket with.
If he enjoys the variety of meals at dinner time--you could try giving him leftovers of that the next day? This is pretty customary at my house--i'm a SAHM and a daycare provider. I make alot of dinner--and keep it for daycare lunch so my daughter eats it twice-- sometimes something she would not eat the night before she'll try the next day?
by the time my boys were 12 months old, they began to eat the very same things that I made for myself and my husband for dinner. That included: broccoli, chicken and other meats (I shredded it), steamed carrots, hamburger, cheese sticks (pulled lengthwise so they can chew off bite size pieces without fear of choking on round pieces), black beans, lentils, soup (I gave it to them without broth and broke up a piece of bread to soak up extra juice), spaghetti (they both loved pasta of any sort), potatoes, oatmeal, pizza etc etc etc! At that young age they were willing to try any spice combination, so they're used to sauteed onions, garlic, herbs, pepper, etc. Just NO SALT for kiddos. I hope you get the idea. They ate everything that I did. I just made sure that my veggies were a little softer than I'd normally make them, and I cut the meat in bittie pieces so they could handle it. I never make separate meals for them (they are now 2.5 and 14 months old)
My 20 month old has been eating whatever we're eating since about 6 months. So, my advice is to feed him whatever you're having.
breakfast have you tried french toast or muffins. what do you eat for lunch...just make alittle extra for him. Sandwiches with deli meats or grilled cheese if you have cookie cutters i use those to make shapes with the bread. U can even ditch the bread and just roll up the meat and cheese and give crackers. pasta like stuffed shells, mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, pizza.
What do you eat? If your toddler has teeth then chop up whatever your eating into small bites (as long as it's healthy). My 8 month old, although eating stage 3 Gerber foods) eats almost everything we do and LOVES it.
cut up cheese, cut up grapes small, cut up watermelon, cut up pieces of ham or chicken, try noodles or pasta, yogurt and pieces of strawberries, mac and cheese, cut up a slice of pizza, pieces of tomatoes or cucumbers (my daughter loved this) crackers with peanut butter and jelly.. good luck
N.,
Here are my favorite websites for healthy recipes
www.annabelkarmel.com --- Anabelle also has great cooking books
www.weelicious.com
They have many easy and quick recipes. If you don't have time to cook, you can even do it in large and freeze them for a week or so.
I usually cook for my son about 3 different kinds and freeze them for a week. In between for a change, I make him fresh mac and cheese or something easy like spinach alfredo, etc.
check them out, you would love them.
They go thru these little phases. Recycle the same food at a later time. My son would not eat banana or oatmeal or anything sweet (fruits, etc) but he would eat salty (cheese, crackers, etc). After a couple weeks, I introduced banana again, and that's all he wanted. Don't give up, try various foods, and introduce it again later.
My 17 month old loves lunch.He did get real tired of the Gerber meals though. I usually make him macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese, hotdogs, cubed meat with cheese and crackers, cantalope, leftovers from dinner, chicken nuggets from the freezer section, and whatever else I can think of. Just try different things and see what he likes. Good Luck
