Toddler Meal Planning

When we first starting giving the boys baby food, planning seemed relatively simple.  But once they were capable of finger foods and started getting bigger and hungrier, I wanted to make sure they were eating the right things, the right amount of things, and a variety of things.  From BabyCenter.com I found the nutritional needs of 12-24 month olds, and wrote it out for myself.  Then I made a sample menu as a guideline to follow when deciding what and how much to give them at each meal.  (Like I said, it was a "guideline."  My kids often wanted to eat MORE than what's laid out below.  And if your child has allergies, or you're following a vegetarian diet, then obviously you'll need to do something different.)

I'll just read these books, while you get my food, mom!

12 – 24 Months Daily Needs:

-       2 cups/16 oz. dairy

-       3 oz. grains (1 oz. = 1 slice, ¼ cup pasta, 1/3 cup cold cereal)

-       1 cup fruit

-       1 cup vegetables

-       2 oz. protein (1oz. = I slice meat, ¼ cup beans, 1 egg)

Sample Day Menu:

Breakfast:

-       4 oz. milk and/or yogurt/cottage cheese

-       1 whole wheat waffle

-       1/2 cup diced fruit

Snack:

-       ¼ cup diced fruit

-       1 egg (scrambled or hard boiled and diced) or cheese

Lunch:

-       ½ cup diced veggies

-       1/3 cup baby rice cereal or oatmeal, or 1 slice toast

-       1 slice sandwich meat, or ¼ cup beans, or 1 oz. cooked meat

-       And/or cheese

-       4 oz. milk

Dinner:

-       ¼ cup diced fruit

-       ½ cup diced veggies

-       ¼ cup pasta, or 1 slice toast

-       4 oz. milk

Bedtime:

-       4 oz milk

I don't wanna read.  She still hasn't figured out what to feed me, so I'm gonna eat my fist.

But even with this, sometimes I felt overwhelmed with two fussy little ones before meal times and could barely think of what to throw together.  So I started using this chart to plan meals out for an entire week at a time.  (We had eventually had 2, rather than 1, snack a day.)   

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Breakfast:	Breakfast:	Breakfast:	Breakfast:	Breakfast:	Breakfast:	Breakfast:
Snack:	Snack:	Snack:	Snack:	Snack:	Snack:	Snack:
Lunch:	Lunch:	Lunch:	Lunch:	Lunch:	Lunch:	Lunch:
Snack:	Snack:	Snack:	Snack:	Snack:	Snack:	Snack:
Dinner:	Dinner:	Dinner:	Dinner:	Dinner:	Dinner:	Dinner:

Feel free to copy, paste, and print the chart for your own use!  (Couldn't figure out how to attach the actual Word document to this blog.)

Hmmm...well HE seems to like the carrots...