Time for another round of Munchkin Meals!
Alma will turn 15 months old on Saturday, so I’m rounding up 
This month has been more of the same. A few bites here, a few bites there. Some days she chugs 8-10 ounces of coconut/hemp milk, other days she barely drinks 3 oz. Still nursing, too.
cheese!
Recently, we decided that we were going to change things up a bit with how we offer food to Alma. Up until now, we have offered her balanced meals, composed of three or four foods. If she refuses more than one of the items we offered, or only nibbles, we will keep offering her (healthy) foods until she either eats more, or it’s very clear that she is just not interested in eating.
Now, I’m well aware that this a recipe for creating a picky eater, and that we are ‘training’ Alma to expect to be offered such an unnecessarily wide array of foods at every meal. But I have been so worried that either her weight gain would drop if we didn’t diligently try to offer her food until she ate, or that she would start waking up at night even more.
I’m not sure exactly what has changed for me. Maybe because she is sleeping through the night more often than not, I feel like her food intake wasn’t as big of a factor in that as I thought. Or maybe I’m just tired of making her so many different foods at each meal, with so much going to waste.
In any case, we’ve decided that we will offer her one meal at each sitting, still containing three or four foods, and she eats what she eats. She can have as much as she wants of any items offered, but we won’t give her something else if she doesn’t eat one, or more, of the foods we offer (even if it’s the “main” part of the meal).
We will continue to offer her meals and snacks on the same schedule as we do now, but we will control snack portions, so she is not spoiling her meals. Right now she eats breakfast, a morning snack (usually on the go), lunch after nap, an afternoon snack, and dinner. (I’m considering trying lunch before nap, and just having an afternoon snack after nap, but that’s another issue.)
So, here’s a look at what Alma ate today – the first day of our new routine!
Breakfast:
- almost whole container (6oz) blueberry coconut milk yogurt
- 2 slices tempeh bacon (cooked in a generous amount of olive oil)
- a few slivers of a ½ slice toast with vegan butter
- ¼ cup freeze-dried banana
Morning Snack:
- Fruit/veggie pouch (pea/pear, I think)
- ¼ graham cracker
Lunch:
- several bites (maybe 3 tablespoons?) quinoa mixed with canned lentil vegetable soup
- one bite daiya jack “cheese”
- 1 tablespoon freeze-dried peas & corn
Afternoon Snack:
- ½ small banana (I know, banana again. I was trying to do some dinner prep, and it was the easiest option for me)
- a little bit (2-3 tablespoons, maybe?) of O’s cereal
Dinner:
- ¼ cup vegan mac&cheese
- about 1 broccoli floret (ate the top of one, and most of the stalk of another)
- spinach-chickpea nugget (this recipe made with vegan cheese and oil & spices instead of broth)
- a few bites of applesauce
**I will admit that I ended up letting her dip her spinach-chickpea nugget in ketchup to get her to eat it. I’m not ashamed, it was worth it to get some more veggies in her!
She also drank about 7 oz of coconut/hemp milk, and nursed 6 times.
I’m curious what has worked for other toddler parents – are you strict about only offering what is on the menu, or do you make your child a different meal if they don’t eat the first one? Do you allow them an unscheduled snack if they totally refuse any food at a meal, or do you make them stick it out until the next scheduled meal?
Looking forward to checking out all of the other links on Brittany’s site!
