Food Ideas?

OK, stupid question alert...and a bit of OCD perseverating and unnecessary anxiety, to boot!! My girls are 15 months old now. They have no food allergies so far & seem to be gaining weight & growing like weeds...but their eating habits are driving me insane! (Although my DH would tell you that it is a short trip :laughing

I am in a total breakfast rut. Cheerio's, oatmeal with fruit, toast and some days a scrambled egg. Sofia eats like she has never seen food before & may never again, Fiona spits out the cereal, throws the egg off the highchair and devours dry cheerio's and toast. Midmorning snack is usually goldfish because I am running around like a lunatic at that time & it is the one thing that Fiona adores. She will stuff 5 of them in her mouth at once, like a chipmunk.

Lunchtime - another total rut. Avocado and cheese quesadilla, yoghurt, fruit. They eat the quesadilla, throw the fruit overboard and devour the yoghurt. If I give them chopped chicken, Sofia eats it and Fiona pegs it southwards. The only time they consistenty eat fruit is if I puree it and feed it to them - then they LOVE it. Sofia will not even TRY chopped fruit. She just picks it up, gives me "the look" & throws it overboard. :headbang: She will only eat it pureed. Even the fruit she loves pureed, like mango, if I give her a piece she just picks it up & throws it without even tasting it! :gah: Their 15 month ped appt is coming up, & I know that the Dr is going to tell me they shouldn't be eating purees still. But honestly, Fiona really seems to dislike a lot of textures & if I puree it she usually eats it. And it is the ONLY way that Sofia will eat fruit. Truly, it is bizzare. Sofia will eat table food as finger food, Fiona will only eat it pureed. Fiona will eat pieces of fruit, Sofia will only eat fruit pureed. :unknw:


So I guess what I am asking is, is there any magical way you have found for getting your children to eat fruit? Or any table food, for that matter? They do mostly tend to eat their veggies (wierd, I know). I was thinking about trying smoothies - has anyone done this with 15 month olds, and did they manage it OK? they do drink out of a straw sippy, so I think they would do OK with a cup and a straw.


And here is my next dumb qestion - when did you guys start giving you little ones things like raisins, and raw apple? My DD's have only got 5 teeth apiece, no molars, so I have been mushing & cooking quite a few things still, but they do seem to mash stuff up pretty well between their gums.

Thanks so much ladies. I have done a search for previous food postings but couldn't find answers to some of my more stupid questions...!! Some days I wonder if I have the patience for this.... :gah:

 

I still supplemented with purees until the kids were 15-16 months old. I think trying smoothies are a good idea :good: My twins had most of their teeth by 15-16 months so we were already giving them small pieces of apple and raisins. You could try cutting the apple up into small pieces and mircowaving it for 30 seconds to mush it up a little bit for them. I put a little bit of cinnamon and sugar on top of it.
With the table food, we just kept offering it. Eventually they will come around. I think you are giving them a wide variety of good foods.

 

I love your descriptions of your LOs; too funny! :lol:

I have the opposite problem with Nate; he'll only eat fruit/meat and rejects almost any vegetable. And from everything I've read, there is no "magical" way to get your kids to eat certain foods. ardon: They are their own people and can be remarkably stubborn about their preferences. Especially when they're toddlers; you can't ask them to try things and they just throw stuff they don't like off their trays! :headbang: All you can do is offer and model good eating habits and hope it sticks.

I haven't fed my boys smoothies, but I've read a few posts from women here whose kids LOVE smoothies. I think that's a good thing to try. :good: Also, I *still* feed purees to my guys occasionally (when they let us). Nate won't touch a green bean, but he'll open wide for green bean puree. :unknw:

I may be weird, but I don't think there's anything great about fruit. I feel like they're kind of like veggies with added sugar. :laughing: Personally I'd rather have my guys eat veggies than fruit, but at least they're getting plant matter and fiber with all the fruit they eat. ardon:

As far as your next question, I started giving my guys raw apple (peeled and cut into small bits) pretty early on; maybe 13 months? I only started to give them raisins within the last month or so. They don't much care for them, though. Jack just recently cut his first year molars, and Nate still only has incisors, but they manage to chew them up pretty well.

I hope this helps, and remember, there is no such thing as a dumb question!

 

i have A LOT of the same troubles with my guys....xavier loves to be spoon fed and he tosses anything slippery (e.g. fruit, chicken sticks) overboard to the dogs. he occasionally eats cut up cheese and bread and ham. he hates eggs. logan will only eat what he can pick up and do himself, he refuses to be spoon fed anymore. eats mainly bread and cheese and cheerios. they also love the graduates cereal bars and toddler mum mums for snack time.

we have been successful with avocados, sometimes banana (not xavier, again it's the slippery thing), diced ham, diced meatloaf....haven't tried smoothies, but that sounds like a good idea.

i think you're giving them a great variety of foods, in fact i got some ideas from your post!

 

My boys love pancakes! I use pancake mix (complete just add water), 1/2 cup baby cereal (Lots of vitamins there), 1/2cup plain instant oatmeal, applesauce (to taste), vanilla extract (to taste). That’s it! You can add fruit if you like. My boys love blueberries.

Other favorites are:
Apples & peanut butter
Grilled cheese on whole wheat
Scrambled eggs with cheese and shredded carrots
Sweet potatoes and carrot casserole
Home fried potatoes with peppers and onion
My 2yr old loves the garden salad in a bag with caesar dressing
Bananas
Yogurt
Vanilla pudding
Toast with butter and jelly
Hot Dogs
French Toast
Spaghetti

Hope this helps!

 

Thanks everyone! The suggestions have been great. So far I have managed to resist strangling my 2 at mealtimes...bought some frozen berries today to try out some smoothies. My only concern is the mess it will make if either of them decide to pitch stuff overboard!! Thanks again for indulging my screaming frustration... I know it is just part of toddler-dom, but the waste absolutely kills me!!

 

I've given my boys english muffins or toast with jelly on them, breakfast sausage, i throw chopped up strawberries or blueberries or blackberries in their oatmeal (and banana's), if i get lazy i've even given them blueberry muffins or a donut but it is messy afterwards and they will eat them. Plus most of the other's PP's have mentioned. My next move is to make egg salad sandwiches for them, i've given them hard boiled eggs as well. Good luck.

 

One thing that has worked for us with slippery foods it to roll them in baby cereal. It makes it a little easier for them to pick up. Also, my sister mixed baby food purees with baby cereal and a little water to make a dough consistency. She then piped that mixture onto a greased cookie sheet and baked at 350 for 5-6 minutes. After they cooled, she was able to break them into pieces and had nice, crunchy veggies and fruits for her LO. I am still trying to find the time to try this with my left over purees, but it was an easy way for her to get her LO to eat veggies when all he wanted was breaded/crunchy foods.

 

Do you have a recipe for the sweet potato and carrot casserole? Those are my boys two favorite veggies. Seems to be the only veggies we can still get them to eat! Thank you!

 

I think you got a lot of suggestions, here's one that might help with the texture issue... do you have any of those mesh feeding popsicle things? you could stick the fruit inside it and then they chew and make their own puree... might give them something try chewing it on...

I put those mesh things away for a long time, and even pulled them out recently (at 21 months), for raw carrots. Mine thought they'd died and gone to heaven, they loved chewing it.

anyway, just a thought.

as for ruts... I give the same thing every breakfast... an oatmeal/barley/millet/lentil mixture with yogurt... they love it, and gobble it down. good luck figuring out what's good for your guys!

also, another idea is hummus on crackers or bread/toast.