what quantity should my babies eat?

Hi Mommies,

My babies' pedi told me to give them as much food as they want! which I am doing and therefore one of my son who doesn't say no to foods ends many times vomiting.

I think this has to do with me giving him so much food. I am very interested about what you who have/had babies at the age of mine (one year and 2 weeks) feed your children.

Many thanks for your valuable input.

 

My SOP has always been to offer my kids high quality foods at scheduled times, and let them eat as much as they want. Sometimes they gorge themselves, and sometimes they just pick, but they get opportunities to eat a snack or a meal every 2-3 hours so they never have to wonder when they're going to eat next.

So I agree with your ped; let them eat as much as they want! My guess is that your DS is going through one of those lovely "toddler phases" when they are asserting their independence, and eating like crazy. Or perhaps he's going through a growth spurt. But I bet if you are consistent in offering good food, not restricting him or pushing him, or making a big deal about food, that he'll stop this pretty quickly. You could call your ped for advice if you're really concerned about it, but it sounds like it's a temporary thing to me.

My guys will eat a good meal, then stick their fingers down their throats and throw up. They think it's funny. :gah: I know that the bigger deal I make about it, the more they do it. So when they start these shenanigans (always at the end of the meal), I clean them up and get them down from their highchairs; they always forget about it and start playing instead.

As far as quality of food, at that age I was really concerned about calories and fat (my guys were not even on the chart at 13 months). I gave them lots of high-fat calorie-dense foods like cheese, full fat organic plain yogurt mixed with fruit, shredded meat/fish, avocados (usually mixed with yogurt/fruit), as well as their baby food veggies, steamed frozen veggie bits, chopped up fruit, puffs, waffle/pancake bits, and pieces of soft breads. Everything had to be easy to chew (they were late teethers) and not a choking hazard.

Hope this helps!

 

We let them eat as much as they want, but I do have one that will get sick of he eats too much. So I do watch for the signs that he's full, throwing food, eating slower, being pickier about what he's eating, etc.
For us quality is HUGE! We do a couple snacks a day but they get most of their nutrients from their 3 big meals so I make sure they have a well balanced meal 3 times a day. Of course some days or at least one meal a day something is left out but I try and that's all I can do ardon:

 

Our "what" is similar to Nate & Jack's Mom...variety, healthy, balanced. I'm not sure what to say about quantity. We put it in front of them and they eat as much as they want. Sometimes I put 3 - 4 different things on there, and they only eat ALL of 1-2 of them, SOME of 1, and almost none of the other.

Often, for "dessert" I'll spoon feed yogurt or applesauce, and they will close their mouths when they are full. At the end of every meal, their bellies are very hard, obviously full, even if it looks to me like they didn't eat that much. Everything I've read says you offer it, and let the child determine the "how much". I don't know why'd he be eating to the point of vomiting, except maybe the toddler independence thing a PP said.

 

I am the same as PP's: I offer variety, healthy and balanced foods. When my two turned one, our pedi wanted us to put more weight on them, so they were eating a lot of high fat foods (butter, pudding, ice cream, etc...) & since then, they've been following their growth curve for weight, so I offer meals every 2-3 hours
Breakfast at 7:30-8am, lunch 11, snack in between lunch & naptime if they want it, dinner between 4-5, snack before bed if they want it & bedtime.
During meal and snack times, they could eat as much as they wanted. My two have never been big eaters, so that was always hit or miss.
Breakfast could range from: cereal, yogurt, fruit, scrambled eggs, waffles, pancakes
lunch: eggs, waffles, pancakes, pb &j, grilled cheese, fruit, veggies, yogurt, applesauce, cereal bar, left over dinner from the night before
dinner- meat (poultry, pork, beef), pasta, veggies, seafood (we did not give them shellfish until they turned 2), salad (my two love salad for some reason).
HTH!

 

I think it depends where your children are weight-wise. My DS is in the 50th percentile and my DD is in the 90th percentile. So I offer good foods (rarely do they get a sweet anything, no juice, whole wheat always, etc.), but I monitor their portions. I use the suggested portion sizes found in the book Toddler 411 (awesome book!) - it says that a serving of rice/pasta should be the size of a ping pong ball, a serving of cheese should be two dice, a serving of juice should be a shot glass, a serving of meat should be three marbles if I remember correctly and so on. I've also read that a good rule of thumb is one tablespoon per item, per year of life. So if you are offering three items on the "menu," your babies should eat three tablespoons full of food at that meal. I think most toddlers would eat more than that and most of the time mine do. But I think the point of that is to say that toddlers thrive on much less food than expected. Clearly with twins, many of them have catching up to do in the weight department so like I said it just depends on where your los are on the growth charts. I would think at 12 1/2 months, if one of your los is throwing up after a meal its b/c too much was eaten and less likely to be an attention-grabbing move. But then again you never know. Maybe try decreasing portion sizes for a day or two and see how it goes. Doctors give advice based on what is typical for children. Typically , a baby or toddler will reject food when full, but some just have eyes bigger than their tummies!

 

Holy cats, are they serious?! I mean, I knew my guys were little piggies, but they seriously eat on the order of *cups* of food at every meal, not *tablespoons*. Of course, they're only at about the 10th %, so maybe they're catching up? ardon: Some meals they literally eat as much food as I do. Each!!! :woah:

 

I know right? It's crazy to me too. I'd say at most meals mine eat more than that and I usually have to cut DD off at some point b/c she doesn't get full as fast as my DS does. But it's like I was saying a lot of twin toddlers have catching up to do and should definitely eat until they are full regardless of how big or small the portions are.

 

ITA!

And Nate is a really slow eater too; sometimes we just have to end the meal or we'll be sitting there fooooorreverrrrr.