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EAT => Eating For Toddlers => Topic started by: mum101 on August 07, 2008, 03:29:29 am
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Not sure where to post, but wanted an idea of the portions, volumes and types of food preschoolers eat :)
Please share!
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I suppose Mira qualifies as pre schooler she's 2 1/4!
She's not a great eater, as in, she wont eat vegetables on their own. She doesn't like cake/icecream etc phew. She hasn't got a huge appetite.
Breakfast - Normally two slices of toast with almond butter. Some dry cereal. Diluted freshly squeezed OJ (this is all after her bottle of milk).
Snack - we sometimes skip this. So she'll be hungrier at lunch. But it's a bit of fruit, or raisins, or rice cakes.
Lunch - Her main meal of the day. If she likes what's served, she'll eat loads. Stuff we give her :
- Spag bolognaise (in this we put carrots, celery and also frozen chopped spinach)
- Pesto Spaghetti (this has tofu, pesto, parmesan, milk in the mixture. I'll also put either frozen spinach or pureed veg. This is hands down her fave dish in the world and will eat tonnes of it)
- Fried Rice - with chicken, very finely chopped fresh veg (carrots, long beans, mushroom)
- Fried noodles - we use various types of noodles (soba, vermicelli, egg noodles) with same ingredients as fried rice
- Rice and some mixed veg+meat dish
- Chicken rice (we live in singapore this is rice with steamed chicken)
She loves chicken..
Afternoon snack : Always a muffin, this is home made, either a banana/bran/wholewheat muffin or a pineapple/carrot/wholewheat muffin. So it's very healthy. Plus milk if she wants
Dinner - Bit lighter than lunch. Chicken fingers or home made fish fingers (we use sole). This is all done in advance apart from the cooking so we have lots of it in the freezer).
Cheese on toast
Sandwhich - not her favourite.
Oh and she has fruit or a yoghurt end of meals. Her fave fruit are raspberries, blueberries, apples, grapes.
That's pretty much it! Oh as for portions, i use a small ikea childrens bowl as a guide really. Hpe that helps!
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good thread, charley will be 4 at the end of august
breakfast can be one weetbix or porriage or toast, always full cup of milk afterwards
snack time cheese, fruit, red capsicum and cucumber and dry biscuits, actually to be honest snack could turn out to be lunch as well, i always have a small esky bag packed full of food
lunch, bacon and cheese roll, lunch meat, 1/2 a cup of fried rice, egg and toast, vegemite sandwich
always a full cup of milk after her nap
i do let them snack a bit to much these days, bit hard with playdate and people around
snack, dip and biscuits, fruit, cheece,
dinner, crumbed veal or chicken, around the amount of 2-3 chicken nuggets, vegetable, could be a couple of slices of carrots, 1-2 tablespoons of mashed pumpkin, 2-3 mouth fulls cauliflower and 2-3 mouthfulls of broccoli or a good cup of pasta, or bowl of baked beans or chow mein, depends on the meal if she has something afterwards, like custard, i serve the kids dinners on a bread and butter plate and it is pretty full, sometimes she eats a whole sausage and other times not and then again other time nearly two so it really all depends
are you have problems or just interested?
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Thanks, great to get a sense of how much. :)
I'm trying to get a handle on portions, as I've always let DD pick how much she eats, but I think she might be getting too much now. Her eating has changed from eating until full and eating anything to eating all her favourites and asking for more of the stuff she likes only which ends up being all the high fat foods! She's also too smart for her own good and wants to eat the same portion we do (in the sense of fairness) ::)
And then my DH gives her snacks for an adult!
How much cheese and crackers would you give as one snack?
I agree it is hard with playdates.
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I offically have a preschooler now :o
She has:
Breakfast: either 2weetbix with honey and milk or a piece of toast or crumpet and on the weekend i sometimes make pancakes and she will eat more than me then :P A cup of milk as well.
Morning snack: muesli bar or a few fruit sticks
Lunch: A sandwich and a tub of yoghurt and sometimes some cheese
Afternoon tea: A biscuit and some fruit
Dinner: Always what we have i always make sure it includes 3 vege meat and either rice or pasta as DD2 will only eat what we do for dinner so i make sure it is very healthy for her to have. Then she has some custard or icecream with fruit.
She also has a heap of water throughout the day.
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4-6 rice biscuits with 1-2 tablespoons of dip or cheese slices to put on the rice biscuits
charley would eat 1/2 peice of fruit and 1/2 hour late a kids prepackaged cheese stick
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thanks Natasha and Sylvia.
our LO has clued on now and always says she is hungry, cheeky sod but I wasn't sure if she really was or not. But I've watched the last few days and realised she isn't.
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For those who use a toddler/child size bowl - the ones about 10cm diameter and 5cm high, how full would you fill it? To the brim, 3/4ers?
Rory asked for more twice, but it was her favourite food. I usually fill to 3/4ers...
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Our bowls are 15cms wide and about 5cms tall and i usually fill it 1/4 - 1/2full depending on what we are having.
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thanks Natasha, do you have specific kids bowls? Particular brand?
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I use the tupperware kids bowls.
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Thanks :)
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No idea on the size of the bowls I use but I will list what is typical for Ryan (age 3) on a day to day basis.
Breakfast - 1 or 2 slices of toast with marmite, peanut butter, cup of milk or smoothie usually followed by fruit flakes or a banana
Snack - If he has one likely to be a fruit snack of some sort
Lunch - Sandwich, maybe some olives on the side, cheese string, milk or smoothie for drink, cake or yoghurt or fruit for pudding.
Snack - Raisins or fruit flakes
Dinner - This is where I think my portion control goes out of the window cos I always seem to overfill his plate. Good size portion of whatever I have cooked for us as a family, eg 1 Tuna fish cake, some noodles, some veg. Followed by pudding of a cake, home made goodies or fruit, sometimes he doesn't want a pudding.
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DD is 3.5. I always worry about portion size as dd is a good eater. But dh is v tall-6ft 4 so I think she is going to be big too- always in the 97 centile for height and weight from birth. I deliberately make her main meal at lunch so she burn it off.
Breakfast- milk, fruit, yogurt and sometimes some toast/ marmite
snack- cheese and raisins or grapes or an apple.
lunch ( main meal) chicken, mince,+ veg or pasta+ sauce or stuffed baked potato. Pudding- jelly of lolly or fruit.
tea- soft boiled eggs/toast or picnic( fruit. sandwiches, cheese etc) tomato soup, homemade pizza, tuna toasty. pudding- biscotti/ fruit
supper- cheerios before bed.
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Elizabeth is 3.5 too. She's another one who is constantly saying she's hungry.
For breakfast she usually has a cup of juice (hide her liquid vitamin in there, she needs extra iron) and a small bowl (about 1/2 cup) dry cereal. Sometimes she'll have a few blueberries or bites of peach.
For lunch, a small (1 oz-ish) piece of cheese, some crackers. She just doesn't eat much here.
snack- now she's hungry because of the small lunch! She'll have a peanut butter sandwhich (one piece of bread folded over), more cheese, a peach, or maybe some cereal or pretzels. Sort of depends, not usually a huge amount of food, just enough to take the edge off.
Dinner- I would say she eats nothing except her cup of milk probably 65-70% of the time. When she does eat, it might be 1/2 piece of pizza, one piece of ham, some fruit.
I have no idea how she sustains herself on as little food as she eats!
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Thanks everyone.
Deb - DD is up over the 97th percentile for both height and weight too, I always used to give her as much as she requested, but now she requests more than she needs I think :-\
Looking at the amounts here, I'd say she was definitely eating more than she needed. For 2 weeks now, I've watched portions, especially for snacks and she doesn't say she is hungry ::)
She loves food, but more so she loves cooking - so keeping that balance is going to be my challenge.
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My hv always said at meal time let them lead on how much they want as long as it fruit/ veg that they are filling up on. This way you know that they are eating healthy stuff and it avoids snacking. I am lucky as dd loves fruit and veg.
Have tried cooking a few times with dd, but def need to do it more often.