what are you feeding your 18 mth toddler?

[mummysketches]

hi all,

just wanted to have some idea what is typical for a 18mth old. my girl has been eating well, but not sure if i should be progressing to the "next stage". just wana know if i am doing this right.

breakfast:
bread, oats, cheese, omelette sandwich

lunch/dinner:
carbs: mee suah, pasta, rice, mee tai mak, potato, rice
meat: finely minced meats, fish
fibre: finely chopped leafy vege, mixed beans, fruits (strawberry, banana, papaya, apple, pear, dragonfruit, plum, peach, grapes, blueberry)

my girl is also on FM 4 feeds a day. she is taking Friso. just "upgraded" from friso 2 to 3. found friso 3 to be much sweeter than friso 2 since it attracts more ants in my house. any opinions on this? does anyone have any other recommendations of FM that are not so sweet? if you give fresh milk how do you prepare and which brands do you feed your child? is 4 feeds a day too much even though she eats a sizeable amount of solids for breakfast, lunch and dinner?

thanks for sharing.

 

[meiteoh]

Re foods:
At 18 mths, your daughter can already start eating family foods, eg food that you and your family eat (assuming that you don't take high fat, high oil, high salt food ). At 18 mths, Eva was eating what we were eating and new items like prawns, squid, peanut butter spread, and other nuts. I introduced these early based on recommendation from my PD as well as family history - no allergies plus she has always handled new foods well (no reaction, etc).

For breakfast, Eva gets things like homemade waffles, toasted peanut butter/jelly sandwich (I use whitemeal bread), pancakes, muffins (dark chocolate chip & orange muffin plus passionfruit muffin are her recent eats), cakes (dark chocolate brownie, cream cheese pound cake, lemon butter cake are some), dried/fresh fruit with plain yogurt, homemade muesli mix, etc.

For lunch, it is things like roast vegetables with roast meat, pasta with a veg/meat sauce, fried rice with veg & meat, rice with stir fried veg and one meat.

She has fruit bars, fresh fruit or biscuits as a snack.

For dinner, it is the same as lunch except that we rotate - she has something different at each meal so that she doesn't get bored easily.

Note that all these are homemade - I don't like to give her commercially made food especially baked items.

Re milk/FM:
You can move her to fresh milk already. At her age, FM is nothing more than corn starch, milk solids and sugar. All those marketing ads that point to this vit and that vit are just that - advertising. She can get the same nutrients and even more from eating regular foods. She doesn't need to drink a lot - less than 500ml per day, especially if she's taking cheese and yogurt. So why pay more for something that doesn't benefit her much? What brand to feed her isn't important - what is more important is the ingredients in the milk itself. Look for milk products that contain miminal preservatives and flavouring - 100% fresh milk is what you want. Currently, I'm giving my daughter Meiji fresh milk but Farmhouse, Magnolia, etc, have 100% fresh milk that are pasteurised/homogenised or UHT.

 

[mummysketches]

hey meiteoh,

thanks for the reply. was travelling. couldn't quite reply.

the food list looks good. think i am on the right track. giving my girl pretty similar things too.

more question about milk. do you warm the fresh milk before giving her? and is she still bottle fed? my girl still likes her milk before she sleeps. how about the regular powdered milk? how different is that? i just bought nespray which is half the price of the usual formulas. less additives and actually more protein than the FM. guess powdered milk is still more convenient when travelling.
the stage 3 FM i was feeding my girl was extremely sweet. i only found out when my can of FM was invaded by ants!! and she is increasingly thirsty after her feeds. that raised alarm bells and made me think of switching to fresh milk.

haven't been successful with cup feeding yet... my girl just likes to spit out the water if she drinks from a cup.