Toddler Eating

Baby Led Weaning is messy! Linnaeus covered in yams

I consider myself pretty lucky that I got a couple of kids who took to eating solid food really well & weren't too picky to start with. Baby Led Weaning was great fun & I kind of miss watching my wee ones awkwardly picking up chunks of veggies & smooshing them into their little mouths. I mean, at four & a half & one & a half they both still get food on their faces & clothes every meal & spill drinks all over the table fairly regularly. However, now it's not so much about how they eat, but what or if.

Linnaeus would eat pretty much anything but leafy foods as a baby & toddler. I'm going to assume that it was because he had trouble grinding it up, being new to molars & all. He had some issues with things like apple skins to start with, but I soon quit peeling everything & he figured it out. He's recently started eating salads, though the lettuce has to be accompanied by a lot of other stuff for him to eat it. Works for me, since I love salads full of nuts, fruit, seeds, eggs, bacon, cheese, veggies, croutons, & whatever else I think to throw in.

Baby Bronte's first Cheerios

Bronte was pretty adventurous to start with too, but has recently gone off bread type foods. She will eat whatever is on it, but leave most of the bread. She seems to see toast, a bun, a bagel, or a tortilla as more of a plate than a food item.

Bronte is also very anti fruit skin. The only way she'll eat apple is having bites of mine, off the core, after I've already eaten the skin. If I hand her a peeled slice or chunk of apple, she still won't eat it. Has to be mine.

Temperature is another thing. Bronte will accept a wider range here than Linnaeus--she loves peas straight out of the freezer, never complains at ice cream or smoothies. Linnaeus, on the other hand, won't tolerate anything much hotter than lukewarm & it took him a good year to stop making faces at how cold ice cream was.

The last thing I find weird about their eating habits is that they seem to alternate in terms of quantity. Some days, Bronte will eat twice as much as her brother. Other days he will eat more than I do & she'll have just a few bites & exclaim, "I done!"

Thankfully the pickiness isn't near the point where I worry about them getting scurvy or something. Overall their diet is fairly balanced, so I'm not going to get stressed out about it. I heard some great advice years ago: when it comes to toddler nutrition, focus on the big picture. Aim for a balance of healthy foods over a week, don't worry about getting in all the food groups (or whatever) at every single meal.

You tell me--did your kids go through an only goldfish crackers phase, or refuse to eat any particular type of food for months? Let me know in the comments... 

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