Feeding Your Toddler

Tricks for Healthy Eating

Trying to get your toddler to eat a balanced diet can be challenging, to put it politely. But with a little patience and creativity from you, eating healthy can be a lot of fun.

While calorie amounts vary by child, a meal plan filled with whole grains, fruits and veggies, calcium-rich foods and lean protein sources, is standard issue. So is limiting added sugar and salt. Try these mom-tested tips to help make “good” and “good for you” feel like the same thing to your toddler:

Things That Go Squish

• Oatmeal (fibre, carbohydrate)
• Banana (potassium)
• Avocado (fibre, potassium, vitamin C)
• Roasted sweet potato (vitamin A, potassium)
• Strawberries (vitamin C, potassium, fibre, antioxidants)

Frozen Things

(It's amazing how frozen=fun, no matter what it is. Be sure whatever you freeze is large enough to suck on, to avoid a choking hazard.)

• Homemade juice pops made from 100% fruit or vegetable juice (try them as ice cubes in a sippy cup!)
• Low fat frozen yogurt (calcium)
• Blueberry smoothie made with yogurt and frozen blueberries (calcium, antioxidants, vitamin C)

Things You Can Slurp

• Whole wheat spaghetti (magnesium, fibre)
• Soup (room temperature) through a straw
• Tomato soup (vitamin C, potassium, copper)
• Chicken noodle soup (selenium, protein)

Things You Can Dip

(This never seems to get old with most toddlers.)

• Fruit pieces in low fat vanilla yogurt (protein, calcium, riboflavin)
• Carrot sticks (thinly sliced) in hummus (vitamin A, fibre, calcium, zinc)
• Cooked broccoli trees in low fat plain yogurt (calcium, potassium, vitamin C)
• Cooked snowpeas in low-fat ranch dressing (protein, manganese, potassium)

Things That Roll

• Peas (chromium, fibre, magnesium)
• Whole grain "O"-shaped cereal (calcium, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folate)
• Cooked chickpeas (folate, fibre, protein)
• Cooked carrot coins (vitamin A)
• Turkey meatballs (protein)

Sticks

• Open-faced toasted cheese on whole wheat bread cut into sticks (protein, calcium, fibre, riboflavin)
• Cheese sticks (protein, calcium)
• Carrot sticks (thinly sliced) (vitamin A)
• Fish sticks – baked, not fried (protein)

Edible Artwork

Veggie faces

• Spinach hair (vitamin A, vitamin C, folate, magnesium)
• Carrot nose (thinly sliced) (vitamin A)
• Cooked black bean eyes (iron, protein)
• Cooked chick pea teeth (manganese, folate, fibre, protein)
• Encourage your little one to build his own masterpiece. (Broccoli makes great trees, and brown rice can be molded into mountains!)