Every couple of weeks I share a round up of my recent eats those posts are some of the most popular content on my blog. I always get comments and messages from you guys that they give you ideas and inspiration for your own meals.
It has been fun for me to start writing recent eats posts for Finn too! I’m trying to get into a groove of doing one every 4-6 weeks. I know that as a mom, I love getting new ideas for toddler meals so I hope you find these helpful.
Here are my previous posts about feeding Finn:
Our Journey Into Solids
Finn’s Recent Eats: 9 Months
Finn’s Recent Eats: One Year
Finn’s Recent Eats: 15 Months
Finn’s Recent Eats: 20 Months
Finn’s Recent Eats: 21 Months
Overall, things seem to be getting easier when it comes to feeding Finn. While he is still partial to his safe foods like rice, bread, crackers, cheese, etc, he is branching sllloooowwwwlllyyy and with repeated exposure will oftentimes try fruits, veggies and unfamiliar foods. He doesn’t always eat them, but I think that interacting with them and at least being willing to put it in his mouth is a step in the right direction. That being said, I try not to get too attached to that as toddler preferences and behavior changes like the wind!
CURRENT BIGGEST FEEDING CHALLENGE: MILK LOVER!
The biggest challenge right now is how much Finn loves milk (I give him organic whole milk). It is difficult to keep him under that max daily milk amount of 18-24 ounces. He asks for it first thing in the morning when he wakes up and several times throughout the day. He will also ask for refills. While I am glad that he likes milk and don’t have a problem with him drinking it, I don’t want him to drink too much and use it as a replacement for real food or for it to constipate him. Telling him no when he asks for milk or more milk is not fun. I have been able to discern when I think he’s just hungry and am sometimes able to redirect him to a snack or a meal when he’s asking for milk.
Finn also still drinks his milk out of bottles. I know he’s “too old” but he freaking loves his bottles and I’m just over here tying to be real. If I try to give him milk in a cup he will throw it and acts so offended. He drinks plenty of water throughout the day from cups and water bottles but the boy wants his milk in a bottle. I know it’s a comfort thing and that makes it hard for me to take it away. The good thing is that he doesn’t have to have a bottle to sleep so there isn’t a teeth issue with milk and bedtime.
I know each child is different but if you have any insights to share on milk lovers and/or bottle lovers, I’d be interested to hear your experiences.
And now for the things he’s actually been eating, not just drinking! Note, I am going to try to provide commentary one what he ate/how much since so many of you asked for that last time.
BREAKFAST
One egg scrambled in butter, plain full-fat greek yogurt with peanut butter and a little bit of honey, bagel with butter and cream cheese. The bagel brand is Dave’s Killer Bread and this is a Plain Awesome Bagel.
“Eggies” are one of Finn’s go-to foods. I can almost always get him to eat a whole scrambled egg. He also loves yogurt but I don’t give him too much of it because of how much milk he drinks. He asks for bagels a lot and usually eats about a half of a half. He likes to suck the cream cheese off of them, haha.
I can also get him to eat oatmeal pretty consistently and it’s one of the only ways I can get banana into him. I cook my oatmeal with mashed banana to sweeten it. I can also sneak in stuff like chia seeds. I like making oatmeal because I can put it in the fridge and reheat it so I have an easy breakfast (or lunch or dinner!) option on hand. I usually swirl some nut butter in for extra fat/calories.
He will talk about strawberries and sometimes put one in his mouth and chew it a bit but usually doesn’t actually eat it. No luck with raspberries yet.
LUNCH
Lunch is soooooo hit or miss with Finn. I think it’s mostly because he gets a mid-morning snack and then he’s ready to go down for a nap by 11a-noon so he’s too tired to eat. When he was going to preschool 3x/week he rarely touched his lunch save for a few crackers.
On this day he ate all of the grilled cheese but didn’t touch the turkey or fruit.
On this day he ate a couple of bites of the cheese toast but wouldn’t even try the chicken and potato stew.
Snack-plate style lunches work well sometimes. This was a cashew cookie Larabar (didn’t eat), gouda cheese slices, crackers, grapes and pea crisps. He ate the cheese, crackers and pea crisps.
DINNER
Dinner is almost always a winner and he eats it enthusiastically. One thing that has helped is EARLY dinner before he gets too tired. I try to feed him around 5-5:30p if I can. I do the most food diversity with dinner.
He LOVES buttered rice so you’ll see that a lot in the following pictures. This plate has chicken tenders that were frozen from Trader Joe’s that I cooked in the air fryer along with strawberries, raw carrots and cooked green beans. He ate half of the chicken, almost all of the rice, put a green bean in his mouth and left the strawberries and carrots. The funniest thing about this meal was that he enthusiastically ate the ketchup on it’s own with his spoon instead of dipping the chicken. Haha.
Spaghetti noodles with homemade marinara sauce, sourdough toast and string cheese. He ate all of the noodles and some of the toast and cheese.
Rice with red coconut curry sauce and tofu and carrots from the curry. I was SO EXCITED that he ate the rice with the coconut curry sauce! Left the rest of it.
One of the ways I can consistently get green things into Finn is with these little veggie tots from ALDI. I’ve heard they are a knock-off of the Dr. Praeger’s brand. They have sweet potato, broccoli and kale and spinach flavors. I cook them in the air fryer at 400 for about 10 minutes and then let them cool. This is the spinach and kale kind. This plate had all of Finn’s favorite things! He still loves shrimp. I just sauté it in a bit of butter and he also will eat oranges.
Finn loves my spaghetti squash pizza casserole bake and it’s a great way for me to get lots of good stuff in him like protein and veggies. He ate all of this and some of the toast.
Baked salmon, mac and cheese, roasted cauliflower, gouda cheese slices and chocolate granola (he spotted the granola and was incessantly asking for it so I put a little on his plate). No one will be surprised to read that he ate mac and cheese, cheese and granola.
Greek meatballs made with local grass-fed ground beef, hummus, rice and strawberries. He ate the rice and a few bites of the meatballs.
Same ALDI tots (these are the broccoli ones…they are mostly potato but ever bit of broccoli counts, right!?) with roasted cauliflower, salmon and raspberries. Ate all of the tots and that was it.
Shrimp, toast, peas and mac and cheese. He ate a little of everything minus the peas. He mostly just played with those.
Dr. Praeger’s fish bites, broccoli tots, spaghetti squash with a little bit of a butternut squash pasta sauce and mixed veggies. He ate the fish and tots and picked up each veggie and put it in his mouth but didn’t actually eat any of it.
Shredded rotisserie chicken, raspberries, rice, cherry tomatoes and sautéed zucchini. Yep, only ate the rice. Finn is super picky about chicken.
And that’s all for this recap! Let me know if you have any questions or requests for things you’d like to see in these posts.
QUESTIONS
Talk to me about your experiences with milk and bottle loving toddlers.
What meal is usually the biggest winner with your toddler? Anyone else struggle with lunch?
I always love to hear about things that your little ones are loving to eat lately. Please feel free to share ideas in the comments below!
The post Finn’s Recent Eats: 23 Months appeared first on Peanut Butter Runner.