Kid Eats Q&A: When (and how much) should my toddlers eat?

Thanks to Claudia for asking this question in response to my recent Psychology Today article because it’s an important issue that lots of parents struggle to resolve.

Claudia's question:

I have twin 22 month olds who could honestly care less about eating most of the time. There are days where they eat breakfast - a smoothie made with 5 oz milk, half a yogurt, some protein powder (sometimes) and either a cereal bar, a waffle (homemade with added veggies, hahah), or dry cereal... and then will NOT eat lunch at all... but when they wake up from their nap around 3 they are STARVING.  So, then they will eat a sandwich, veggies, etc.  But then of course they are not interested in anything for dinner.  I need help deciding if my kids own their own eating patterns and habits, or if I am supposed to draw a hard line for them and determine what and when they should be eating?!?!

Basically, this boils down to a simple (yeah, simple…right!) philosophical question: Who decides what, when, and how much your kids eat?

The way you've posed the question—Who is responsible for your kids' eating patterns and habits?—sets up a false dichotomy. The answer isn't "you" or "them."  Rather, the answer is a hybrid: both you and your kids work to develop their eating habits together.

1. Know where your kids are starting (based on their age, development and personalities).  
2. Figure out where you're going.  
3. Develop a strategy to get your kids from here to there.

The strategy you settle on won't be a straight shot because if your kids could eat the way adults do, the way you want them to, you wouldn't wonder what to do. You would set up a structure and your kids would comply.

Alternatively, if you leave your kids to their own devices, they'll be...well, kids.  And kids aren't mature enough to make all of their own eating decisions.  They don't know about, nor do they care about, social conventions for eating.  They want what they want when they want it.

When it comes to teaching kids to eat right, you need to find the middle ground.  Read The Goldilocks Approach.

In principle it doesn't matter when your kids eat.

It doesn’t really matter whether your kids eat two main meals a day or three, and it doesn’t really matter whether those meals come in the morning and the night, at brunch and at dinner, or as in your case, at breakfast and in the middle of the afternoon.

But principle isn’t practice. 

It sounds like this is a pattern that isn’t particularly pleasing to you, and I’m sure the twins don’t exactly appreciate it either.  Who wants to ruin a perfectly wonderful nap by waking up feeling famished?

I know I’m going to get into trouble with a bunch of Ellyn Satter Division of Responsibility proponents—If you’re not familiar with the Division of Responsibility it’s the idea that parents decide what, when and where kids eat, and kids decide how much they eat —but you’ve got a situation here where your kids are eating too much at breakfast and it’s throwing off the whole day. I suggest you cut back a little.

Remember, infants feed on demand. Toddlers require more structure.

(We know the twins are eating too much because they stay full for so long, though kudos to you for packing their breakfast full of so many quality nutrients.)

Don't worry that your kids will starve if you cut back on the morning meal. Lunch is on the way!

When developing a structure for your kids’ eating you have three distinct goals to balance.

1. Getting a good meal into your kids.
2. Teaching your kids to eat at conventional times.
3. Disrupting your family life as little as possible.

Right now, you’re only achieving the first goal. What’s more, you’re achieving it at the expense of the other two goals. I recommend you adjust breakfast to make it a little lighter. It will help you move towards all three goals simultaneously.

There are lots of ways to lighten the breakfast load:

1. Serve smaller portions.
2. Eliminate the mix-ins (protein powder in the shakes, veggies in the waffles).
3. Serve different kinds of food (apple slices and a peanut butter for dipping).

Also, consider saving the smoothie for later in the day.  Lunch? Pre-nap snack?

There are lots of bumps on the road to civilized eating.

So don’t expect too much.  If you get your children onto a more normal schedule, you may still find that they’re hungry at odd hours (most toddlers could stand to eat dinner around 4:30) because that's the nature of the beast. But stick to the course you chart out and your kids will develop the habits that they need for a lifetime of healthy eating.

For more tips on finding the middle ground for feeding read How do you handle it when your children protest the new food on their plates.

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~

Falafel for Breakfast

Falafel.

That’s what my daughter was eating the other morning for breakfast.  I’m not crowing (ok, maybe I am just a little) but my purpose here isn’t simply to give myself a big congratulatory blog-hug. It's to fill you in on an easy technique that can revolutionize how your kids eat.

Parents ask me all the time how they can expand the repertoire of foods their kids eat, and I always reply: Implement variety with the foods your kids already eat.

In other words, routinely serve dinner food (falafel—or chicken nuggets) at breakfast (or lunch food at dinner). It is the first and easiest step you can take to put your kids on the road to new food acceptance.  It’s a small change with a big effect.

Variety doesn’t always mean “new.”

The first step in teaching kids to eat a wider range of foods is to get them in the habit of eating different foods.  I know that sounds like a contradiction, and you’re probably asking yourself: How can I get my kids to eat different things if they won’t touch anything new?

But different doesn’t always have to mean new. 

One of the most destructive habits kids develop is becoming overly attached to eating the same small set of foods for each meal and snack. 

This is most likely to happen at breakfast when kids cycle through a limited set of items that typically includes cereal, toast, eggs, pancakes and waffles.  It also happens at other meals too…PB&J for lunch every day, anyone?

I don’t take much issue with those foods (though you should probably read A Spoonful of Sugar? and The Secret of Unsweetened Cereal before reaching for a box of Honey Nut Cheerios).  My problem with overusing the same breakfast foods is that they:

• Set your kids’ expectations about what food is acceptable, and repetition is the opposite of new.
• Offer your kids a limited sensory experience because they all deliver basically the same bland, crunchy, bready, food encounter.  Except for the eggs.  Which we serve with toast.

 Read Breakfast: The Most Important Meal of the Day and The Variety Masquerade.

You can introduce different foods using the same tried-and-true favorites your kids already willingly scoop up.  All you have to do is mix up when you offer them. 

Thinking they have to serve breakfast foods for breakfast, lunch foods for lunch, dinner foods for dinner and snack foods for snack hampers parents by limiting their choices.  It sets up a series of False Choices.

It’s not surprising that parents get trapped by these false choices; there’s an industry working overtime to convince you that certain foods are appropriate for certain times.  Breakfast is for bread-like products. Snack time is for something crunchy, out of a box or a bag.  And dinner is the time for veggies.

But here’s a news flash: Chicken nuggets are no better or worse for your kids to eat at dinner than they are at breakfast.  (And if you wouldn’t serve Goldfish crackers at breakfast, maybe you should reconsider their role in snacks.  Read Goldfish vs. Bunnies.) 

You can actually serve anything you want at any time!

In addition to the usual stuff (eggs, cereal, pancakes, bagels…) here are some of the things my daughter has eaten for breakfast:

• A plate with small mounds of peanuts, raisings, chickpeas, and dried mango
• Carrot and celery slices with hummus
• Chicken nuggets
• Cheese, Goldfish crackers, apple slices and broccoli
• Blintzes
• ½ a turkey sandwich
• Apple slices with peanut butter and a glass of milk
• Bean and cheese burrito
• Quiche

And, of course falafel!

(Lest you think I cook any of these things in the morning, rest assured, I do not.  These breakfasts are pieced together from food on hand, including leftovers and the freezer—I’m BIG a fan of Trader Joe’s.  Remember, I’m a Slacker, and I know what it's like to be too tired to cook).

Think outside the (cereal) box and eventually your kids will try new foods.

Breaking the connection between a meal and a set of foods changes your children’s expectations of what they will eat, and it’s this changed expectation that will make them more open to trying new foods.   (Plus, new foods simply stand out less in a system where foods rotate than in a system where they stay the same).

But there’s more.  Rotating through foods your kids already like, in a conscious way, wakes up your kids’ taste buds.  As your kids get used to eating different flavors, different textures, and different food experiences, they’ll also become more open to new foods. The real kind—ones they've never tried before!

Read House Building 101. 

Want to get started mixing-it up?

Make a list of everything your child regularly eats.  Then just start, well, mixing it up!

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~

Pizza. Pizza. Pizza.

Some parents feed their kids pizza every day.  Some parents even encourage their kids to pound down the pizza 2 or 3 times a day. Can you believe it?

No? OK. Maybe most parents aren’t exactly passing out pizza 2 or 3 times a day, but they are giving their kids pizza-equivalents: grilled cheese sandwiches, quesadillas, mac & cheese…

From a nutrition perspective, these foods all have basically the same nutrition profile. 

More importantly, from a habits perspective, regularly eating pizza and pizza-equivalents reinforces your kids’ love of pizza; it does nothing to teach them to eat peas, broccoli, or mushrooms…  That's why pizza makes it onto my list of The 10 Most "Dangerous" Foods.

When is pizza not pizza?  When it's pasta! Pizza equivalents are all made with the same ingredients. 

Flour. Cheese. Tomato.  Here are 10 equivalents.  See what I mean?

1. Pasta with tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese
2. Grilled cheese sandwich
3. Quesadilla
4. Bagel with cream cheese
5. Macaroni & cheese
6. Ravioli
7. Cheese and crackers
8. Cheese sandwich
9. Lasagna
10. Calzones (AKA Pizza Pockets)

So a child who wakes up to a bagel and cream cheese, moves on to a grilled cheese sandwich at lunch, and finishes up the day with a bowl of pasta has eaten...well...a lot of pizza.

Read What's the Problem with Cheese? and La Crème de la Crème.

Pizza equivalents have the same nutrition profile.

Here are the numbers for a slice of pizza from Pizza Hut compared to a Kids Grilled Cheese from Panera Bread.

 Honestly, I don't make this stuff up!

Pizza equivalents constrict rather than broaden the number of foods your children will accept.

It’s true that pizza is crunchy and pasta is gooey, but if you go down the list of pizza-equivalents you will see that they offer a limited range of mouth-feel experiences.  And it's mouth-feel that determines what your kids will eat. 

Read Pizza and Peas: The Untold Story.

There are lots of other equivalents out there. 

Most “child-friendly” foods are sweet, gooey or crunchy.  If you have trouble introducing new foods, overusing child-friendly foods may explain why.  Even if you think you are offering up a diverse diet, your kids are probably not experiencing a lot of variety.  

Read The Variety Masquerade.

You don’t have to introduce new foods to expose your kids to different tastes and textures. 

I’m going to say that again: You don’t have to introduce new foods.

You simply have to start examining the foods you offer from your kids' perspective, and then consciously rotate through foods based on flavor, texture, aroma, appearance and temperature. For instance, serve eggs for breakfast one day, cereal the following day, and yogurt smoothies the next.  Read House Building 101.

Remember, every time you feed your kids, you are:

• Training their taste buds.
• Teaching them how often to expect certain flavors.
• Shaping their ideas about what foods they should want to eat and when.

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~