I have received a lot of queries on Instagram about what my toddler eats. Starting this month I’m launching a series called “What my toddler eats in a week”. This way other mothers can get an idea of what to offer toddlers. There are very few blog posts and videos online about Indian weaning foods past the initial stage. Hope this series acts as an inspiration for your toddler meals.
Disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist, and this is not a portrayal of an ideal diet. Any dietary issues you may face with your child need to be consulted with a doctor and trained nutritionist.
We practice baby led weaning in our home. And I try my best to bring variety to my child’s meals taking all the information I have about food and nutrition into consideration.
We are still breastfeeding at 20 months and breastfeeding consists of 2-3 feeds in the day and 2-3 feeds in the night. I don’t give him any other milk daily, but I do make almond milk at home once or twice a month, and also switch between offering cows milk or goat’s milk from time to time. Its not a daily; “have one glass of milk” type of thing. He gets his nutrition primarily from breast milk and solid foods.
At present he eats 3 full meals and 2 snacks, but there are days he can have as many as 6-7 mini meals a day. I just go with the flow. Being baby led weaned, he eats family meals. But since he eats frequently I prepare many mini meals throughout the day to keep him fed. So the main meals are what we all eat together as a family and the rest are sometimes made especially for him.
I haven’t added pictures of every meal either because many times dinner is the same as lunch or because a hungry toddler didn’t give me enough time to set up the plate and click a picture. To keep it uniform I stuck to 4 pictures a day with detailed description of everything he ate in the day.
Let’s begin,
Monday
Breakfast: Started the week with oats pancake and two hard-boiled quail eggs
Snack 1: Bowl of muskmelon
Lunch: Dal, rice, capsicum sabzi, and a side of mushrooms sautéed in butter.
Snack 2: Sprouted jowar porridge. I simply soak the sprouted jowar in water for 15 minutes. Then cook in 1:2 proportion water and let it cook until the water is absorbed. Towards the end of cook time I add a teaspoon on ghee and cardamom powder.
Dinner: Was the same as lunch.
Tuesday
Breakfast: Pohe. My husband makes some yummy maharashtrian breakfast dishes. Pohe is one of his specialties. (Flattened rice savory breakfast dish)
Snack 1: Chikoo, My son loves fruits and chikoos are one of his favorites. He had 2 chikoos as a snack this day.
Lunch: Dal, rice, okra sabzi, boiled and grated beetroot salad.
Snack 2: Leftover pohe from breakfast, some oat balls, and raisins.
Dinner: Pasta dish. We usually add whatever vegetables are left over in the house. Today in the tomato sauce I added broccoli, onions, leftover green and yellow capsicums. Pasta is a hit with my son; we make pasta atleast once or sometimes even twice a week. Also, its super easy for me to quickly whip up a one-pot pasta meal for dinner. We use whole-wheat pasta.
Wednesday
Breakfast: Upma, Little A’s grandma was home and she made delicious upma.
Snack 1: Watermelon and Brazil nuts. Now the thing is, my son is obsessed with watermelon. As a mother I feel like he is only getting in tiny amounts of calories through this watery fruit. So I made a Brazil nut powder and served that too on the side. This way he is taking in some healthy fats along with the watermelon.
Lunch: Dal, rice, cabbage and okra sabzi.
Snack 2: 2 hard-boiled quail eggs and oranges.
Snack 3: Oats pancake with teaspoon of honey.
Dinner: Dal, rice, cabbage sabzi and grated beetroot salad.
Thursday
Breakfast: Pohe once again. Yes, we eat the same foods on repeat!
Snack 1: Chapatti, banana, chikoo. We use a wheat flour and ragi flour mix to make our chapatti. Ragi is a good source of iron. I spread almond butter on the chapatti.
Lunch: Chickpea curry and rice.
Snack 2: Watermelon and scrambled duck egg.
Dinner: Chickpea curry, rice and thalipeeth. In my post on baby led weaning breakfast ideas I mentioned my cheats version to having thalipeeth flour ready at home always. This helps me out on days when I am running out of ideas and I can quickly whip up a snack or a side like this for my son.
Friday
Breakfast: Idli and coconut chutney
Snack 1: Overnight oats; I add whatever is available at home to the oats in the night. This day I added, oats, almond milk, almond butter, chia seeds, banana, desiccated coconut and hemp seeds. This one is again one of my son’s absolute favorites.
Lunch: Dal, rice, cauliflower sabzi, grated beetroot salad.
Snack 2: Paneer (cottage cheese), potato patty.
Dinner: Dal, rice, sautéed mushrooms and steamed broccoli with a drizzle of olive oil. We ran out of the lunch vegetables. Hubby and I wanted to eat some take out, so I quickly made Little A some sautéed mushrooms and steamed broccoli to go along with his dal rice.
Saturday
Breakfast: Idli. He didn’t want any chutney with his idli. Toddler food choices are random; one day they enjoy eating one thing and the next day they don’t want to touch the same. We don’t fret over it, we just move on to planning the next meal and he usually forgets about his own specifications in the coming days. The key takeaway here is don’t stop preparing things because your toddler won’t eat, repeated exposure makes them get over their initial apprehensions.
Snack 1: Strawberries and some more plain idli’s!
Lunch: Dal, rice, dum aloo (baby potatoes) and spinach sabzi. He was ravenously hungry by this time and loved the dum aloo dish. Win for mommy!
Snack 2: Milkshake (goat’s milk, banana, cardamom powder, and saffron)
Dinner: Same as lunch.
Sunday
Breakfast: Dosa and chutney. So today with dosa he enjoyed dipping his chutney and eating it. This proves their choices vary every day.
Snack 1: Oats balls and raisins.
Lunch: Dal, rice, pumpkin sabzi
Snack 2: Uttapa and chutney, I used the dosa batter to make a thicker pancake called uttapa.
Snack 3: Coconut water and tender coconut meat.
Snack 4: Duck egg, chapatti with almond butter and chikoo
Dinner: Mushroom fried rice. There are days like this where he keeps asking for meals, so I make him many mini meals throughout the day.
If you want to take a look at some more snack ideas I use for my son you can check this post on how I get my child to eat healthy everyday for some recipes I shared.
Since I get a lot of questions about some of our baby led weaning equipment and pantry products, I have included a mini favorites list below:
Equipment:
Favorite Pantry Products:
We buy most of our organic staples like rice and dals from Amazon Pantry. The rest like eggs,milk, fresh fruits and vegetables we either buy organic from Nature’s Basket stores or local vendors.
I hope you found this post useful. If you have any specific queries or want to know more about products I use leave me a comment below.
For more food ideas for your child follow me on Instagram. I regularly upload pictures of what my son eats in a day.
For more recipes for toddlers 12-18 months
and what my toddler eats in a week, read here.
What a wonderful way of explaing what your toddler eats. A very well explained post. I really like it when moms prepare homemade food for their child.
Thankyou so much!
wonderful meal plan .. the pictures looks tempting.
This is so beautifully documented, and very reassuring for parents with younger children. On an aside, where’s the plate from? And does it bear up to regular washing?
Thankyou Akshaya, the plates are from a brand called Avanchy. You can find them on Amazon.in and Flipkart. I always used mild baby utensil detergent or Castile soap and wash by hand. This helped the bowls to last me more than 1 and half years. I just recently discarded one when it developed a crack. You need to handle them with care and they last well.
If that’s how the food looked, I am not sure my kid would be getting any. They look YUM.
haha, that has happened with me at times 😉
Baby led weaning is something that I wanna introduce for my little one. And this day-to-day food planner is something I got inspired here. And hey, loved those wooden plates and bowls.
Thankyou Nimmy. Hope it helps other moms too.
I loved it just one week of peek into your toddlers menu and i got so many ideas for mine…
Yay! that was the intention 🙂
This week planning idea was really wonderful. It’s surely a big help as we usually find it difficult what to cook and what to serve.
The pictures are so tempting. Definitely gave me a bunch of ideas. Thanks for sharing. BTW loved loved the plates
Wonderfully documented meal plans. Planning what to prepare for when makes half the task done! Of course the other half making a toddler eat is another story. But I am sure with such beautifully set up platters, even a kid won’t say to food!
Wow! These are great ideas and you are really making an effort to feed healthy yummy food to your toddler. I liked the fact that you are including oats, fruits, and vegetables regularly. Great and helpful ideas for moms with toddlers.
Yes Deepa I try my best to make things from scratch. Thankyou for your kind words.
First of all, hats of to your presentation skills. With pics the post seems so delicious and catchy. I love the ideas and would try them for my son. I find many options easy to make for my boy.
Thankyou Shipra, for your kind words.
Some great ideas. Healthy and delicious and I think the best thing is so much variety for the child
Yes, this way I stay motivated too! 🙂
I liked the way how you have put everything here in a blogpost.. really helpful for other mums.
Thank you for the detailed and well thought out post -so helpful and love the photos!
Thankyou Kamana.
Thanks for these ideas. I fall short of ideas about what to serve my toddler.
I know, its motivation for me too, to keep offering variety.
We love pasta too. Your meals look so yummy and full on nutritious. Thank you for giving more ideas.
Happy to help 🙂
I loved the way you have created this comprehensive meal plan for your child. I too try and include fruits in my kids’ daily routine. But yes am struggling with vegetables.
Thankyou Anupriya, consistency helps with creating good eating habits. So continue offering vegetables!
I really needed to see what people feed their little ones as a guide. Tge things you feed your baby look beautiful and so nutritious. I wish more parents would feed their children like this.
Thank you Carla, that’s my intention with the “what my toddler eats” series. Inspire other parents to serve some healthy meals to little ones.
Hi, I stumbled upon your blog via Pinterest. Love your post, nice pictures. I’m not Indian, but I like seeing the similarities… And differences… in our snacks and homemade foods. Thanks!