Toddler Trail Mix for Trips or Regular Noshing

Traveling with and feeding your toddler has it’s challenges. Food is one of the big challenges, as the toddler is less likely to eat what the rest of the family eats during car trips of any length.

Being prepared with snack foods for feeding a toddler will solve some potential frustration for parent and toddler.Trail mix that is premade or that is put together by you and your toddler is easy, neat and offers the variety that will entice the picky palate of your toddler.

Most stores have quality trail mixes premade that contain dried fruits (pineapple, raisins, mango, etc.) and nuts (almonds, pecans, peanuts, etc.) Some trail mixes even have sesame sticks or some baked crunches to add texture.

Gabrielle and I make a trail mix that she likes and actually eats. She enjoys dried mango pieces, sesame sticks, small pretzels, nuts.

The taste and color variations make feeding your toddler easier because they prefer a smorgus board of shapes, colors, tastes, and textures.

Feeding toddlers on the road, at the amusement park, or just a trip to the mall is less stressful when your toddler has desirable.

Giving Your Toddler Ice Cream for Lunch?

Its Hot, Hot, Hot outside in July. Your toddler’s appetite is at an all time low because of the endless heat. My daughter comes inside from playing for just a few minutes and her beautiful long hair is matted to her head.

At lunch time, I try to get this toddler eating, so she can take a cool nap. She’s cross with the heat and not hungry. I know she isn’t going to nap well on an empty stomach.

Magic is required to get some nutrition into my finicky toddler. I ask if she wants some ice cream and her little eyes light up a bit but she’s not sure.

I get the frozen vanilla yogurt out and put some in her favorite bowl with a few bits of fresh peach. I let her sprinkle some granola cereal on top and she is not interested in trying her peachy cooler.

As a nutrition conscious mom, this is not a typical lunch, but extraordinary measures are needed sometimes to get hard to feed toddlers to eat in the heat. Their little bodies need calories for toddler growth spurts.

I am careful to buy frozen yogurt that has a higher protein content and added calcium. It also supplies live active cultures of L. acidopihilus, Bifidobacteriumor and or other probiotic bacteria. These probiotics are important for maintaining intestinal flora and also aides the immune system. It might even help with toddler constipation.

So, feel free to give in and offer frozen yogurt when feeding a toddler, it actually packs a fair nutritional wallop. It is as good as feeding you toddler milk. And you precious finicky eater will rest well during that warm summer afternoon nap because, like milk, it also has tryptophan will help you toddler sleep.

You might even want to partake of a bit of the peachy cooler while feeding your toddler for the health benefits, especially if you are breastfeeding.

Chill out mom, its summer.

Ravioli, Spaghetti O’s, & Gummy Bears, Oh My!

We at GotBreastPump.com recognize that a Mom faces an awesome responsibility for feeding your child, regardless of age. We also know from experience, that as you baby begins weaning from breast or bottle, the battle of wills. It is pretty normal for toddler age children, as early as 18 months or younger, to start exercising their ability to choose what they do and do not want to eat.

Doing research for this set of blogs about toddlers being picky eaters, we read about many mothers who were distressed, panicked, when their 3-year-old toddler ate nothing but chocolate. Another mother of a toddler, 2-years-old, ate only ravioli, cheese sandwiches, pasta and tomato sauce. This mother also had concerns about her toddler’s problem with constipation.

Pediatricians say that at this age of development, the rate of growth, and therefore the calorie requirements normally decrease and with this there is a fall-off in appetite. This often causes great anxiety to the parents who believe their child will starve her/himself to death. He/she won't.

Some solid advice comes from Ellyn Satter, a dietician and prolific author of books about childhood nutrition. In one article, Ellyn affirmed that feeding requires a division of responsibility. Parents are responsible for what, when, and where of feeding. Children are responsible for the how much and whether of eating…

Such sage advice, but even that may still not be the Yellow Brick Road to solving the challenge of feeding that finicky toddler.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow, toddlers will grow into strong healthy adolescents who will most likely eat you out of house and home and you will only be able to reminisce about the days when your child was a picky eater of food.

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Stand off at the Ok Corral (feeding your picky toddler)

When you set nutritious food in front of your toddler, does your toddler pull the trigger of tears or do they stampede out of the room, only to come back 10 minutes later asking for a cookie?

Feeding habits of toddlers can vary dramatically.

For the busy mom, the challenge of feeding a picky eater can be unnerving at best, heart wrenching at worst. Moms apply a hat full of tricks to entice that picky toddler to eat something, anything.

Yes, it's frustrating. Yes, you worry about your toddler getting enough calories and nutrition. But, did you know that it is a normal phase of development for 2 to 4 year olds?

So, don't let guilt and fear rule this declaration of independence by your toddler. Let's find some ways to solve the feeding jam ( pun intended) together here at GotBreastPump.com.

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