A few years ago, my mom pulled out a slip of paper with a list on it written in red ink. It had a ton of random food items on it, including red licorice, chocolate, strawberries, and root beer. Maybe it was a shopping list for a party? Nope. It was a list of everything my mom could remember me eating in one day because she had to take me to the pediatrician for some hives that popped up. When I saw this list, I remember being surprised for two reasons: 1. My mom has always been pretty cognizant of us eating healthfully and 2. Who would feed a toddler all that stuff??
Fast-forward a few years to me having two kids of my own, and suddenly it’s all become a lot more clear to me…toddler life is wild! My mom says she also thinks she was pregnant with my sister at the time and my dad was working a night shift, so she was probably just trying to survive the day with me as her toddler! Anyway, I was thinking about that list recently and thought that I should record everything my toddler eats in just one morning because sometimes it is so random. The thing to remember is that sometimes toddlers eat just one little bite — like little birds flitting from thing to thing — and sometimes they are being so picky you’re just glad to get a bite of something miscellaneous in them!
With that in mind, here’s everything my toddler ate before 9am one day:
- Mini muffin
- Handful of Golden Grahams
- Go-go squeeze yogurt pouch
- Milk
- Yogurt melts
- Cherry tomatoes diced because he saw them on the counter
Interesting, right?
My kid could have easily been going to the doctor for hives that day. Do you think he had enough dairy for one morning? And how about those cherry tomatoes? The thing is, when a toddler sees something they want to eat, they never give up until they get it. So yes, sometimes he has a couple of chocolate chips with his cereal or a cookie mid-morning. I don’t know that I would recommend it, but I just want you to know that if you’re hanging on by the seat of your pants through the toddler years, you are not alone!
