It is helpful and beneficial to meal plan for your family meals, but have you thought of meal planning for your toddler?
www.wholesometoddlerfood.com (the title is a link) has some excellent information about meal planning and some sample meal plans for your toddler. One very helpful hint from this website is to use a muffin pan to prepare toddler meals for the week-ie- fill muffin cups with fruit, vegetables, meats, cheeses, ect. that way you have a variety of food on hand and prepared in advance to ensure a wholesome week of eating. I find this particularly helpful because I know I am more prone to grab what is easy and put it on Ethan's tray- ie raisins, o's, string cheese... but this makes more vitamin fortified foods easy to serve.
Here are some ideas to fill up your muffin pan:
Fruits:
blueberries
grapes
kiwi*
prunes
apples*
banana*
peaches*
avocado*
pears*
raisins
Veggies:
carrots
spinach leaves
squash
broccoli
mushrooms
bell peppers
snow peas
sweet potatos*
Dairy:
yogurt
cheese
tofu
egg*
Meat/Protein:
chicken (cooked, obviously)
turkey (bake turkey breast, not deli meat)
lentils (cooked)
beans (cooked)
canned salmon
*Keep food item whole to prevent browning, or cut fruits in half- and definately keep the egg in it's shell!
Fill up your pan however you like and now you have easy snacks/meals for your toddler! I use those little colorful take and toss containers (by The First Years) to put the food in and then put the container in the pan. AND that way if you are going somewhere, you have an easy snack to grab! You can even keep a pan of pantry snacks (raisins, o's, etc...).
Your little one will benefit greatly from this extra step of planning and it will save you a little time and brain power!
