Healthy Diet for Toddlers

Toddlers - odd strange creatures in your life! Tantrums, spitting out food, banging doors? Normal. They going to grow out of it. But they never will grow out of bad food habits if you give in. Never!

Toddlers growing up to 10 cm a year. Perhaps more. They running all day, in holistic teaching the most important time to develop movement skills. So energy pur is needed to keep them well up. But as soon as you get your beloved little girl or boy out with other kids and people you are in trouble. Sugar and soft drinks seam to be the diet of lots of toddlers around the world. I call it food poisoning for toddlers. They need the best vitamins and minerals from organice food they can get, to become and stay healthy and strong. My son did not know sweat junk food until he first time played at a friends house and there was a bowl full of sweats. The little girl could just take as much as she wanted. Her mom than complained to me she has so much problems to get her eating at lunch or dinner time... No wonder if she was stuffed with all the sugar. She was pale, had dark eye rings, always having a running nose. Every time I met her. I tryed to explain her mother that the diet need to be urgent changed to improve her health. The mother said it was impossible. Everybody would just bring sweats and give it to her. If she would not get them she would scream and cry. Well. First, be striked. Do you want your child eat healthy and good or you don't really mind at all? Even when going to a house of a friend, tell your child it has to stick on its diet as at home. It works if you explain your child how important it is to eat well. Show other kids who are always sick to your child and tell that he or she would be sick too all the time. A great thing to keep of my son from sweats was to show him the bad teeth of other kids. He was always so proud of his wonderful teeth. Lots of people say to him he got wonderful teeth. Telling him that he would have broken teeth too if he does not eat his meals at lunch and dinner worked very well. I left it up to him many times to decide broken teeth or not. Finally he always eat up with any further argument!

Our diet for my son looks as following (always in variations, so he does not get borred):

Drinking: pure water, fresh juices without ice and sugar

Breakfast: Rye or Rice Bread, one egg in many different styles including fresh herbs, fresh fruits, Rice Pancakes with honey and fresh fruits (made without milk and sugar), Rice Porridge with fruits

Morning snack: Fresh Fruits (I make sure he gets every day bananas to balance the calcium we do not get from dairy products), Rice Crakers, Dried Fruits, Tempe Crakers, Sea Weed, Spirulina

Lunch: Red Rice, Rice Noodle, Fresh Vegetables (lots of green vegetables and carrotes), Vegetable Soups (homemade) (we got a special Pumking Fairy Soup (makes Fairies flying!!!)), Fish, Krupuk (vegetable not with shirmps or fish), Tempe

Afternoon Snack: Cooky (but low in Wheat, Sugar, best from a Health Food Store), Rice Cake, Cake (made from Rice Flower, low in sugar and with lots of fruits) each sweat food needs to be eaten with a Fresh Fruit to balance the sugar/vitamine level again or raw vegetables (in Bali a rujak without terazi would be ideal)

Dinner (very often my son skips this meal total, as he got all he needed during the day, I am not worried if he does not get a proper dinner. Sometimes just a raw carote is enough.): Rice, Rice Noodle, Salad, Vegetable

As you see, we stay away from wheat, sugar, milk and meat. Our meals are self made. No ready mixes and no artifical food. Sure from time to time, as we out of house, this diet is hard to keep, but at least we keep up with it as close as possible. I always give bonus for finishing the complete meal. Like reading a book, 4 pieces of a special sweat (small) or playing an extra 10 minutes after lunch. It works very well, if I keep very straigt on it. Means, no empty plate no bonus. Sometimes it was a big battle field on our table. But we went on, not giving up. Explaining to my son again and again how important it is to eat the Green Vegetables (Sajur Hijau). Sometimes half of the dish ended on the floor. Sometimes crying was involved. But... with 4 years now he is doing very well. He loves his vegetables. He eats his lunch without a problem. 2 weeks ago we went to a seminar for kids and many kids sitting there nippling out of candy bags. One girl offered a candy to my son. He looked at it, looked at her and shaked his head. I was very proud he understood that he has the choice already to say no. 5 minutes later he came to ask for a banana and I told him I was very proud he did not take the candy. He replied: "But mom, have you seen the girl's teeth??? Yaks, they all broken!"

I always eat the same as my son together with him. If I order something in a restaurant I order always the same for him too or we share what comes on the table. I show him, that I eat this food too. There are things he refueses. He clearly told me that he does not like mushrooms. Well, I weather cut them so small that he does not see them or so big, that he can get them out. It shows him again - I have the choice. Let your toddler win in little things, but make sure you are in charge of the diet not your tantrum toddler. Tantrums are terrible to take sometimes. But the less you react on them, the less your toddler uses them. If you give in at the first cry, you are lost. Your child will take over and you will never get him or her eating your way.

Toddler Diets these days are noodles, tomato sauces, snaks, instant meals, hamburgers, french frise, pizza and lots of milk products including their high levels of sugar. All comes out of plastic containers. For me this is no food anymore. It is chemical pur. And if you feel really gulity about vitamines you might add all these great vitamines or buy instant food with added vitamines. Do you really, really believe this is what your child should eat and drink? Do your really believe it will make your child healthy and strong for all the polution in this world? Looking at an increasing number of deseases, we have to overthink our food politics - especially the one for babies, toddlers and kids! If they don't eat and live healthy today how will they survive in the future?

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