Thursday, March 26, 2009

Infant nutrition planning

As a personal trainer and health and fitness fanatic, it's very important to me that I teach my children good eating habits from the get go. Portion control, healthy food choices, and balance are things that I think about when preparing meals. Over the years of making meals for Logan, I discovered why there are so many obese children today. Most parents don't have a clue what to feed their kids and the information is not easily found. Not to mention, most adults have no idea what to eat themselves, and here we are in this cycle of Fat America - a true case of the blind leading the blind.

When Carter began eating solids, I looked for my meal planning notes that I made for Logan. It turns out that I lost 2 months (6 and 7) and had to figure it all out again. It's not that difficult for me since I do this for a living, but it made me wonder what other parents who don't have any education in nutrition do. I think most people just put whatever food in front of their kids and really don't think much about it. I decided that I'm going to post my infant nutrition plans, not only to make it easier for me to reference to, but for those parents out there who would like to help their kids get a good start in healthy eating.

The most user-friendly reference on portion sizes that I've found was on Baby Center. I also use Wholesome Baby Food for meal ideas and age appropriate time tables of food introduction. I've found that the portion size recommendations have changed over the last couple of years, so these aren't the same plans that Logan had. There's more food than before, which is interesting. I also stopped portion sizes at 10 months when Logan started feeding himself because more food ended up on the floor than in his mouth.


6-7 Months
Breakfast: 2 TBS cereal, 2 TBS fruit
Lunch: 1 TBS cereal, 2 TBS fruit
Dinner: 4 TBS vegetable

7-8 Months
Breakfast: 3 TBS cereal, 3 TBS fruit
Lunch: 3 TBS cereal, 3 TBS fruit, 3 TBS vegetable
Snack: 2 TBS cereal, 2 TBS fruit
Dinner: 5 TBS vegetable

8-9 Months
Breakfast: 2 TBS cereal, 2 TBS fruit, 1 TBS protein, 1 TBS dairy
Lunch: 2 TBS cereal, 1 TBS fruit, 1 TBS vegetable, 1 TBS dairy
Snack: 1 TBS fruit, 1 TBS vegetable, 1 TBS dairy
Dinner: 2 TBS vegetable, 1 TBS protein, 1 TBS dairy

9-10 Months
Breakfast: 4 TBS cereal, 4 TBS fruit, 1 TBS protein, 1 TBS dairy
Lunch: 3 TBS cereal, 2 TBS fruit, 2 TBS vegetable, 1 TBS dairy
Snack: 1 TBS cereal, 2 TBS fruit, 2 TBS vegetable, 1 TBS dairy
Dinner: 4 TBS vegetable, 3 TBS protein, 2 TBS dairy

1 comment:

Wendy said...

I remember you posting a little about this once before when Lani was younger. You would DIE if you saw her diet:( The girl is so dang picky! Right now it's pretty much cereal, soymilk, peanut butter sandwiches, and soy yogurt. She will eat fruit so that's a plus. LOL!!