Balanced Toddler Nutrition: Your Guide to Feeding Milestones

Raising a child isn’t a race, but it can include a lot of hurdles.One of them is balancing your toddler’s diet, or what some call the “food fight.” It’s that stage where your little one begins to transition from bottle-feeding and baby food to toddler-sized table foods.

It’s an exciting and satisfying time for you and your baby,but it’s also a learning experience that could present new worries for you.Like, what do you do if he’s a picky eater? What if he’s not growing like some other kids? Will the food sensitivity or allergy he had as a baby set back his growth and development in toddlerhood? 

The following nutrition information can help you work through and guide your older baby’s transition to solid foods in a way that helps make sure he gets more of what’s right,with less fight.

Each baby’s food journey is different, but you can usually introduce pureed baby food to your little one at about 6 months of age. He will let you know how much he wants to eat, as well as his likes and dislikes. The amount he eats will vary day-to-day, too. 

For the most part, breast milk or formula is a baby’s main source of nutrition through 12 months of age. Between 6 months and a year, you can start to introduce solid foods. Start slowly and in stages to let your baby get used to the new tastes and textures of different kinds of finger and table foods. Find more info on starting solid foods.

It’s a good idea to check with your doctor to identify the right time to start giving your baby solid foods. Once you do start, it’s important that you watch carefully for signs of food allergies.

To introduce solid foods that not only taste good but are also good for him, patience and persistence are key. Continue to offer your baby fruits and vegetables at every meal, as well as at snack time. Remember this later, as it’s also true for children who are 1 year old and beyond! 

It’s common to need to offer a 9 month old a new food many times—around 10, in fact—before he’ll accept it.

Most likely, at age 1, your baby will be eating on your family’s schedule, with three meals a day and two or three planned snacks. He will be transitioning to table foods, which is exciting, but he won’t like everything you give him. It can be tricky when toddlers are only interested in a limited variety of foods.  

During this transition, you’ll again need to be patient yet persistent. Eat together as a family, and let your baby enjoy the messy freedom of feeding himself. When you introduce a new food to your child, you may have to serve him small portions many times before he will eat it.  

His like for a new food will develop, so keep serving it with a smile. As you take the time to get new foods to go down, you can help keep your child’s diet balanced with Go & Grow by Similac^®. It’s a drink made to complement a toddler’s nutrition, with 25 key nutrients to help balance your child’s diet. 

If your infant experienced food sensitivity issues and was on a sensitive formula, you might be even more concerned about the transition to real foods. This can be more of an issue for babies with lactose sensitivity as they transition away from formula or breast milk to whole milk.  

As you begin adding new foods to your baby’s diet and consider supplementing his nutrition, you might want to try Go & Grow by Similac^® Sensitive NON-GMO^* with 2’-FL HMO. You can learn more about introducing new foods specific to babies with sensitivities in our Toddler Allergy article.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a baby be weaned between 12 and 15 months of age and no longer be bottle feeding by the time he’s 18 months old. This is when table foods will become the primary food for your little one, which might make you worry about your toddler getting the complete nutrition that was once provided by breast milk and/or formula.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that you give your weaned toddler whole milk from a sippy cup in four 4-fl-oz servings per day—up to 24 fl oz a day. Skim milk is not recommended. 

You can step up his nutrient intake while he transitions to table foods with Go & Grow by Similac. Unlike cow’s milk, two 4-fl-oz servings of Go & Grow by Similac have at least 40% of a toddler’s recommended Daily Value^† of key nutrients, like: 

• Iron 
• Vitamins C & E
• Calcium and vitamin D

These key nutrients—in addition to lutein and DHA, an essential fatty acid—help support your child’s brain, eye, and physical development.  

There are other ways to help make sure your little one isn’t short-changed on nutrition while he transitions to “adult” food:

• Give him new foods at the start of each meal, when he’ll be most hungry
• Create snack times using the same kinds of foods you serve at mealtimes 
• Make snack time fun with finger foods that are nutritious

At this stage, a toddler has become a part of the grown-up’s table and is eating a broader range of table foods. The bright yellows, reds, oranges, and greens of healthy fruits and vegetables are becoming his favorite mealtime colors. If only the appetite of a 2 year old was so predictable, right? 

In the real world, your toddler’s appetite could change by the day, and not always for the better. Like you, they’ll often want to eat the same foods repeatedly. This is normal. 

• What’s important is that you support healthy eating habits by providing him the wide variety of foods needed for optimal brain and eye development and immune support. If you find this easier said than done, here are some tips to try : Stick with your feeding schedule of three meals per day, along with snacks. If your toddler refuses food at one meal, he will probably make up for it at the next. Fighting him won’t help.
• Keep your toddler’s food portion sizes at about 1/4 of an adult serving.
• Offer him foods in a variety of colors, textures, and flavors. Toddlers need a range of colorful foods from all food groups to meet their nutrition needs. 

An example of an average toddler-sized meal has 2-3 tbsp of beans, 1-2 tbsp of vegetables, 1-2 tbsp of fruit and ¼ a piece of bread.¹

If your child struggles with eating enough colorful foods like green broccoli, yellow or red peppers, and orange sweet potatoes, Go & Grow by Similac can help supply key nutrients to support development and balance his diet. It has many of the nutrients supplied by whole vegetables and fruits, including protein and brain- and eye-nourishing nutrients DHA, lutein, and vitamin E. 

Get more information or purchase Go & Grow by Similac^® Toddler Drink. 

^*  Ingredients not genetically engineered. 
^† Percent daily value for 1-to-3-year-olds .

Sources: American Academy of Pediatrics. Serving sizes for toddlers. Updated March 7, 2016. Accessed January 17, 2020. https://healthychildren.org/english/ages-stages/toddler/nutrition/Pages/serving-sizes-for-toddlers.aspx