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Portion Sizes For Toddlers To Help Parents When Feeding Children

portion sizes for toddlers

Understanding nutrition and food groups is important when you’re raising small children. 

Just as important, however, is understanding how much food intake a toddler should be expected to have during each meal. 

Portion sizes for toddlers, or serving sizes, are not the same as what is printed on a food box or packaging. Learning an appropriate serving size for a toddler is beneficial for many reasons.

In this article, we’ll discuss why portion sizes matter for toddlers. 

We’ll also discuss what those portion sizes, or a serving size for a toddler, should be so that a balanced meal can be enjoyed and all of the benefits of the nutrition offered at each meal are obtained.

Why learn toddler portion sizes?

When it comes to how much kids consume in one sitting, toddlers eat differently than older children. 

The amount of food your child consumes at each of the three meals you offer throughout a day will vary according to age, body type, growth spurts, and more.

It may make parents wonder why it matters how much food you put on the plate for your little one if no two toddlers are the same, and the amount of food you give them will change in a few weeks or a month anyway.

Read on to better understand the benefits of learning appropriate portion sizes for a small child.

1. It helps eliminate or reduce food waste

If your child will be eating familiar food, that’s one thing. You may know your toddler loves spaghetti, so the starter portions you give them may contain more food than new foods you’re unsure of.

Smaller portions are a great way to start if you serve other foods outside of what your child is used to. This will help to eliminate wasting food.

2. It teaches a well-balanced plate

Picky eaters look at the portion size of their plate and zero in on that one food they like most, eat it, and then stare at the foods they don’t, as though you’ve made a mountain of yuck that they’re being forced to eat.

When it comes to serving sizes for toddlers, keeping the portion size small means that it’s more likely that your child will consume enough calories, even when they don’t care for the foods on the plate, because it doesn’t look as overwhelming.

You can always give seconds helpings or add more solid meat to the plate after your toddler has eaten the small starter portion of green beans they don’t love.

Keeping serving sizes small on a toddler plate means that other foods may be more readily and willingly eaten, not just the foods they like.

3. It can be easier to introduce a new food

A few tablespoons of new food on a plate looks less intimidating than larger portions of foods you know your toddler loves.

When you want your child to try and eat new foods, keeping serving sizes small can help your little one feel more comfortable digging in.

portion sizes for toddlers

Why portion control doesn’t work

Many of us grew up in households that meant well and wanted us to grow strong and stay healthy, so the serving size was big, and we were told we had to clean our plates.

Our parents likely meant no harm, but as a result, many of us may have grown up with not-so-wonderful relationships with food and eating.

Keeping serving sizes in mind when serving children, meals are meant to be used as a starting point. They are not meant to be used as a means of control. 

When we start to control portion sizes too much, we obsess, leading to anxiety in a child and causing many issues that will follow a child into adulthood.

1. They’re just guidelines

Serving sizes are guidelines we can use when figuring out if we are over or under-feeding our little ones. It can help us answer the question: Should I give my two-year-old one slice of bread as a starch with dinner, or are the potatoes enough, and what serving sizes should I start with on the protein?

Some kids eat one meal better than another throughout the day, while others pick at food during meal times but still manage to stave off hunger.

Many parents have the best intentions, but the rule of thumb regarding overall food intake for a meal is that as long as the child is eating something and true hunger has subsided, then it’s okay.

Recommended serving sizes are precisely that: recommendations. Not rules. Not laws. Not something to enforce.

2. Toddlers don’t starve themselves

When it comes to your toddler, you can trust their hunger cues. Believe it or not, there aren’t toddlers out there who are going on intentional hunger strikes.

Worrying that your little one isn’t eating enough is okay because they’re easily distracted. Worrying that your child will only eat one type of food and isn’t getting enough whole grains or vegetables is okay. 

But your toddler won’t starve themselves.

Older children and teens who have a terrible relationship with food and have been shown by example that using food as a weapon and eating or not eating are ways to show unhappiness may choose not to eat to prove a point, but a toddler won’t do that.

A toddler will use cues to tell you they want to eat. Trust your little ones when they say they are hungry at this age.

Portion sizes for toddlers

It can be challenging to break out of the mindset you had to develop when your little one was a baby. Each bit of food they were fed had to be carefully measured out, as well as scheduled.

You start with breast milk or formula, give two ounces, then four, and so on. When you get to the toddler stage, it can feel like a free-for-all, and you have to figure out how much food to give at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Portion vs. serving sizes

Portion sizes and serving sizes are not the same thing. 

While you can call each of them whatever you want, when it comes to the actual definitions, portion sizes refer to how much any one person chooses to consume. In contrast, serving sizes refer to a measured out and calculated amount of food.

A great example is the following:

If you want your child to eat black beans but you have never served them before, you may want to check the recommended serving sizes for toddlers. It may tell you that you should offer a third of a cup. 

That’s a serving size. It has to be measured and calculated.

However, let’s say your family eats these same beans regularly, and you know your kids love them. You may give them as many as you know they would typically eat, while you may only give one ounce or so of meat because your toddler has never tried it before.

portion sizes for toddlers

Recommended serving sizes for various foods

If you simply want to get ideas on how to move to the next phase from formula or breast milk, but you don’t want to waste a lot of food or make your kids feel like you are forcing them to overeat, the following information is a great way to see a guide that can steer you in the direction:

Protein

Try to give your kids two servings of protein per day. This means that they can be eating any of the following:

  • 1 ounce of meat
  • 1 ounce of fish
  • Half an egg
  • Two tablespoons of cooked beans
  • Two tablespoons of hummus
  • Two tablespoons of tofu
  • One tablespoon of nut butter

Grains

Try to give your kids around six servings of grains per day. This means that they can be eating any of the following:

  • Half a slice of bread
  • One-third cup of pasta
  • A quarter cup of cereal
  • Half a muffin or bagel

Dairy

If your kiddo can eat dairy products and has no issues with lactose intolerance, you should do your best to give your kids two to three servings per day. This can include the following:

  • Half a cup of milk
  • Half an ounce of cheese
  • One-third cup of yogurt or cottage cheese

Note

A little one from twelve months to two years old should drink whole milk rather than skim or low-fat milk. The fat is good for them, as is the calcium and the Vitamin D.

Fruits and Vegetables

Fruits and veggies are delicious. You should do your best to offer two or three servings per day. 

However, remember that sugar-laden fruit juice, fruit-flavored snacks, or fruit with sugar on top is not beneficial.

Many fruits are also packed with natural sugars. Any of the following counts as one serving of fruits and veggies:

  • One tablespoon of veggies for each year of age
  • Half a cup of fruit or vegetables
  • A quarter cup of fruit juice
  • Two tablespoons of dried fruits

How much food to give your kids

Portion sizes and serving sizes are not anything but guidelines. They are a great place to start when you feed your little one a snack or serve them solid foods for the first time.

Give yourself some grace and realize that feeding your little ones the right amount means understanding your child, not measuring what you serve. When your little one is hungry, feed them. 

There’s not much else you need to worry about. Fed is best. Always.

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