Munchkin Meals at almost 16 Months

Every month I say I'm going to jump in with a Munchkin Meals post and every month I forget and don't do it, so this month I have made it a point to try and take pictures of some of Allie's meals so I could be ready to write this post.

Allie is a pretty good eater.  At least I think she is.  I would say she's sort of average.  She could be a little more adventurous, but I'm happy that she eats as many things as she does and glad that a lot of those things are fairly healthy things.

Allie is still allergic to cow's milk and eggs, but we have a "challenge" coming up with our allergist to pursue further testing on this, so we'll see what happens after that.  In the meantime, I'm lucky that she's not picky about alternate milks, she'll drink coconut, almond, soy, hemp, oat...  pretty much whatever I've tried and I prefer to mix it up since each have different pros and cons.

We are nearing the end of our nursing journey.  Allie has tapered way down with the duration of her sessions and I think we may be done with her night time one, and will only nurse in the morning for a couple minutes before scooting off my lap.  I'm thrilled with how long we've done it, and actually feel good about this gradual let go.  I don't think I could have done what a lot of people do and pick and end date, so I'm glad we've just kind of rolled with it as long as she had an interest and gradually let it go.  Honestly I think my milk supply is pretty close to dried up now so we are really nearing the end.

As far as what Allie eats, here's a glimpse:

Breakfast

Almost every day Allie eats baby oatmeal for breakfast.  I would actually be fine with breaking her out of this rut, but she seems to love it and since it's a healthy option that I can customize and mix up so many different ways, I've just been rolling with it.  What I usually do is mix either unsweetened apple sauce or mashed banana with coconut/almond or some form of non-cow's milk, and heat it, then mix in nut butter and the baby oatmeal.  While I'm prepping her oatmeal, Allie eats fruit, usually blueberries, strawberries, or banana, but sometimes something else. 

After breakfast on weekdays, Allie goes to daycare and ours actually has a cafeteria and a menu for the kids, so each week we get a copy of what they will get for a morning snack, lunch, and afternoon snack.  I look it over and sometimes I have to provide something else for Allie on days when they are having something with milk in it that she can't have, like mac and cheese or pizza.  It's not a big deal, I just send sunbutter/jelly sandwich or maybe a turkey and hummus sandwich, or coconut milk yogurt on days when the kids are being served regular yogurt as the snack.


Morning Snack

Allie's snack at daycare could be anything from yogurt, to dried cereal, to french toast.  I usually give her some type of morning snack on weekends as well.  I've had great success with smoothies lately when we're home together, so I'll keep doing that since she gets a serving of spinach in when I do that.  I like the combo of almond milk, banana, spinach, almond butter, chia seeds, coconut milk yogurt, and maybe blueberries or peaches (whatever I have).

Lunch

As mentioned, nutbutter (sunbutter when she goes to daycare since it's a nut free facility) and jelly sandwiches are a favorite.  Allie LOVES hummus, and will eat it on multi-grain crackers, bread, or straight out of a bowl with her fingers or a spoon.  Allie will eat most types of fruit, and usually likes peas, squash, corn, carrots and sweet potato.  I usually just try to feed her a protein, a carb/grain, and fruit/veg.  She likes deli turkey, so I'll get the Applegate Farms or Boar's Head for her, and she usually likes rotissie chicken, so that's sometimes a lunch option too, although, dinner more often.  She is hit or miss with pasta.  I find that she likes the Target Giada DeLaurentis tomato basil sauce (it's so good), but won't usually eat pasta with any other type of sauce.  I usually try sneak some cooked zuchinni in with her pasta and she will usually eat it.

Daycare picnic lunch of turkey sandwich, pears, and potato wedges.

Afternoon snack

Similar to the morning snack options, sometimes a pouch if we're out somewhere.

Dinner

Peas grown in my mom's garden and a grilled hummus sandwich on whole grain bread.

For dinner I feed Allie similar things to lunch.  I rotate through the same kinds of things mentioned in the lunch post.  Proteins like hummus, chicken, turkey.  Another thing I've had success with is the Morning Star "fake" chicken patties.  I sometimes use those as a quick protein. 

Handful of puffs (started with while waiting for me to get food on the tray), peas, diced chicken (she also had unpictured hummus and crackers).

Allie LOVES bread and will eat regular slices of whole grain bread, toast, or pizza crust.  She also loves tortillas, so sometimes I'll do a tortilla wrap with hummus and turkey too.  I sometimes do roasted sweet potatoes and those are hit or miss (!? come on kid, sweet potato is awesome!!).  I wish I could get Allie into more types of beans as a protein option, but she usually won't touch them.  I did once get her to eat a little refried bean on tortilla, but it's a rare thing.  She also has zero interest in red meat or fish.  I've successfully fed her pork a handful of times, but recently, no dice.

Strawberries, sweet potato, PB and J bites...

Dessert/treats

Eating a coconut milk ice cream cone- messy!

Allie likes coconut milk ice cream, so we'll do that occasionally.  She also likes cookies and knows where they are in the pantry and will sometimes go to that area and point to them.  I'll give her one or two and usually at least part of one gets fed to Clyde.  She also likes Cool Whip, and recently I found an alternative that looks slightly less chemical-laden (called TruWhip), so I sometimes will give her some with some berries as a treat.  I also found that she likes munching a big graham cracker when in the stroller, which helps keep her distracted when we go for walks.  Otherwise it can be a battle to keep her contained now that she's so into walking.

Despite all the good the good eating Allie does, she's about 3rd percentile for weight, which sometimes worries me.  I try to sneak healthy fat in where I can, like drizzling olive oil on veggies, adding nut butter to oatmeal, toast, smoothies, etc... but she is still pretty much a peanut.  If you guys have ideas of things to try, I'm all ears.  I know we're missing out on a big source of potential fat by her not being able to eat milk products and eggs.

Anyway, it was fun sharing!