Toddler nutrition

One of the biggest changes that happens when your baby turns one is that growth slows down. When this happens, you may see a reduction in appetite as not as much is needed to fuel the previous rapid growth.

Many parents worry at this stage that their baby has become fussy if meals are no longer being finished. You may also see a lean towards eating favourites off of the plate and not finishing everything else, which is very normal – babies eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full. If their body is saying, don’t eat as much of this food, they will eat the things they like first and simply stop when they are satisfied.

As long as your baby is satisfied after meals, and they carry on growing well you don’t need to worry.

A very normal part of development for many toddlers is fussy eating. It probably doesn’t make it any less frustrating for you, but hopefully helps you feel a little less isolated to know that up to 40% of children go through this phase and around 25% of children refuse at least one food every single day.

There are many reasons why fussy eating happens, and there is lots you can do work through it. The first thing for you to know is that YOU are not responsible. You haven’t caused it. If you are holding onto guilt and self-blame, we’d love you to start letting go of that.

You may find that as your little one becomes more aware of others around them, and they become more inquisitive, that they start to become more interested in eating high sugar foods that other children are having. Don’t be alarmed if there is a sudden desire to eat those kinds of foods more regularly.

The best thing you can do is to keep a neutral attitude towards these foods; be aware that too much may lead to increased weight gain and can damage the teeth, but also that sugar is not in itself harmful.

Regularly offering very small amounts of foods like biscuits, cake, chocolate or ice cream alongside other foods will help to make them less exciting and means your child is less likely to develop an obsession.

It is still important to keep the salt content of your child’s diet low. If like lots of parents you’ve found yourself being a bit more relaxed about foods like crisps or you are using lots of jarred sauces or flavourings in cooking, try to look for lower salt varieties or give smaller portions of these foods alongside some cooked vegetables or fruit to lower the overall salt content of a meal.

Although it might not feel completely relevant to nutrition, physical activity is very much part of the picture and the two are linked with each other. Laying down the foundations of being physically active is really important during toddlerhood because this is a time where children are learning so many skills – motor skills, balance, coordination and other skills related to the body. Beyond that though, being involved in active play is how children learn many of their social skills too.

There’s lots of research¹ to show that toddlers that are doing lots of active play tend to grow into older children that continue to be active; so it’s worth getting your little one moving as much as possible as it means they’re more likely to continue it when they get older.

In the UK only 9% of 2-4 year olds are doing the recommended 180 minutes of active play each day, which is really very low! What counts as active play? Anything play- based that uses the large muscles in the body, so things like running, catching, skipping and jumping.