Post Punk Kitchen Forum

What do you all feed your toddlers or babies for breakfast? We are stuck in a cheerios rut and I don't like how they don't really seem to stick to his ribs......

You all have the most creative ideas, I would love to hear them!

We did a lot of oatmeal plus stuff... Plain ol oats, hot water, and some mix ins. Nut butter plus a healthier jam is always a nice combo. If you make it pretty thick (like a 1:1 water:oats ratio) they can't make too much of a mess with it.

Whole grain toast + any type of spread (avocado, nut butter, hummus, earth balance & nooch, pesto, whatever!!) has always been super popular in my house too.

I reallly, really want to do oatmeal. I would be so happy to see him eating oatmeal every morning with nut butters and fruit mixed in. I am just so nervous that he won't eat it. Why does this make me nervous? I don't know. He won't starve himself....I guess it is a mother thing.

Yeah, I make the boy toast every morning, with earth balance and nooch.

I have an 18 month old. Every morning I put in front of him bread with something (nut butter, avocado, tahini) and some kind of fruit. He was on a banana kick for a long long time, but this week it's been watermelon. Some days he eats the bread, some days he doesn't. When he's only had fruit for breakfast, I just try to make sure he has a good snack mid morning, like soy yogurt or tofu cubes or something. He likes smoothies, too, so occasionally we do those for breakfast or snack. I put yogurt and almond butter and frozen kale in them. One thing that worked for a while, until he got bored: I got some mini-waffles and spread peanut butter and whatnot on them; you can really fit a lot of spread into those little pockets in the waffles.

I also wanted to add: get a bread that has some protein. I like the quinoa bread from trader joes's, each slice has 3.5 grams of protein and it's pretty high calorie, so even if all he eats is plain bread I know he's getting some good stuff.

Thanks for the ideas guys!

Mittenmacher, I get the sprouted grain complete protein bread at Trader Joes, I think it is 5 g per slab. Great ideas about waffles.

coldandsleepy, how do you make your oatmeal for your baby? Just how you would make it for yourself with the rolled oats?

I'm pretty lucky, my son happily eats his oatmeal every single morning. (He's 20 months now) I guess he doesn't get bored of it because I get those pouches of fruit and mix that in, varying the flavor from day to day. I still use the organic baby oatmeal in the box (Earth's Best) because it is so easy, and its fortified with iron. No cooking necessary - I just mix it with some water to make the oatmeal, then stir in some kind of fruit.

I'm doing basically the same things for my 15 month old. Toast with peanut or almond butter, bananas, oatmeal with flax oil and applesauce mixed in, fruit smoothies with rice protein, other various fruit chunks. If I'm eating a bagel with tofutti cream cheese, he hogs half of it :)

Oh and I forgot to mention pancakes. We almost always make pancakes on Sundays and he looooooves them.

He had his first bagel last week too and was a big fan. We occasionally give him some of our hash browns too, which he really likes, but I try not to do that too often since it isn't very healthy.

Oh, so the big thing about breakfast (and meals in general in our house) is that I never make him anything I'm not eating too. So if he doesn't eat his oatmeal, I don't really care, I was making it for myself anyway. (I don't exactly "cook" the oatmeal either-- I just pour boiling water from the electric kettle on them and then cover it up with a plate for like five minutes.) I am way too lazy to cook anything JUST for my kid.

Oatmeal is a hit here too. We like to stir nut butters in and put dried fruit and flax or chia seeds in it. Muesli (Bob's Red Mill) is another good option if you've introduced chopped nuts yet. Pancakes take time but if you freeze them, they can be a great quick breakfast. Muffins are another good idea. You can freeze those too, plus you can sneak in fruits and veggies.

I love you.

Whoo hoo! I'm the good parent!!!

We do basically the same thing (well she's now 23 months, but we've been doing this since her first birthday). Quick oats + water/soy milk/almond milk + fruit. I buy frozen fruit and chop or puree it. She likes choosing what fruit she gets each morning. Blueberries are great, because if she doesn't want to eat, she'll start picking them out and eventually eat the whole thing. I'll also make steel cut oats in advance with lots of fruit and flax mixed in. It keeps really well in the fridge for a few days.

Besides that we do toast with peanut butter, cheerios (now with milk, but you can give them dry), and pancakes with applesauce for dipping.