Foods for Toddlers

What are the best breakfast foods for toddlers that are doable for a busy, working parent? We all know that the best food is home-made food, cooked from scratch with nutritious, fresh ingredients. We’d like to make home made wheat pancakes for our munchkin, bake up an omelet pie, or cook up a pot of old-fashioned oatmeal porridge with fresh apples and blueberries mixed in.  But we can’t all do that every day. There’s work, and there are a thousand other obligations besides playing toddler cook. So are there convenience breakfast treats for toddlers that aren’t jam packed full of preservatives and actually have the nutrition our little people needneed?

Your checklist to go through when shopping for breakfast foods for toddlers:

• Is this nutritious?
• Is this low-sugar?
• Is this something my child will enjoy?

Winter Breakfast Foods for Toddlers

If you can take all of two minutes out in the morning to mix up a hot breakfast for your toddler, why not do it?  No, you don’t have time to get out the pans and cook a pot of old-fashioned porridge on the stove top, but that doesn’t mean your toddler needs to go without a stick-to-the-guts hot breakfast before he goes out into the chilly world. Get a package of toddler cereal, like Nestle Nestum3 Cereals: a ready-to-mix blend of wheat, corn, and rice, heat up a bit of milk in the microwave, dump in the cereal, mix, and your toddler is all set to go. It’s not much more time then you’d spend dishing out his frosted flakes.

If you’d like to go organic, a similar cereal with identically easy preparation is Earth’s Best Whole Grain Cereal, with Oats, Spelt, and Barley.  This cereal may be a little healthier than the Nestle brand; it will certainly have a more whole-grain flavor, which your child may enjoy. 

Summer Breakfast Foods for Toddlers

In summertime, there’s nothing wrong with a breakfast of cold cereal and milk—at least, if the cereal you choose is a healthy one!  Just skip the frosted flakes and sweet, bright colored cereals—they’ll mess with your child’s blood sugar levels and keep him from being his best throughout the morning. Instead, choose something that is whole grain and has minimal added sugar. Two good choices for summer breakfast foods fit for kids are:

• Kellogs Cornflakes: Why add sugar when you’ve got such a full flavored, sweet tasting grain already? In good old fashioned corn flakes the corn flavor comes out beautifully, and these crispy flakes are wonderful with milk. If your toddler hasn’t been spoiled by sweet cereal, he’s guaranteed to love them. If he has, he’ll just need a little time to adjust his taste buds. 

• Another delicious no-nonsense cereal is basic Cheerios: whole grain oats in the O shape all toddlers enjoy. Paired with milk and maybe some fresh fruit, this cereal makes a nutritious, balanced, breakfast, and you can put some little o’s in a Tupperware container for a snack-on-the-go later on; a perfect finger food to help develop fine motor skills. 

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