Typical Daily Diet for One Year Old

Here is what my 18 month old typically eats:
Breakfast is french toast sticks, waffles or dry cereal with strawberry milk(he won't drink it plain so I add just enough syrup to make it taste different) snack might be pretzels, raisins, or maybe a Nutri Grain bar. Lunch might be ravioli, lunch meat and cheese, with some fruit. After his nap he might eat oyster crackers, dry cereal, or more raisins. Dinner is whatever I make and he usually eats it, although sometimes he just eats the veggies and a few bites of meat and thats it. Bedtime snack might be more fruit, pretzels, fruit snacks. (My 18 month olkd has almost a full set of teeth, so he can chew anything I give him)

FEED ME I'M YOURS by Lansky

A 1 year old should be eating pretty much anything and everything older kids and adult are eating. A wide variety of healthy food is essential. My youngest is 11 months and currently eating whatever the rest of the family is eating. So a typical day is...

nursing for 10-15 minutes when she wakes up
Breakfast is bowl of oatmeal and fresh fruit (bananas, peaches, nectaries are her favorite) or scrambled eggs with toast or french toast or pancakes or cold cereal like Mighty Bites, Cheerios, Alpha-Bits, etc.
Lunch is cheese, turkey and crackers with fruit or leftovers from the night before or grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup... the options are pretty endless with lunch and dinner.
Dinner is, again, whatever we have.... we have chicken alot (she has no teeth yet so I cook until very tender and shred it for her), a wide variety of veggies (cooked/steamed until soft), any type of pasta with sauce, etc.
Snacks tend to be things like dry cereal, pretzals, gold fish crackers, fresh fruit, steamed veggies or toast.

She nurses before her afternoon nap and again when she wakes up (long 3 hour nap). She also nurses before bedtime (start of bedtime routine) and upon waking in the morning. She drinks water from a sippy cup at meals and has a sippy cup of water nearby throughout the day so she can drink when she gets hot/thirsty.

She's doing what we did with our other kids and they are very healthy and thriving in grade school -- no allergies or anything like that. None of my kids have gotten a tooth before they turned 1. It's not overly common but it's not unusual, either. It certainly has no affect on what they eat since babies don't chew with their front/first teeth anyways... they can gum pretty much anything.

I followed the academy of pediatrics guidelines for serving sizes for one year olds- I found the advice very helpful when knowing how much to give my daughter- (basically 1 tablespoon of each food group for a 1 year old is enough)

Breakfast was usually a small yogurt & handful of dry cereal or scrambled eggs & 1/2 slice toast or oatmeal & 1/2 banana

snack is vanilla wafers, goldfish, teddy grahams, fruit,applesauce- dipping things is fun for them at this age

lunch- soups & crackers,mac & cheese,cottage cheese,ravioli,grilled cheese, veggies

dinner- whatever we are having

I am not quite sure how old your child is, but here is a normal day for my son who is almost 17 monhts old. He is a big eater. This is what he had yesterday.

Breakfast-sippy cup of milk
Whole wheat waffle
a handful of grapes
a nutri grain bar

Lunch-sippy cup with milk
grilled cheese on whole wheat
steamed broccoli (1/2 cup or so)
Cut up cucumber (1/2 cup+)
a slice of cantalope

Snack-milk and string cheese

Dinner-sppy cup with milk
turkey breast, about the size of my palm
peas (about 1/2 cup)
YO Baby yogurt
2 large handfuls of blueberries

My son is 13 mos. old and he typically has one pancake, yogurt (sometimes sub cereal or oatmeal) and/or fruit for breakfast. Lunch is usually a gerber graduates meal (if not much time) or left over mashed potatoes, rice, noodles or stuffing (probably about 1/2 cup) and a vegatable. He just recently became interested in grilled cheese sandwiches, so he sometimes has one of them with some fruit. For dinner he typically eats the protein we're having (chicken or turkey) along with the veg and side. Of course the amount he eats is much less than my husband or I and I do not add salt to the food or many spices when cooking for him.

During the day he does get a snack between lunch and dinner, which is usually a few goldfish crackers, jello or pudding. He usually has 8 oz. of milk after breakfast and lunch. Water throughout the day, juice with snack and 8 oz. of milk after his evening bath before bed.

The variety of food may depend on how many teeth your child has. My son has a mouth full of teeth; however, my friend's daughter who be one at the end of the month has only 2 teeth and is still eating stage 3 babyfood.

Hope this helps a little. I also made my babyfood so that my son was exposed to the taste of "real" food at any early age. Therefore, food tastes the same to him as it always has, I just stopped putting it through the food processor.

Our daughter, now two, has a different menu now from when she was one, but not that different. We did oatmeal, cereal or eggs (scrambled) in the morning with fruit and whole milk. I never give her juice as most is sugar and lacks the nutrition that she gets out of just eating fruit directly. For lunches we usually do a variety of things but always include carrots or cut peppers or some raw veggie. For dinners we often give her whatever we are having, rice, fish, quesadillas, chicken, etc. They can eat almost anything especially if they have enough teeth in, so we like to include her in our dinner meals.

Hope some of this is helpful - Good luck!

There are sample menus on wholesomebabyfood.com or wholesometoddlerfood.com (depending on where your child is with solids). Great information, lots of recipes and ideas from these sites.

You can actually buy the book superfoods for babies and children by Annabel Karmel. It has excellent recipes from 6 mos to 3 years old. I use it to make my dtr's food, she has never refused anything yet. For e.g Breakfast French toast & fruit/oatmeal & Yogurt. Lunch: meatballs w/ sweet & sour sauce, fried rice & ice pops/fruit or chicken skewers w/ rice & veggies. Dinner: Gratin Haddock w/tomato sauce & Spinach & fruit/ carrot soup w/ yellow split peas, Baked potato & fresh peach melba...etc. Just a few e.g. this book is excellent you will love it.

I'm in the minority. I do watch what I feed my 17 month old, but it's not as healthy as it could be.

Breakfast
Bowl of cereal and milk (Cheerios, Rice Krispies, Apple Jacks, etc) or a frozen waffle with butter and cinnamon sugar and an egg.
Milk

Lunch
lunch meat (turkey)
bread (she only eats the crust)
fruit
or spaghetti o's ( i know they're bad for you, but sometimes it's all she'll eat. They're not a whole lot worse than the Gerber Graduate meals and lots less expensive)
milk

Snack
Goldfish, pretzels, cracker or dry cereal
Juice (50/50 w/ water)

Dinner
Whatever we're eating. Usually meat, noodles or potatoes,veg. She gets fruit if she eats all her meal.

Milk before bed.

She eats whatever I'm eating at the time. If I have grilled cheese for lunch so does she. If I have hamburger for dinner, so does she. We cook everything just as normal. I don't use a lot of salt, but I do use seasonings. Nothing too spicy, just for flavor. She does, however LOVE taco meat. The spices don't seem to bother her.