What my twin toddlers eat in a day

Joanna Fowler September 7, 2017 Blog, Family, Parenting, Twins

This post was created in partnership with Kids & Company.

Feeding four kids has been a journey for our family. Before having kids, I had high expectations: everything would be cooked from scratch, my kids would love vegetables from the beginning and we would always have sit-down family meals.

Then real life hit.

Four kids, picky eaters and juggling six family member’s busy schedules later, has thrown more than a few wrenches into my idealistic picture of family meals. But over time I have figured out meals and schedules that work for our family, and our schedule.

For the first couple years following our twins being born, (which were our third and fourth kids), I was always scrambling. Mike had a long commute to work at the time and was often home after our kids were in bed. Our kids meals were usually a variety of healthy snacks thrown together with the TV blaring in the background.

I was just trying to survive.

But as the dust settled, and Mike started making it home for dinner, family meals started to emerge. Our big kids have shocked us recently, by not only trying new vegetables, but enjoying healthier options as well.

Our twins, who are now three years old, are entering the picky eating phase, and I know that it is just a phase, so instead of obsessing about each meal and snack each day, I look at the day as a whole, and relax… a lot.

Here is an example of what our twins eat in a day.

This is a weekday, when our twins are at daycare all day. At Kids and Company, Mia and Everly are served a home-cooked lunch planned by a nutritionist, and two healthy snacks a day. This is what I consider my nutrition safety net.

Breakfast

toddler eating breakfast

Out of our twins, Everly is the more adventurous eater. She loves fruit, and well, most foods for that matter. Today Everly is having a muffin, apple slices and skim milk for breakfast.

toddler eating breakfast

Mia, on the other hand, is a pickier eater and consumes a lot less food than Everly. Today Mia is having peanut butter on whole-wheat toast, dipped in ketchup, (yuck, I know but she loves it), and a muffin with skim milk.

Snack Time

For morning snack at daycare, Mia and Everly had a whole wheat english muffin with Wow butter and cantaloupe cubes.

Lunch Time

Today they are eating chicken souvlaki with a whole-wheat pita, cucumber and tomato.

toddler eating lunch

toddler eating lunch

Afternoon Snack

For an afternoon snack at daycare, Mia and Everly had peach cobbler and grapes.

Dinnertime

For dinner, I had planned to serve leftovers, which were whole-wheat pasta, sautéed vegetables and pasta sauce.

healthy pasta

Like many weekdays, Mia and Everly were exhausted and not interested. So, as a fallback, this is what they had instead…

toddler eating sandwich

Everly had a peanut butter sandwich made with whole wheat bread and blueberries.

toddler eating mac and cheese

Mia had leftover macaroni and cheese, with a squirt of vegetable puree mixed it.

Despite the dinner-fail, we had a great family meal together. I knew that Mia and Everly had a variety of healthy foods throughout the day and they were tired.

You see, with toddlers, I’ve learned to choose my battles. This was a very typical day for us, and knowing that Kids and Company takes a bit of the “mealtime battle” weight off of my shoulders makes all the difference.

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Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Kids & Company. While compensation was provided, all opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily indicative of the opinions of Kids & Company.

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