Today, within our Special on Infant Feeding in Babies and more, it is time to continue with our selection of menus for children, this time it is a weekly menu for children from one to two years.
I begin by inviting readers to visit the article on Recommendations for the elaboration of the children's menu for children between one and two years and remembering that the amounts will be small, prioritizing vegetables and cereals or legumes, making the animal protein rations are not excessive Well, the goal is a Balanced nutrition, not quantities, but variety..
A menu for the whole family
We have already offered you some models of weekly menus for children from 9 to 12 months and for the youngest, those from 6 to 9 months. Now, our goal during the second year of life, is to fully incorporate the child to the family table, but always, obviously, respecting the rules of introduction of food and paying special attention to the most allergenic.
Do the same food for everyone, covering all the necessary nutrients and offering a varied but also attractive diet is important. In addition, not making different food for children makes cooking easier and we do not have the need to go to industrial preparations.
But it is important that the hamburgers are homemade and made with freshly minced and low-fat meat and that the croquettes are also home made, do not use pre-cooked or industrial preparations, as they include excess fat, salts and preservatives.
Of course, thinking that children are going to eat the dishes, there are somes basic rules that we will follow during this year: Do not make fried foods (croquettes, hamburgers and fish can be roasted in the oven, at least for the child), do not use excess oil, salt, or irritating condiments (if we want to add them later, moving the food beforehand of the child) and do not use in the vegetables bacon, nor blood sausage or sausage, and, if we put pork, that are not parts with visible fat pieces.
Another general recommendation is be generous with vegetables and look for the greatest possible variety: in legumes, rice and garnishes, add them (turnip, leek, onion, potato, carrot, celery, shallot, broccoli, squash, peas, green beans, peppers of various colors, cabbage and Lombard).
I must emphasize that the menu you can read above would be by the end of the first year of life, because some foods appear that, at the beginning we are going to replace with more suitable ones. We go in parts: non-adapted dairy, eggs and blue fish.
The fruits that we propose are only indicative and we must change them according to the season, always with attention when we use the new ones and more if they are especially allergenic. Peaches and apricots can be offered from the year, with caution, and red fruits are not convenient to use before the year and a half, but if we wait at two years nothing happens. What we should not use are nuts and also take care, if we buy preparations, that do not include them camouflaged.
Foods that are incorporated from the year
The milk we mentioned at breakfast is unnecessary if the child drinks breast milk. In fact, it is desirable that continue to be breastfed until two years of life and milk is still the most important thing you will drink, therefore, freely available, at any time. The milk taken by the non-breastfed child should be given in the same way, not being necessary to use it only at meals, although it must be adapted to the appetite of each child.
Anyway, for breastfed children and for others too, from the year, dairy products will already be perfectly cow or goat.
The dairy preparations we propose for desserts will be less necessary in breastfed children, but they can taste them. Yogurt would be a good way to start introducing cow's milk, but always better homemade and in no hurry, because we will also introduce the egg and it would not be convenient to introduce both products at the same time, but to separate them, one month start with the cow's milk, the next the egg. When we have clear clarity that neither the milk nor the egg separately cause negative effects, we can give them a little (a couple of tablespoons) of custard and custard, provided they are homemade.
The other food that we will introduce from the year is the egg. It will be the one we would start with, first making the cooked egg and giving it only the yolk (do it on the days that others eat tortillas to go hand in hand). Then, when we are sure that the yolk is well tolerated we will introduce the clear, more allergenic, approximately fifteen days after the first test. Later, always without adding much fat, just a few drops in a good pan, we can already use the tortillas that others eat.
Before 18 months We will not give them the blue fish, as I explain below.
Foods that are incorporated after 18 months
At 18 months Our son will be able to eat everything that appears on the menu. Until 18 months when blue fish appears (salmon and anchovies we have proposed) we will not offer it to the child, changing it for some cooked white fish with a teaspoon of olive oil. From the year and a half we can offer you the blue fish, one week one, the other, paying attention to possible allergic reactions and choosing pieces without danger of excess mercury.
Two-year goal: share meals
During this second year of life the child joins the family table but always without forcing it with new foods or preparations or with the amounts. It is important to keep that in mind and never force them to eat, or distress us, but to offer them the possibility of discovering flavors and the pleasure of a family meal. Patience and good humor are essential to achieve the goal.
Our menu for children between one and two years It is a guide in which you can support yourself, but we leave you some more recipes that you can incorporate designed, also, so that they can enjoy them older and younger.
