tricky toddlers at the table: 100 finger food ideas in the making

Is your toddler a picky eater? Do you struggle with finding the right balance of healthy foods at mealtimes?

Or perhaps you've cracked it - the magic code of the toddler mind, knowing exactly what makes a food "num" and what makes it "yuck". (Tell me your secret!)

Or maybe you're one of the lucky ones who has a kid who will shovel down anything? (Lucky you. I'm happy for you... and jealous.)

As much as I don't like to admit it, I have one of those toddlers who is selective about what he eats. (As a recovering "picky eater" myself I have come to loathe the word picky, so selective it is.)

And don't be fooled by the colorful spread of veggies in the photo above. Every last one of those peas deliberately ended up in the fold of Mr. Clever's bib. And the pumpkin chunks weren't far behind. (Sound familiar anyone??)

When Levi was a baby he ate anything spooned into his mouth (starting on solids at six months old). We pureed all of our own baby foods and he ate every vegetable or fruit that he was introduced to. (Although he has always been a painfully slow eater and not a shoveler!) Same with meats, pastas, curries, and plenty of other things. As long as they were pureed he liked them.

Then we started introducing finger foods. At first it was fun, but things have gone downhill ever since.

Flash-forward to the present:

My boy eats an enormous breakfast. A normal breakfast for him would be a scrambled egg, an adult-size bowl of shredded-wheat type cereal, a piece of fruit, and a big serving of yogurt. He eats three times as much as I do (and I'm not even joking). At lunch he will easily eat an entire sandwich on whole grain bread, plus some cheese, plus some fruit. (Again, he eats more than his mother.) But by the time he gets to dinner he will often just have a few bites, and of course this is traditionally when I would try to feed him veggies and meats and other things (whatever we're eating basically).

He would literally live on cereal, toast, sandwiches, eggs, fruit, and crackers if we let him. But veggies? He no longer likes veggies. Not a single one. I've even tried giving him dinner-type meals (with meat and veg) in the morning when he's most hungry. No dice. The only way I can get him to eat veggies at the moment is pureed in those expensive baby food squeezie things, because God forbid Mr. Independent would need to be spoon fed! (And he hasn't really mastered the spoon for himself yet either.) As for meat, he could take it or leave it. And pasta? He spits it out every time... even mac and cheese. (I didn't even think there was such a thing as kids who don't like pasta, much less mac and cheese!!)

I'm no dietician, but I'm pretty sure my child needs more than cereal and sandwiches to be in the best possible health.

So how in the world I give this kid a balanced diet is beyond me. But--in between peanut butter and jelly sandwiches--I'm trying. And I know I'm not alone.

I want to compile a list of 100 simple finger food ideas for toddlers. My list is started, but not complete. This is where you come in. Will you leave your finger food ideas in the comments below? Once collected and sorted and edited I will make a PDF that can be downloaded and shared (and will include all contributors in the credits). I'm not looking for recipes, just ideas in bullet form will be fine (ie rice cakes with avocado spread or veggie burgers bites dipped in catsup).

I'm hoping this will make my job as head toddler chef in our household a tiny bit easier... and perhaps it will help some other desperate moms too. Because surely I'm not alone. Right?    Right?         Right?!

Ok friends, GO! What are your favorite tried and true toddler finger food stand-bys?

i ain't no masterchef but i do my best,

Current giveaways: Two Peekabooby nursing covers and one copy of The Pregnancy Companion.

Pregnant Blogger? Join in with the Bloggin' Babes & Babies of 2011 (a link-up for expecting mamas).

adriel booker | the mommyhood memos | 2011
do not reproduce without written permission