Hi all,
I have a 17mo old and I was wondering how you parents balance low carb for your children. Or do you worry about it? I try to make sure she has fruits and veggies, and hold back on a lot of the junk food, but it seem harder to make sure she gets enough of the "other stuff" How many carbs do toddlers need? She still gets free choice whole milk. No juice- our Doc said it's just liquified sugar and to only give her the whole fruit. Any advice would be helpful.

My kids are grown, but if I'd known then what I know now I'd have avoided snacks with no nutritional value (high sugar, preservatives, bleached flour, etc.). Other than that, I'd have allowed plenty of whole grains and veggies/fruits of all kinds. Dry cereals are tough since they are almost all sugar-laden.

It's hard. We have a four and two year old. They eat grains but we don't. My tendency is to think that fruit and vegetable would be sufficient carbs for an active toddler plus provide fiber. Maybe allowing cereal or oat bars for breakfast would make it easy to incorporate some without going overboard. Frequent snacks is important.

Janine

I've followed a carb-restricted diet for almost six years now; I have a two-and-a-half year old that eats pretty much as we do (DH also eats controlled carb) -- lots of non-starchy vegetables, fruits (including bananas), nuts/nut butters, eggs, meats, poultry, fish (he loves fish!). We didn't start his solid feeding with cereals but with vegetables, fruits and egg yolks and progressively added everything else in. He didn't have anything from grain until he was almost two and doesn't really eat much grain, even when it's offered to him now.

When he has fruit juice, it's 100% juice and diluted 2-oz juice to 6-oz water; when we eat out he is fed from our meals (no kids menu ordering); when we're out and about or visiting with family/friends he can pretty much have whatever, but tends toward "good" options - our only absolute "no" is anything with HFCS and/or partially hydrogenated fats (trans-fats).

I've occassionally crunched menus for the day/week and sure enough, he's meeting/exceeding all RDA's without much from grains (occassional dense grainy bread here and there, maybe some crackers but he doesn't like pasta or rice)...beans are in his diet now and then, but not a major "staple" in it....the only "supplement" I give him is fish oil each day (have since he was six months old, dose based on weight).

With few exceptions he'll eat just about any vegetable he's presented with, eats a good amount of whole fruit (as opposed to juice), and eats meats, fish, poultry, etc. without much fuss.

Thanks everyone. I will try to keep track of what she is eating a little closer and see if she is getting her daily needs. Does anyone know where there is a chart thet tells me how much and what a child needs? Thanks.

My son eats what we eat. He is 6 years old now. He is quite the connessiure now when we go out to eat. He is very vocal about the choices the others at the table make. He often refuses junk food and reaches for a healthier choice for himself like fruit. I think at the stage of the game being six years old, I'm not overly restrictive as long as he's eating whole food that remembered where it came from and not the prepackaged dunkaroos or ritz cheese sandwich cracker type of thing.

If my son was overweight I'd be more strict about even the fruit but he's not so that's how we do things for now.

Unfortunately, I have not seen any good nutrition information for kids (mostly white flour pasta with bits of broccoli and that sort of thing is recommended). And it always involves too much food (in order to get enough nutrition on such a poor diet). The best kids' nutrition books we have had are from the early 70's when people still ate organ meats and fat.

My kids are not toddlers any more (11 and 9). They eat whole wheat, oats, & mixed rice (white, brown, & red). We make sure they have enough vegetables.

We try to encourage them to eat fruit. We rarely have sweet treats (maybe 3 or less times per month).

They love chips and fries and all that rubbish. But they know it's rubbish and get it about once a week (in a school lunch).

They are both healthy and strong and slim - so I don't really worry about it.

I would suggest that you feed her a "regular" toddler diet, but just substitue whole grains for refined grains. (for example, whole wheat crackers or whole wheat toast instead of white flour ones). I would definitely not worry about counting carbs for a toddler.

Here is something that looks pretty reasonable:
http://www.wholesometoddlerfood.com/pyramid.htm

Note that for a two-year-old it recommends 3 oz. of grains as a TOTAL for the day. - so 1 slice of whole wheat toast for brekkie; 1/2 cup of pasta for lunch; and 1/2 cup of brown rice for supper & you're there.

My kids are 6, 8 and 10. They eat what I eat, but with some extra bread, fruit and cereals. I don't buy junk and in general they are fine with that. I do buy then the occasional bar of very dark chocolate, which we use for cooking as well as eating.

However, the trouble starts when they are out of the house. If they sleep over, they are always offered sugary rubbish and it seems that every second person I meet is handing them sweets or crisps or sodas. While they might eat and enjoy the food I cook, they still love getting junk when they can.

All I can do is make sure their diet is mostly fresh healthy food, and hope that will do the job,

Thanks everyone!!! You reinforced what I was thinking. I think I'm going to gradually replace sugar in our house with splenda and cut back on sweets period. (My hubby can't stand anything good for himm, he's worse than the kids ) I'm also going to try to get fruit and/or veggies every day. Both of my babies were/ are being raised on our own goats milk. I'm still breastfeeding my sone as much as possible.

I couldn't agree with you more that it's hard to regulate what your children are consuming when they are away from home. My mother-in-law is great but, my mother is horrible! I have to really watch her because to her and the rest of my family food (esp. sweets & junk)=Love. Hence a lot of my own weight problem.

Thanks from all your replies! I got lots of great ideas and encouragement.
-Christina

I'm doing South Beach so not as LC as the rest of you LC people, but if I had a toddler now I'd feed him pretty much the same way I feed my 9 year old, but with whole milk products instead of the skim/low fat that DS and I eat. Here's what we do.

Breakfast: He gets something with both protein and fiber -- either a bowl of homemade baked oatmeal made with raspberries, eggs and yogurt, (yummy) with milk and a touch of maple syrup, or a bowl of plain yogurt with lots of frozen blueberries and a touch of maple syrup, or scrambled eggs with cheese and a slice of Ezekial toast. I eat a protein and veggies.

Lunch (which I send to school): He eats a sandwich (fried egg white, low fat cheese, low fat chicken) on Ezekial Bread, a small thing of yogurt, some lower carb fruit such as canteloupe and 2 types of veggies such as cherry tomatoes and peas. I eat soup with lots of veggies, or a salad with protein or leftovers.

Dinner: We eat together -- occaisionally it's something like chili or soup with meat and veggies mixed, but usually it's a portion of lean protein (hamburgers made with lower fat beef, grilled salmon, sashimi, lower fat sausages, scrambled eggs etc . . . ) and then I put lots of veggies and one type of fruit on the table to choose from -- last night we had squash, mushrooms, and chard sauteed with the sausages, baby carrots, roasted cauliflower, a salad and unsweetened applesauce. He chooses what I wants -- last night he had sausage, carrots, salad and applesauce. I ate sausages, the squash mix, cauliflower and a little applesauce.

Snacks: We keep healthier things that are either low carb or whole grain -- nuts, low fat cheese sticks, yogurt, popcorn, whole grain crackers, fresh and frozen fruit, Ezekial bread for toast, etc . . . and I don't police what he eats.

Outside the home I don't police -- he knows what I think is healthy and often makes what I consider "good choices" -- e.g. he consistently asks for water in restaurants, but he also eats plenty of things like pizza on sleepovers. My goal is not so much to have him healthy now, as it is to build lifelong healthy habits, so I focus on helping him learn to make choices rather than making them for him. I've also started saying -- here's some money for your trip to the movies or the amusement park, anything you don't spend is yours to keep -- that's cut way down on him buying snacks when he's out with other people.

If I had a typical toddler (mine had a feeding tube at that age so that's a different story) I'd feed him the same way, except with whole milk yogurt, and milk with dinner and snacks, and no nuts or baby carrots because of choking hazards. I'd have more control because I'd be there more often (e.g. fewer birthday parties, no playdates etc . . . ) so the diet would be even healthier, which is good for a young child. I also would NEVER give artificial sweetener to a young child.

Hi Regina, I hope you see this post, but I wanted to ask you about at what age and how you fed your (now 4-year-old!) son egg yolk. I have a 10-month-old that I am trying to feed a moderate-carb diet and would love to know about the egg yolk. Thanks!

This is a really good thread! I'm glad I happened on it.

I have a 2yo and a 4yo, and they pretty much have always eaten what we eat, unless we're eating something they genuinely don't like. (Too many memories of my parents trying to force me to eat things like liver and tomato soup; I'm not doing that to my kids!)

Since we've started low carbing, we buy low carb stuff, and that's what they eat. I also make sure they get stuff that DH and I can't eat, like fruits and higher-carb veggies like carrots. I try to make sure that we always serve healthy dinners, but we also add on some higher carb stuff for them. They're very, very skinny girls, so I don't have to worry about their weight. But I want to raise them so that they naturally reach for healthier treats.

For example, I make them pancakes and eggs for breakfast. (Cook pancakes on the weekend, so all I have to do is pop one in the toaster for a minute.) I used to buy higher-carb pancakes and very sugary syrup (although I limited that, even before I went low carb), but now they get CarbQuik pancakes and Walden Farms syrup. Have they noticed the difference? No, they still wolf it down!

My son is almost 6 and eats VLC. I am meat and water only, but I understand he and my dh do not have any desire to eat that way, lol. I use a lot of Lindasue's recipes for my family and they love them all. Fruits are tricky, cause I really an anti fruit due to the sugar. However, I will buy berries, but I won't do the higher carb or sugar fruits like grapes or bananas. There is not processed foods in the house, like crackers or cereal. I do buy deli meat from time to time and tortillas. I bake my own bread, but we do not always have bread available, depends on my mood to bake it. I talk to Andrew about nutrition, but the choice eventually needs to come from him. I can control what we have in the house, but I let him make his own choices at restaurants and other people's houses. Sometimes he makes the healthy choice and sometimes not, normal for a 5 year old. That being said, he ate McDonalds on his playdate with his friend yesterday, lol. So, I am doing the best I can without being a control freak. I also lead by example, he never has seen me eat a single sweet or "off plan" food.