3 Toddler Meal Plans, Food chart & Schedule

3 options for a healthy toddler meal plan, daily toddler schedule, food chart for toddlers and a free meal planner printable.

What foods should a toddler eat?

No matter what meals or recipes you choose for your toddler meal plan, you should attempt to include a variety of the below.

Protein

• Milk and dairy products
• Legumes (chickpeas, beans, lentils)
• Meat and poultry
• Fish
• Eggs
• Nuts and seeds (nuts are a choking hazard so chop appropriately or serve as nut butter)

Fat

• Plant-based oils (olive oil, coconut oil)
• Butter
• Milk and dairy products (full-fat yogurt, kefir, cheese)
• Nuts and seeds
• Avocado

Produce

• Fruit
• Vegetables

Carbohydrates

• Wholegrain wheat products (pasta, bread, toast, tortillas)
• Wholegrain rice
• Grains (rye, barley, buckwheat, millet, oat, quinoa, farro, amaranth)

What type of milk should a toddler drink?

Once they move from the baby to the toddler age (around 1 year old), cow's milk can be served as a drink in a cup.

It is not only a great way to ensure hydration by also to contribute to the overall protein, fat and calcium intake.

I recommend to offer whole milk (as opposed to skimmed and semi-skimmed milk) at least until the age of 2 after which semi-skimmed milk can be considered.

If you would like to avoid cow's milk for any reason, goat milk or plant-based milk can be a good alternative, but only those that have calcium and vitamin D added and no added sugars.

If you are still bottle feeding, see the guide Weaning from the bottle - how, when, why?

What is the ideal timing between toddler meals?

Unfortunately, there isn't one that can be generalized for all toddlers.

And not only because every toddler is unique, but because their hunger and satiety feelings change daily. So one day they might require food every hour and the other they might not want to eat for hours and hours.

But for both cases, the recommendation is the same. Once you have established a routine for the order of your meals, aim to serve at the same time each day.

Toddlers love predictability. And even though they sometimes might not touch the food, keep on serving per schedule.

It's your job to choose what to serve. It's theirs to choose whether to eat and how much.

Toddler feeding schedule examples

The schedule below doesn't include breastmilk/formula, but until my son weaned from the bottle, I just gave him breastmilk/formula instead of a snack. You can also give them milk or yogurt as a snack.

Basically the choice is yours. But we've found the below works for most toddlers. And since between ages 1 and 2 most toddlers move from 2 to 1 nap, we're providing 2 schedules for both situations.

2 NAPS / DAY schedule

12+ MONTHS OLD FEEDING SCHEDULE

1 NAP / DAY schedule

Meal Planners for toddler / food chart

The food chart, food menu and meal plan with meal ideas are based on average recommendations per age per FAO/WHO/UNU Energy Requirements and the American Academy of Dietetics Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020-2025. But please adapt the quantities to your own child!

• Grains: 3 daily servings
  • choose wholegrains every time you can (e.g. wholegrain bread, pasta, rice, quinoa, millet, barley, buckwheat); to ensure that the daily target is being met make sure to include in each main meal 
• Fruit: 1 daily serving
  • make sure to include a variety of different foods. The easiest way to achieve this is to pick fruit of different colors and shapes - not only will it be interesting for the kids but also offer different types of nutrients 
• Vegetables: 1 daily serving
  • choose different veggies throughout the day to offer variety and different vitamins and minerals. A simple way to achieve that is to choose veggies of different colors. 
• Protein: 2 daily servings
  • protein foods include poultry, meat, legumes, eggs, cheese and dairy, tofu and nuts / seeds and all of those contribute to the total protein daily intake. So it is not that hard to achieve the total protein recommendations for toddlers. Make sure to avoid processed meat to reduce the amount of sodium and offer a variety of foods throughout the day and week. 
• Dairy: 2 daily servings
  • the recommendation is for toddlers to have about 2 cups of milk per day to ensure that the dairy (calcium) requirements are being met. But if your toddler is eating yogurt, kefir or cheese or even foods rich in protein, fat, calcium and vitamin D then the amount of milk per day can be reduced proportionally.  
• Fats and oils: 3 - 4 teaspoons
  • apart from plant oils and butter, nuts and seeds are also considered a part of the fats and oils group. By following toddler nutrition recommendations and food groups serving sizes the assumption is that the fats and oils recommendations are being also met. To ensure that toddlers are receiving enough of the "good" fats it is worth adding an extra tablespoon of nut or seed butters to a toast for a snack or porridge for breakfast as well as some nuts and seeds as a snack or topping. 

Don't worry if one day you have 2 fruit servings and the other day ½. Nutrition is all about balance and you'd want to keep it between -1 and +1 for each food group.

Stick on your fridge these free PDF Toddler Meal Planner printable and PDF Toddler Food Chart printable.

Utensil Tools

Depending on the age of your toddler, you want to start teaching them how to use a spoon, fork and even a knife properly. They are very capable, and after a few tries there will be less and less mess and soon enough you will have a toddler fully capable of using utensils.

• start with a trainer set of cutlery like this Doddl cutlery that is ergonomically designed to help your toddler learn to use cutlery
• use an open cup to teach them to drink
• have a big bib to help you with the mess

Final Note on Your Toddler Meal Plan

There is no such thing as a perfect toddler meal plan or diet. The main reason for this being that you cannot control how much of what your toddler eats. And you don't need to.

Toddlers (and babies and kids in general) have a great inner sense of satiety and hunger and they won't eat if they're not hungry just as they'll ask for more if they are.

Make sure you don't pressure them and let them make their own choices after you've decided what to serve and when. This is one of the keys to raising them into healthy little food lovers.

To learn more about toddler nutrition and see toddler nutrition charts see the Daily Toddler Nutrition Chart, Toddler 12-15 month old sample meal plan, Toddler 16-18 month old sample meal plan, 19-21 month old toddler baby food chart and meal plan and the 2 year old food chart, food menu and meal ideas.

More toddler recipes

see all toddler recipes here