20 Easy and practical toddler meal ideas for busy moms! Baby led weaning and feeding ideas for your young toddler.
For most meals, my 1-year-old son eats a modified version of what we do!
This makes it a little easier to prepare dinner every night.
We also have some go-to meals for when we do eat something he can’t or for breakfast and lunch on school days.
We started a modified version of baby-led weaning around 6 months old. Corbin’s solid really picked up around 8 months old.
Since then he has eaten three meals a day pretty consistently.
Meal planning can be hard! I’ve compiled a list of 20 easy meal ideas to help other mamas with their baby-led weaning (or combo weaning) journey.
This is a real-life example of what my one year old actually eats in a week. Below are examples of Corbin’s breakfasts, lunches, and dinner.
If you are looking for meal ideas for babies under one or want more toddler meal ideas check out my feeding series:
- Combing Purees and Baby-Led Weaning
- Baby’s First Solid Foods
- Self-Feeding ideas for 8-12 Month Olds
- Self-Feeding Foods for One Year Olds
- Easy Toddler Breakfast Ideas
- Easy Toddler Meals with Frozen Food
- Self-Feeding Ideas for 12-16 months
- Self-Feeding Daycare Lunch Ideas for One Year Olds
- Toddler Meal Ideas – 15 months
- Toddler Meal Ideas – 16 months
- 33 Toddler Dinner Ideas
Feeding Supplies
One tip to make meal times easier is to have the right feeding supplies.
Our favorites are silicone placemats, munchkin baby utensils, and the munchkin weighted straw cups! Click here for a full list of toddler feeding essentials that we use and love!
Silicone placemat // this is so helpful in keeping the table clean. It has also been great for training Corbin to use a regular plate.
Munchkin baby utensils // these are the perfect size and are a great training utensil!
Munchkin weighted straw cup // this is our FAVORITE straw cup. We have tried quite a few, but this one is the best.
Breakfast Easy Meal Ideas
Corbin goes to daycare 5 days a week (high-five working mamas!) so our breakfasts have to be quick (more breakfast ideas here).
For the most part this means a frozen waffle or pre-made french toast paired with fruit.
I try to always buy quality, whole-grain food and buy organic when I can. Also, remember sometimes you can have breakfast for lunch or dinner!
- Whole wheat french toast & fruit
- Flavored berry waffle & banana
- Cheesy eggs, hashbrowns, whole grain toast & fruit
- Avocado toast & fruit
- Cinnamon roll & fruit
- Waffle with jam & fruit
- Yogurt & fruit
- Waffle with jam
Lunch Easy Meal Ideas
Because of daycare, I pack my son’s lunch 5 days per week.
I normally try to make his lunch while I make my husband’s and therefore some of the foods are the same. This has saved so much time and energy when prepping for lunch!
Our go-to’s are avocado sandwich, lunch meat, cheese, fruit, and sometimes veggies or beans left over from dinner.
On weekends we normally try to do something fun like mac n cheese.
- 9. Avocado sandwich, fruit & veggies
- 10. Turkey lunch meat, string cheese & fruit
- 11. Mac n’ cheese with veggies
- 12. Quesadilla, black beans, avocado
- 13. Pb & j, sliced cheese & fruit
- 14. Ham lunch meat, string cheese & fruit
Dinner Easy Meal Ideas
For dinner Corbin almost always eats a modified version of what we eat.
There are some things I keep handy to heat up in case some of the meal he just can’t wont eat.
Sometimes food is too spicy or hard.
Corbin also isn’t a huge fan of meat unless its very tender. Our go-to foods are frozen spinach and zucchini pancakes and frozen veggies that I steam or microwave.
- 15. Pasta with veggies
- 16. Zucchini pancake(like Dr. Praeger’s brand) , meat & veggies
- 17. Pizza, avocado, and fruit
- 18. Shredded chicken, fruit & veggies
- 19. Spinach pancake (like Dr. Praeger’s brand), black beans & fruit
- 20. Deconstructed tacos
Keep following our BLW journey: 1) Self-Feeding Ideas for 12-16 months, 2) Easy Toddler Meals with Frozen Food, 3) Self-Feeding Foods for One Year Olds
Thanks for stopping by!
