Heinz - Tinytums

Eating with the family

By 12 months, you’ll have noticed a steady progression to a more grown-up pattern of eating, with meals interspersed with snacks and/or drinks of milk. This way your toddler will be well on the way to eating with the family.

For your toddler, you’ll need to make sure you offer all the necessary nutrients and energy that the body needs to support healthy growth and weight gain. You can best do this by eating a good variety of foods yourselves. And right from the time they’re ready to sit up with you at dinner, they’ll start to feel a sense of belonging – of being a part of something special and important in their lives. Of course, their table manners won’t quite match up to everyone else’s, but they’ll really enjoy eating with you.

It’ll help if you can keep mealtimes to a fixed time – your toddler’s attention span is not great at this age and they’ll soon let you know when they’ve had enough. But the important thing is that they’re beginning to eat independently for the first time whilst learning how to start socialising.

Help from Heinz
Our Heinz Toddler’s Own range of meals, soups and snacks are an ideal way to introduce your toddler to more adventurous food. They’ll love the tasty mixture of vegetables and meat in our chunky Vegetable Hotpot with Meatballs. Or why not offer them a taste of our delicious Spaghetti Bolognese? Even if they’re sitting there just tucking into a fun-sized Toddler’s Own Mini Orange Bear biscuit or a Mini Cheese Biscuit, your baby is being encouraged to bite and chew like the rest of the family.