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My 3 year old eats really well these days. Today was fairly typical, although she ate way less fruit than normal for her.

Breakfast - a piece of toast and a big orange.

Lunch - a big pancake at brunch, some fruit, a little bit of my hot chocolate.

snacked on some dried apples at the grocery store and some of my greek yogurt.

Dinner - an entire carrot, several slices of red pepper. Some bites of salad with sunflower seeds. Most of a fairly large burrito with chicken, black beans, refried beans, and cheese. a cookie for dessert.

she'll also have a bedtime snack of another orange or a banana. She tends to sort of ramp up her food consumption over the course of the day - this was a good breakfast for her.

this is a pretty typical intake for her, although usually she has 4 or more pieces of whole fruit, and I wouldn't usually let her just have a pancake without some protein to go with it. She wasn't terribly hungry today.

Oh and I realize I just have to starve her sometimes. For instance, I wrote that she ate a lot this morning, but it wasn't all at once. In fact, she refused the yogurt DH offered her. Then about an hour later, she had the piece of pear and that's when I made the quesadillas.

I really want her to eat lunch today, so I'm making sure she does not eat a thing until lunchtime, which I intend to serve late since she ate the quesadilla not that long ago:

7:30 offered yogurt with muesli
8:30 1/4 pear
8:40 quesadilla
9:00 asked for more

She took the last bite of quesadilla at around 10! It's Saturday and we're relaxed with eating (she's plays and comes back to it).

I intend to let her get a little hungry before serving her lunch (at around 12:30-1:00).

It totally depends. At 1.5 years old he ate like food was going out of business ( we had to see a nutritionist because he wasn't gaining weight). Something like 3 hot dogs for dinner, nursing 5 times a day, breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon, and his school lunch. Plus two snacks at school a day.

At 2.5 he would have 1 egg for breakfast, snack at school, lunch which was typically lots of left over meat, fruit of some sort and veggies, afternoon school snack, snack at 4:30 pick up and meat for dinner. At 3.5 (now) he may eat 1 waffle, 2 pieces of pizza for dinner, one bite of hamburger and one bite of cheese (yeah that was tonight) or he may eat one bite or refuse to eat anything. It is completely hit or miss. I'll send a lunch and he may eat all of it or none if it with almost no rhyme or reason. I figure he won't starve and he isn't failure to thrive so we let him.

It depends and varies. I have to trust that she'lol eat when she's hungry. Both my kids can be big eaters, but are very small.

My oldest is 3.5 and is 27lbs. She can eat an entire bag of microwave popcorn on her own. I don't know how she's so little considering how much she CAN eat.

Here's Wednesdays meal:
Bfast - strawberry oatmeal
Morning snack at preschool
Lunch, chicken with applesauce and Mac n cheese plus baby carrots
Snack, apple & banana
Dinner, noodles, pork chops, olives, mashed potatos, stuffing, green beans (and she had seconds)
Dessert, chocolate cake

On Friday, she had cereal for bfast, chicken for lunch and fell asleep at 6pm so she slept through dinner. When she woke up at 11pm (yeah that was fun!) all she wanted was apple sauce, and then she fell back asleep.

My 2.5 yr old (25 lbs) is not a good eater unless I help her. We try not to let her snack too much because we noticed she doesn't eat well at meals. She gets milk if she asks for it between meals, otherwise I give it to her at lunch and dinner.

On weekends, she gets either a cup of yogurt or a bowl of oatmeal in the morning. Then for lunch we have a bowl of food (I will fill a Skip Hop bowl)--she likes asian noodles, pasta, dumplings. She sometimes will ask for a snack after nap (around 4 or 5). Depending on the time, I will give her a few crackers. For dinner, I will give her another Skip hop bowl of food, then a small bowl of fruit for dessert and sometimes a TJs mini ice cream cone.

She will eat veggies and meat only if I spoon feed or if it's cut up really fine and mixed in rice. She will usually self feed for a few bites/15 min and then I have to spoon feed her the remainder. I hate this bad habit but if we stopped meals when she stopped self feeding she would barely eat.

My LO turned 3 in November and she's 35 lbs. As a baby she was such a good eater and loved all veggies and meat. Around 2.5 she definitely became pickier but at least she will try a bite of everything. I just keep offering the veggies and some days she'll eat a lot and other days she won't eat much. Same with protein. Shes always been around the 80th percentile so I try not to stress and just trust she'll eat when she's hungry. I know a lot of people do cut snacks and it does help with eating meals.

If she had a big dinner she usually isn't hungry for breakfast but I'd say my LO usually eats a big breakfast - a serving of fruit (berries or half a banana), a serving of yogurt, and either an English muffin (1/2) with PB or some eggs or oatmeal or bagel (1/2) with cream cheese. She will usually eat almost all of her breakfast

Yesterday we spent the day out and about so she didn't have a snack (too busy playing) and we ate at the cafe at the science center - not the best selection but she had milk, maybe 1/2 a corn dog, some hummus with pretzels and grapes. On the way home I let her have a few pieces of dried mango. She barely ate any of her dinner but bc she had 2 decent meals that isn't unusual.

@irene: my LO loves French toast and ice cream. If she had those two things in one day I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have eaten much more for the rest of the day. But I know for mamas with smaller LOs it's hard not to stress about eating

My DD1 will be 3 in May and weighs 27 lbs
She eats....hardly anything. Every single meal is a battle. she doesn't even like snacks.

Yesterday, for breakfast, she bad a few blueberries and flat out refused the muffin and yogurt I offered her. She refused to eat anything until 2 pm or so, and then finally she ate about half of a bean and cheese burrito. For dinner she asked if she could please not eat, and then eventually had a cheese stick and a strawberry before bed.

Next to nothing and he is tiny. On a typical day he will have a few bites of cereal in the morning and some fruit. Then he will have a few more bites of my cereal. A few hours later he likes some granola bar. For lunch he will have a small handful of pita or tortilla chips and hummus. After his nap he will sometimes have a small snack like some raisins or a fruit and veggie pouch but usually he won't have anything and then starts scavenging when I make dinner (he'll grab handfuls of cereal or a graham cracker, etc whenever I open the cabinet) and then refuses dinner. He might have a tiny bit of yogurt and 3 or 4 baked sweet potato fries. Before bed he will often ask for toast with pb and will eat about half a slice. He usually prefers to drink his calories so we either make him a smoothie or give him a pediasure a few times a week.

It really varies day to day - some days he barely touches his food, and other days it's like his stomach is a garbage disposal! But here's a typical day:

Breakfast: Banana, blueberry waffle (always gobbles up the banana, the waffle is hit or miss)

Snack: Grapes and cheese (eats it all and often requests more)

Lunch: PB&J (usually eats about half a sandwich, sometimes less), yogurt, orange

Snack: Goldfish crackers, yogurt covered raisins (eats it all)

Dinner: Chicken (picks at it, eats a few pieces), baked potato (eats about half), green beans (eats them all)

LO just turned 3 and had his annual check up last week. I bought up his eating habits to our pediatrician and she told me an interesting thing she's found/ noticed about toddlers. She said that toddlers tend to eat and store up food for the week and they really just need one good meal/portion during the day. I'm somewhat skeptical about what she said but I can see how it somewhat pertains to my LO. He's not the most pickiest eater but he doesn't eat a whole lot each meal. I pack a good portion for his lunch at daycare and he eats it all. Hes really tall and thin (mirror image of DHs body image) and the pediatrician also said LO will have similar body types of the parents. So after talking to her, I feel like LO will eat when he's hungry and just continue to offer foods but not stress or push too much if he's done or refusing. I know it can be stressful when you make food and it goes to waste.. I've been there too! Its been a lot less stressful on myself to just let go and be ok with LO consuming a smaller meal. I do occasionally bribe with chocolate too haha. It gets a couple extra bites in.