Starting solids - vegetarian?

[Anonymous]

We were in a similar boat and basically let our child decide. We offered some meat when the meat eating parent had some and the child gobbled it up, baby-led weaning style. Really loved meat and enjoyed it some days as part of a very diverse diet.

Around age ten or so they decided to try being a vegetarian. Iron/B12 fell so they had to pay more attention to nutrition and take a supplement.

If they had rejected meat as a baby, we would have had to be more careful about diet early, but overall our family goal was to introduce a wide variety of nutritious foods and flavors.

[Anonymous]

As long as the kid gets cheese, eggs, milk and peanut butter, really no worries.

[Anonymous]

My family is similar to yours and it's been pretty easy. I'm pescetarian, DH eats meat from restaurants but not at home, and he is on board with raising our kids pescetarian. From about 6 mo to 1 year, DD would happily eat anything we ate, as long as it wasn't too spicy, and tons of Cheerios which made me happy because it's iron fortified. But after she turned 1, she started to develop more of a taste for processed food and carbs, and would point/whine to get what she wanted. She loves fruit, so I give her a lot of citrus because vitamin C helps iron absorb. She loves peas and after briefly losing interest, will happily eat broccoli, green beans, etc again. She also loves the Plum Organics pouches of pureed veggies (I don't get the ones with fruit since she eats tons of that in whole form).

She is now a toddler and this is what she eats:
Breakfast: 1) Oatmeal with berries or scrambled eggs with cheese. 2) Always has fruit, yogurt, and tree nut butter with some Cheerios too.
Lunch: 1) Impossible nuggets, black beans (loves them!), quesadilla, PB&J, leftover pasta with marinara, or other dinner leftovers. 2) Always has veggies, 4 oz whole milk, some Cheerios, and usually fruit as well. 3) I eat a salad for lunch every day and she chews a couple bites of my spinach and tomatoes but spits them out now. I'm hoping as time goes by, she'll eat them again. A pescetarian friend recommended Dr Praeger's but so far, DD hasn't been enthusiastic about them.
Post-nap snack: Some combination of cheese, Plum Organics pouch, Bambas, Veggie Straws, or rice cake.
Dinner: 1) If cooking at home, it's usually fish, chili or another vegetable heavy soup, coconut curry with chickpeas or shrimp, or impossible burger. Once or twice a week, we order Indian, Ethiopian, or Greek. Once or twice a month, we'll order pizza 2) Always has veggies, 4 oz whole milk, and some Cheerios too.

Soy: As a vegetarian worried about getting protein, it's easy to overconsume soy. I try to do soy only a couple times a week because I don't want to disrupt hormones. Excessive estrogen may cause breast cancer, early puberty, etc. Impossible is made with soy, whereas Beyond Meat is made with pea protein, so we alternate. They're both processed, though, so I try to not do it too often.

Rice: At first I tried hard to avoid it due to arsenic, but I've somewhat given up on fighting that battle. My kiddo loves it. I get white rice from India or California which has less arsenic.

DD has consistently been very tall and about 70th percentile for weight. She is in perfect health, never gets sick. We only give her dessert if we're eating it in front of her for a special occasion. She has never had juice.