Guide to portion sizes

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I've been trying to find a guide to preschool-age portion sizes/food intake online and have been unsuccessful. The best I've seen is 1/4 - 1/3 of adult size portion. But DH and I are both adults, and he eats twice what I do, so...??? DH and I have been at odds about how much to feed our 3 year old. He WILL eat whatever we give him, so I want to be careful without denying him food he needs. Any good resources out there?

[Anonymous]

Supposedly whatever protein your child eats should be the size of his hand. (And this holds true for adults also).

My 4 year old also eats whatever I give him. So I always give him a smallish size portion of each food to start with, but he knows that he can ask for more -- after the veggies have been eaten.

I think that if you don't let your child know that you think about portion size and food too much (and if you don't let them be exposed to too much food marketing), they will regulate their own appetites.

[Anonymous]

Agree with PP, except to add that I try and feed my 3 year old son, who has a pretty good appetite, every 3 hours. (basically, 6:30. 9:30. 12:30. 3:30 amd 6:30). If I feed him an unregulated amount of snacks at 9:30 or 3:30, he won't eat dinner. sometimes he's not hungry for the first feeding but makes up for it by 9am. ditto the post nap feeding--sometimes he doesn't want it til 4:30 or so but I have to be careful not to make it too big or he won't eat dinner.

The other thing I try to do is have a carb, a protein or dairy, and a veg or a fruit for each full meal. For example, on the side of his spaghetti and meatsauce today, we had a toddler "salad" of cucumbers and tomatoes.

[Anonymous]

I read somewhere that a reasonable portion for toddlers/preschoolers is one tablespoon of the given food per year of age--so, for example, two tablespoons of peas for a two-year-old, three tablespoons of corn for a three-year-old, etc. Not sure how this works for food that isn't easily measured, though, LOL.