I babysit a 15 month old and I'm running out of breakfast ideas for her. I don't want her to get tired of eating the same things over and over.

I'll give her dry cereal, toast with jelly, pancakes, and scrambled eggs. I also give her diced fruit or feed her apple sauce with what ever she is having.

Any of you mommas out there care to share finger friendly breakfast foods?

French toast sticks.

Texas Toast, battered and fried up. I would give my kids (my own and the ones I helped raise) each little sauce cups of syrup, and they would dunk them and devour them.

And they come frozen, if you don't feel like making them from scratch.

Theresa

You're probably already giving her more variety than her momma does

You can feed her yogurt also. It's really good for their little tummies. Of course, it's not a finger food.

My daughter likes omlets, and she also really likes breakfast tacos.

agree with Texas-Rose .... she's getting good variety. And kids tend to latch onto foods they like. Some like eating the same thing everyday, so unless she's throwing a fit in protest, don't worry about it.

Heck, I'm almost 50 and my daily lunch is Wendy's Meal #6! Every. Single. Day. (I like it, THAT'S why! )

She is getting plenty of variety. I have a 17 month old foster daughter and she gets about the same things for breakfast. Have you ever tried making her grilled cheese sandwiches (yes for brkfst). My girl LOVES them. Good for her too. And if you are feeling daring, try adding a bit of milk to the cereal. Is she using a spoon yet? If so, let her try feeding that to herself. We have had great success here with doing that. Find she eats more if we let her feed herself. Good Luck !!!!!

you are definitely giving her a great variety. that's awesome.

if you are up for trying yogurt, i often put dry cheerios in my DD's bowl of yogurt for breakfast or lunch and she gobbles it up!

another thing she loves is instant oatmeal (cinnamon and spice ... mommy's favorite )

good luck!

Well considering I have her 4 to 5 days a week, I do feed her more breakfast than her momma does. And yes I forgot to add I do give her yogurt as well. She likes it and the apple sauce, but other than that she's kinda over the 'soft foods' and really likes to feed her self. She hasn't gotten the hang of the spoon yet, so we still have some work on that one.

I've tried french toast before but she either wasn't in the mood for it or didn't like it. I'll have to try that again and see what she does now. I hadn't thought of the grill cheese so I will have to try that one for her.

She's a really good eater, but I have noticed if she has the same veggies too many times in a row or too many times a week, she gets to where she won't eat them and throws them off the tray for the dogs. If you give her a break from them she will gobble them up. So I just didn't want her to start that with breakfast.

Thanks for the suggestions and ideas!

Does she drink out of a straw yet? My kiddos love smoothies! I make them with fresh and frozen fruit, honey, bananas, yogurt, fruit juice, sometimes I add a little wheat germ in there.

And if you get the Go-Gurts, the yogurt in a tube, freeze it! Yogurt popsicles! My kids can't get enough of them!

They all sound wonderful -- love the smoothies idea! Can't believe I've never thought of that. One of our favorites is peanut butter sandwiches (if she can have PB.) lots of protein. Sometimes I cut them into "sticks" or cut-out shapes with cookie cutters. I found this great little tool that lets you cut a sandwich into two parts.:
http://www.evriholder.com/Crust-Cutter.asp

We often have scrambled eggs with cheese wrapped in tortillas.

Ham and cheese wrapped in a tortilla rolled then cut into little spirals are fun. (You can omit the pickle relish unless you like it for breakfast )
http://www.landolakes.com/mealideas/ViewRecipe.cfm?RecipeID=8286&cid=16

And we love Toad in the Hole! (In case you don't know what it is.)
http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1726,155169-255196,00.html

Have you tried waffles? There are tons of different flavors, and most kids love them.

Oh! I forgot to mention I also will put tofu, the silken/soft kind, in the smoothies. About 1/4- 1/3 of a block, depending on how big the smoothie batch is. Gives it a creaminess like the yogurt does, and you get that protein.


edited because it's protein, not protien.

My son likes granola bars (not the ones with candy in them) or Nutri-grain bars. I also make him cinnamon-sugar toast. Most of the time he just wants dry cereal though, so I buy lots of different kinds to mix it up a bit. Oh and I buy the plain Yo-Baby yogurt and mix in a flavored instant oatmeal. He likes that too.

Yes she will use a straw, so I'll have to try the smoothie and see what she thinks about it. As well as the waffles and nutrigrain bars.

With her we still break foods up into pretty small pieces and you have to limit how much you put on her plate at one time because she will become a little chipmunk and stuff as much as she can in her mouth.

What about muffins? I used to make mini ones for my boys when they were younger, and freeze them until I needed them. My oldest loved sweet potato muffins, and the youngest loved blueberry.

you can also make her yummy oatmeal and or other hot cereal, my mom used to make us farina. She would cook it with a little vanilla and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and just a drop of milk around the edges to cool off and soften it. It does get hard as it cools off.

Cubed cheese and fruit tray is also a great combo. Make sure you cut everything real small though.

mini muffins are very popular around here.

Something my sister has done for her daughter is banana dipped in yogurt with some granola on it (if you can find some that is nut-free).

I would not give her nuts or peanuts in any form until she is at least 3, but then I am a little paranoid as my son is allergic to peanuts. Most pediatricians suggest waiting until at least 2 if not 3 for nuts, peanuts, fish, and shellfish, but you can certainly go with whatever her mother tells you.

I'm impressed that she will eat real vegetables. My would not eat "people food" vegetables until he was 3-- and only when we insisted. He was a true Gerber baby.

I'm so glad I asked this question. Ya'll have great ideas and I'm asking myself why didn't I think of that. I make pancakes for my nephew on weekends and we freeze the left overs, so I use those for the baby. I also have tones of blueberries in my freezer so I could make some muffins using those too. I picked up some waffle sticks today, so I'll try those tomorrow.

She's had a little bit of peanut butter. We gave her cheese crackers once before we remembered about the peanuts in it. I also eat alot of toast with peanut butter and bananas for my breakfast and she's had bites of it. She has also had the cereal pieces out of trash (chex mix) which we cook with nuts. We don't give her alot at a time though, and so far we haven't seen any allergies to nuts.

She gave the baby food up very fast. When my friend started introducing real food she wanted less and less baby food. I think we have been feeding her only 'real' food for atleast 3 or 4 months, if not longer. She got to the point where she would refuse to eat the mushy baby stuff.

She is a good little eater. We haven't really found much that she will not eat, unless like I said early that she has had it too many times in a row. So we are pretty lucky.

she sounds much like the 14 month old I babysit.......... I agree with the frozen Go Gurt, for awhile (between 2 and 2 1/2) my son went on a milk strike and I had to find ways of getting dairy and calcium into him and those were one way he would eat yogurt (he wont eat just regular yogurt not a big fan of soft food)................ I am lucky in when the 14 month old gets here she has already had breakfast, so I just have to feed her lunch and snacks, but we do a lot of fresh fruit cubed up really small....her momma was amazed that she had eaten oranges but I would just cut up the individual slices really well and she would go to town, the same way with grapes....I would at least cut them into 4 pieces (more if they were jumbo sized) and she would just eat and eat them!

Since you're looking for young toddler friendly food, I suggest canned items. They are often already cut to a perfect size and they are mushy and lessl ikely to cause gagging like frozen or fresh might. Canned fruit cocktail in juice (instead of syrup) is great.

What about frozen hash browns? They're perfectly cubed! Other than that it sounds like you're doing great already. If you can stand the mess, I'd get her started practicing with a spoon and something thicker like yogurt or pudding. We let all four of our kids make quite the mess when they were little, but all of them were using utensils well before their peers could. My son never even used a sippy cup, went straight to a regular cup.

I do fruit alot with her lunch. She loves peachs, manderian oranges and the fruit cocktail, so we get those in the small single servings. She also likes fresh fruit and will eat banana's and such.

This week we got her some jello. I would put it on the spoon and hand her the spoon and she would get the spoon in her mouth herself. So I think she is closer to being ready to use it. We gave her a spoon a month or two ago for a few days, but she just really wanted to play with it than eat with it.