Food Diary of A Three Year Old – Savouring The Bite

Healthy kids, paediatric dietitian, kids dietitian, children, kids, healthy eating

Pauline is one of our favourite French princesses.  She lives near Paris.  I had the pleasure of spending a lovely weekend with her.  It was an ambitious project but I followed the little angel around for a couple of days in an attempt to carefully capture what a typical day of eating would be like for her.  She doesn’t like ‘bits’ in her yoghurt but Pauline sure does love her food.

Isn’t it a lovely long bank holiday weekend?  I wanted to share a slightly different post with you this week.  A little bit about myself and my family.

Pauline is my niece and I love spending time with her.  I am hoping that over the years my little Léa will be able to speak French so that she can have summer play dates with her lovely wee cousins.

When this post was first written,  it was at a time pre-Léa and I could sleep beyond 6 am! Those good old days when something called sleep existed, haha!

So I admit that Pauline was up much earlier than me, so I missed breakfast with our little princess.

However, I was told that her usual choices included cereal, crepes, fruit or little morsels of bread with jam.

She feeds herself and is very partial to a chat whilst she eats.

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Lunch usually commences with a salad of some description like cucumber or delicious pieces of melon.

These were especially sweet and juicy.

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The main always consisted of meat with vegetables.  This may or may not be accompanied by puree (potato), pasta or rice.  She’s brilliant to feed and will happily eat her portion of vegetables such as spinach or a salad consisting of carrots, bell peppers, tomatoes or cucumber.

It really was a delight to see Pauline enjoying her greens so much.

She’s a natural model and was more than happy for me to photograph her in exchange for chit chats whilst she ate her meal.

She really does love telling stories and is a bit of a chatterbox, so she does benefit from a little bit of supervision to ensure that there is more ‘eating’ than ‘storytelling’ at the dinner table.

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Let’s just verify that the spinach did make it in.

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Yes, I think it’s safe to say that it has.  Isn’t she a brilliant model?

The meal is usually sealed with fruity yoghurt or a slice of Fromage – two of her favourite things!

Speaking of favourite things, she does adore sweets.  Strawberry sweets are her favourite flavour (or so she tells me).

I must confess that I did offer her a couple whilst we worked on a puzzle.  She likes to take little bites at a time to savour each bite of her treat.

 
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A short nap later, Pauline will be found zipping around in the garden in her ‘leg-motored’ car.

She will stop often for sips of water and a snack of bread with cheese or fruit.

The evening meal is very similar to lunch, consisting of meat with vegetables.

The meal is always followed by yoghurt, cheese or fruit as well as lots of play in the garden with her sister.

There’s the trampoline (she thinks it’s called tram-pauline and is named after her)! So not surprisingly she loves the ‘tram-pauline‘ and her little car.  She’s a very active little girl.

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Thank you so much to Princess Pauline and her parents for featuring on my blog.

It’s so wonderful to be part of this little girl’s world who has a fantastic appetite for food and life!

What I love about her eating patterns is that she usually eats everything that is offered to her.

She does enjoy her sweets but in moderation and burns everything off with lots of play in the garden.

I also love that meals are completed either with yoghurt or cheese ensuring that she has her daily dose of calcium.  And above all, I love the chats of course.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend folks.

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