Portion Sizes

Hi, I’m Jo Lenz, and I’m a pediatric or children’s dietician, and I’m going to be sharing my top tips to help with any issues you may be facing with your baby or your child’s eating.

So one of the most common questions I get from parents is what is the right portion size for my child? And it’s a really good question. So under the age of one, we don’t actually have any guides, proportion, sizes, and there’s many reasons for that.

All children grow at different rates especially when you start weaning intake can vary so much. Lots will get thrown on the floor, and that’s all completely normal and to be expected, and your baby will still be having some of their nutrition from milk.

So over the age, I think the key with that is just not to panic and try not to compare your child to others. It’s very easy to do that, but every all children grades differently. And I think you would soon pick up on whether there is an issue with their growth. And if you were ever concerned that a health visitor is a really good first point of call for this.

Over the age of one, there are some guidelines out there for portion sizes, which can be really helpful for parents because often it’s difficult to know where to start. However, these are just guides and all children grow differently. So if you have a child who is really tall for their age and they’re growing along the highest, centiles for say their height or weight, then they’ll naturally just need to have more calories and more food than a child that is growing on one of the lowest centiles. And that is, that is absolutely fine, but it’s just to be aware of that. Some really good resources that I like are the infant and toddler forum, the Caroline Walker trust and the first steps nutrition trust. These all have some really good booklets on portion sizes.