Get this FREE printable baby meal planner so you can keep track of what your baby eats each week and make sure your baby is getting all of the nutrition needed.
I have been tracking Brinley’s foods in my head, just the same as I did all of my other children. Well, that worked fine for them, but with four kids I need to be able to have head space clear unless the item is very necessary in my head. Therefore, I decided to make a sheet I could use to keep track of things on paper.
Nutritionists suggest you feed your family and self the “rainbow.” This holds true for baby. The color of a fruit or vegetable indicates the nutrients that are plentiful within it, so when you feed the rainbow, you get a good variety of nutrients.
While they call it feeding the rainbow, they actually tend to break it up into Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue/Purple, and White. I, however, like to keep the rainbow mentality in my head and just lump white into yellow when I am organizing it all.
For a list of what foods go in what group, see my post:
Feeding the Rainbow
Here is my plan with this sheet (I have only had it for a couple of days so it is all new to me).
I printed the page and then laminated it. If you want to laminate yours but don’t have a laminator, you can either take it to your local copy shop or you can even just slip it into a page protector and write on the outside of the page protector.
On the front side, I wrote in the food boxes with permanent marker. You can clean permanent marker by using fingernail polish remover.
I wrote the foods she eats in each category. On the front side, I also have a slot for shopping lists and what I need to make or prepare list. For these two boxes, I use a wet erase marker because those will change weekly.
For the backside, I also use the wet erase marker (you can also use a dry erase marker–I like wet erase just because it is more difficult for the marker to be wiped off).
I can plan out which foods she will eat at each meal for the week. This is helpful to keep myself straight and helpful for my husband or mom or anyone other than myself who will be feeding her.
I made the sheet to be used from the time solids are started until I decide I don’t need it anymore, so it has “snack foods” even though she doesn’t have snack time yet and “dairy” and “meats” even though she doesn’t eat those yet, either.
If you would like a copy of this, here is the link:
Related Posts:
- How To Introduce Solid Foods to Your Baby
- Baby’s Feeding Schedule With Solid Foods
- Tips for Introducing Solids to Your Baby “Randomly”
- How I Make Homemade Baby Food
This is fantastic! I am writing a series about infant dinners for my little one(2 weeks older than B). I already did toddler dinners for my older son. I am totally letting my readers in on this wonderful resource!!!
LOVE! What a great kid-friendly way of planning meals focusing on good nutrition.
Thanks ladies!-Valerie
This is a life-saver. We are incorporating a healthy lifestyle now and I would want the kids to start as early as now.Best, Mischna Ong