As parents, we often feel concerned about the amount of food our vegan kids eat at each meal or in a day. Sometimes it’s that they didn’t eat “enough” and other times it’s that they ate “too much”. This often leaves us feeling worried about their overall nutrition and confused about the appropriate amount vegan kids should eat at each stage of growth.
I think every parent goes through this experience and your feelings for being concerned about their nutrition or feeling confused about their overall intake are valid! I know how important it is to you that your vegan children get the appropriate nutrition and portion sizes to grow strong and healthy on a vegan diet.
So, I’m answering your biggest questions on this blog post and sharing with you how much should a toddler, an infant, or a vegan child eat in a day so that you can feel confident about them meeting their nutrient needs for proper growth and development.
How much should my kid eat in a day?
This is a very broad question and there isn’t a specific answer that applies to all vegan children. But there are some helpful guidelines that I want to share with you so that you become aware and familiar with your child’s intake to better understand how much they should be eating.
A kid’s stomach size is small relative to an adult’s. Their tummies are small, which means they don’t have a lot of room for food. But the incredible thing about our tummies is that they can expand, which means some kids may be able to hold more volume. So, some kids may eat less and some kids may eat more—and that’s OK.
To give you some reference, the size of your child’s stomach is about the size of their fist—this is true for adults too. Your stomach is relatively the size of your fist. The amount of food that your child can hold in their tummy may be a small amount relative to their fist, but this changes over time.
Kids are so in-tuned with their hunger and fullness cues. They know when they are hungry and when they are full. Now, their intake does change. It changes every meal, every day, every week. So, no one day will look the same.
One of the things that I tell my clients to know how much their infant, toddler, and/or child should eat is to observe how much they are eating. When you become aware of their typical food intake, you’ll begin to learn how much food they should eat. Just remember, that it will still look different.
Signs that they are hungry
Saying “more”—whether verbal or non-verbal
Toddler pointing to food, the kitchen, or standing by the refrigerator
Infant or toddler smacking their lips
Signs that they are not hungry/full
Refuse to sit on high chair or at dinner table
Throw food on the floor after they’ve taken some bites
Begin to play with their food
May be teething or experiencing some illness
Portion sizes and calories for vegan children
While there are recommended guidelines for meeting calorie and portion sizes for vegan infants, toddlers, and children, I don’t recommend parents to measure portion sizes. It’s OK to use them as a reference, but not as an indication for how much to offer to your vegan kids.
The best advice that I recommend to parents when feeding their children is to trust how much their infant, toddler, or child wants to eat. Some will eat more and some will eat less.
How much should a toddler eat
Every child is unique, which means they each have unique appetites, calorie requirements, and burn calories at different rates. So, that’s why I say that these are simply recommended guidelines because there isn’t a perfect number of calories or a perfect portion size that works for all children.
Calories
The total amount of calories needed is complex as it factors many different variables. So, there really isn’t an exact number to target or go by for our children. Body size and body weight don’t really determine how much your individual child should eat.
The total amount of calories that your child needs increases as they grow; however, I don’t recommend to “count calories” or worry so much about the numbers. I recommend to offer a variety of plant foods—legumes, grains, nuts, seeds, fruits, and vegetables—and allow your child to tell you how much food they need to support their growth on a vegan diet.
The following is just a reference and each child’s needs are different:
6 - 12 months = 600 - 800kcal per day
12 months - 24 months = 800 - 1,000kcal
2 - 3 years = 1000kcal - 1200kcal
3 - 5 years = 1000 - 1800kcal (higher end with very active)
6 - 10 years = 1300 - 2200kcal (higher end with very active)
Protein
6 - 12 months = 11gm/day
1 - 3 years = 13gm
4 - 8 years = 19gm/day
9 - 13 years = 34gm.day
Fat
The amount of fat in the diet impacts the total energy intake (i.e. calories) and meeting requirements that support growth during these stages of life.
There isn’t sufficient evidence to support recommending an exact amount of fat for kids to consume in a day for normal growth.
So instead, a range of percent to meet calorie needs is proposed:
6 - 12 months = 30gm/day (adequate intake)
1 - 3 years = 30 - 40% calories from fat
4 - 18 years = 25 - 35% calories from fat
Your role as a parent in feeding your child
When my clients feel concerned about their vegan kids not eating certain foods or certain amounts of food, a common question I hear is: “How do I get them to eat ________?”.
I smile when I get asked this question because I know how important it is to you as the vegan parent to make sure your kids eat well. So, I want to share with you what I tell my clients so that you too feel at ease during meal times.
Our role as the parent is not to get our kids to eat. Our only role is to choose what to serve for the meal, when to serve it, and where to serve that meal. It is our kid’s role to choose if they want to eat and how much of it they want to eat.
This is called the Division of Responsibility. We often feel like we have to do everything we can to make our kids eat a bite of broccoli, a few bites of beans, or eat a few more spoonfuls because they didn’t eat “enough”. But in reality, that is not our role as the parent. Our only responsibility during feeding is to decide what’s going to be served for that meal. It is up to our kids to decide how much of that meal—whether it’s less or more of what you initially served—they want to eat.
When I show my clients how to successfully do this in their household, they feel more confident in feeding their vegan kids. They feel more at ease during a meal knowing that their individual child is going to eat however much they need to support their growth on a vegan diet.
How having trust in your child’s appetite helps have a better relationship with food
Our vegan kids have a better relationship with food throughout their life when we trust their appetite. Research suggests that when parents allow their children to eat based on their own hunger cues, children are more likely to be in tune with their hunger later in life. This helps reduce the risk of eating disorders, obesity, and enables them to be more adventurous eaters later in life too.
It’s important to show our kids that we trust their appetite by being mindful on what we say around food. This is something I myself am still working on, simply because it’s not what I grew up hearing so it doesn’t come natural to me. So, if it takes time and thought for you to do the same, it’s OK!
Commenting on however much (or little) our vegan kids eat sends the wrong message to them. It makes them question their own appetite, ultimately learning to not trust their own appetite and preventing them from having a good relationship with food. This results in our kid’s changing how much they eat and potentially eating less than what their body needs to support their growth on a vegan diet.
But when we allow the opportunity for our vegan kids to lead their own food intake at each stage of growth, we ourselves become less stressed around nutrition. When we allow our kids to lead their own appetite, we allow ourselves to be relaxed around a meal and ultimately feel more confident in feeding them.
Allowing our kids to eat intuitively—that is to listen to their bodies for however much food they need—helps with their self-esteem too. It gives them the autonomy that they are looking for.
What to do if they ask for more or don’t eat “enough”
I want to share a few scenarios with you to help you in your journey.
“My child doesn’t stop eating. Is there a time to say enough is enough?”.
This is a message a vegan mom sent me. There are a couple of things that come to mind: (1) is the meal balanced, (2) what is their meal schedule like (3) is this their usual eating behavior.
If the meal is not well balanced or if meals/snacks aren’t scheduled regularly, this could be a reason kids aren’t feeling satiated. So, it’s understandable for them to continue to request for more food. Kids are very aware of their hunger. They know when they are hungry and when they are satisfied. I generally recommend to honor their request for more food until they’ve communicated to you that they’ve had enough. This is of course within reason, for example making sure that there is enough of that food/meal for the rest of the family.
“My bigger issue is they’ll say they’re full of whatever the main part of dinner is and then ask for desert.”
This is common to hear. There are two things that I recommend: (1) serve family style meals and (2) serve dessert together (with the meal). Yes, at first kids will eat the dessert first and will probably only eat that but leaving dessert until after dinner may lead to kids only thinking about that dessert. So, naturally, they will hold off dinner—either by not eating anything or saying they’re finished—so that they can have dessert.
Serving family style meals for your vegan family will help your children have autonomy by sticking to their role when it comes to eating: choosing what they want to eat and how much of it.
Reference
Institute of Medicine 2005. Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein, and Amino Acids. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/10490.