17 months old

It's not much fun for either of you, is it? Fortunately, you can minimise the need for “no” by organising your home to be more child-friendly. Keeping phones, mobiles, fragile items and remote controls high up out of reach will increase your peace of mind. Try to reorganise cupboards, too, so that those in reach contain unbreakables or items that don’t matter.

At around this age, many toddlers go from happily eating anything you give them to becoming much more fussy and/or being too ‘busy’ to eat. Or they might decide that food is a wonderful plaything. A delicious plate of food might, piece by piece, all be thrown on the floor. Don’t despair, this is a perfectly normal developmental stage - and no child will voluntarily starve!

Try not to react too much or get upset. Toddlers can thrive on less food than you think - and less variety than you would like! If your little one is getting choosy about your old familiar recipes, you may want to try something new – like one of our tasty HiPP Organic meals suitable for toddlers. There are main meals, desserts, fruits, drinks and snacks - all giving healthy organic nourishment.

Mealtime with toddlers is not always easy – we know! Here are some hints and tips to help make toddler mealtimes go a bit more smoothly.

• Offer foods that are easy to pick up, so they can feed themselves
• Give small portions; you can always offer more if your child is still hungry (see our guide to toddler portions for more information)
• Try not to spend more than 20-30 minutes at the table – after that, remove any uneaten food without making any comment
• If your toddler refuses a meal, don’t take it away and offer a different one in its place (they’ll soon learn to take advantage of this!) - but do try to make sure there is at least one food you know they like at each meal
• If a toddler hasn’t eaten much at the mealtime, don’t give a snack soon after just to make sure they have eaten something – it's better to wait until the next regular meal or snack time
• Offer drinks throughout the day – water is the best choice
• Fruit juice is best given well-diluted, and only at mealtimes

Toddlers need less milk than babies - a total of 3 small servings of milk (120ml/4 fl oz) and/or other dairy foods per day is enough. If you’ve moved on to using cows’ milk, make sure it is full-fat (and not semi-skimmed or skimmed). If your toddler is becoming a bit fussy with food, however, you might choose to stick with a formula such as HiPP Organic Follow on Milk, which contains the extra protein and iron that toddlers need.