What to Feed Your Baby/Toddler When They're Sick

Do you feel like everything falls apart the second your baby or toddler gets sick… especially when it comes to food?

If you’ve ever found yourself stressing about what they’re eating (or not eating), wondering if you should be doing more, or feeling like you’re undoing all your progress… you’re not alone. When sickness hits, it can feel like you’re just trying to survive the day, let alone make the “right” nutrition choices.

In this episode, Kathy walks you through exactly how to approach feeding your baby or toddler during sickness in a way that reduces stress, supports their body, and protects your long-term feeding goals. She shares her top five recommendations as a pediatric dietitian, breaking down what actually matters, what you can let go of, and how to navigate this season with more confidence and compassion. 

She also explains how to prioritize hydration without overcomplicating things, why appetite changes are completely normal, and how to avoid the common mistakes that can lead to longer-term feeding struggles after sickness passes.

Tune in to hear:

•  Why hydration matters more than food when your little one is sick 
•  What to focus on (and what to stop stressing about) during illness 
•  Why “boosting the immune system” during sickness isn’t what you think 
•  How everyday habits matter more than quick fixes like supplements or juices 
•  Why it’s okay if your child only wants “safe” or familiar foods for a few days 
•  How to handle decreased appetite without pressure or panic 
•  The biggest mistake parents make that can lead to feeding struggles later 
•  Simple ways to keep a loose routine without forcing meals 
•  How to support your child’s autonomy while still offering food consistently 
•  Why sneaking bites, bribing, or forcing food can backfire long-term 
•  How to transition back to normal eating after sickness passes 
•  Why taking care of your own nutrition actually helps your child, too

Connect with Kathy:

IG: @theminimedietitian

Website: https://theminimedietitian.com/ 

Watch my FREE 60-minute Masterclass: The 5 Habits That Are Sabotaging Your Toddler's Nutrition (and what to do instead)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Welcome back to Food for Taught. Today we are talking about something that every parent faces at one point or another, and that is what to feed your baby or toddler when they're sick. Just as a general disclaimer, information shared in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes and does not replace individual recommendations that might be necessary for your child. So a sick baby is possibly the saddest thing on earth. I don't know about you, but any sick baby or toddler, it just breaks your heart to watch them not feel good. And let's be honest, it really runs you ragged. My biggest prayer when my son gets sick is that I don't get sick at the same time. Because when we're constantly exchanging germs and snot, and I'm the primary person that is providing comfort, the chances of me getting sick too are so high. But if you are a parent, you know that when your little one is sick, if you are also sick, it makes everything so much harder. So we're just all gonna go ahead and say a prayer that the next time your little one gets sick, you don't get it too. But today what we're focusing on is how you can show up confidently around food, nutrition, hydration for your little one when they do get sick because it is inevitable. And the last thing that you need when your baby or toddler is sick is to be trying to figure out what or how to feed them at the same time. So today I'm going to give you my top five recommendations as a pediatric dietitian for sickness. These will allow you to manage the hard days, give yourself some grace along the way, and then also prevent future feeding struggles that I do frequently see stem out of sickness and how we handle food around periods of sickness. Now, to some degree, these interventions are going to look different based on type of sickness. So we're not going to get into the nitty-gritty of specific foods to offer or certain nutrients to focus on because that is going to differ from one type of illness to another. So whether it's a simple cold, a mild fever, vomiting and diarrhea, hand, foot, and mouth, there are so many different ways that little ones get sick and they're always passing their germs around. So there can be a lot of individualization to this. But what I want to speak to today is the simple and overall approach to food that applies to most forms of illness, regardless of what kind they are. And of course, this is talking when we're managing sickness at home. So of course, if you require a visit to the doctor or to the ER or to the urgent care, we want to be following doctor's orders at that time. But when you are at home working on, okay, how do I keep my little one fed? How do I make sure they're getting what their little body needs as they're fighting off this sickness? These are the things we want to focus on. What I frequently hear from parents is just a lot of worry and concern around getting food in their child while they're sick. And the first thing that I want you to remember when you're feeding a little one who is sick is how you feel when you're sick. I think it's really easy to jump into the mode of it's my job to make sure that they get what their body needs. But if you think about how you feel when you're sick, you're tired, you might be body achy, if you've been throwing up, food is the last thing you want to think about or touch. And so we want to keep that perspective when we're also feeding our little ones and really try to have patience and compassion for how they are feeling too. So the goal of what we're talking through today, these five recommendations that I'm going to walk you through today, my top two goals with these recommendations are that one, we keep your little one hydrated and nourished. And two, that what you're doing communicates kindness and care to your little one and also to yourself in the midst of an uncomfortable, often super tiring and draining situation. So that we can get you to the other side, knowing that your little one got what their body needed, and that you can also kind of hit the reset button after sickness and get back to your healthy, adventurous eater that you had before sickness, too, so that sickness doesn't feel like it completely makes us take so many steps backwards. So, recommendation number one this is your primary focus when your little one is sick, is hydration. We are not so much focused on what they are eating as what they are drinking. So when we're talking babies and toddlers, specifically for babies, this looks like breast milk or formula with a little bit of water. Okay, we do not need to be packing on pediolite or electrolytes. Actually, pediolite isn't even recommended under the age of one unless specifically directed by your pediatrician. So when we're looking at hydration focus, what I mean there is breast milk or formula under the first birthday, and with sips of water being allowed after the first birthday, that can be a combination of water, milk, depending on the type of sickness, pediolite, and even juice if needed. Again, main goal is hydration. Another way to do this with toddlers, especially, is popsicles are great forms of hydration. Even high water content fruits are good forms of hydration. But again, that is going to depend on what they're really in the mood for and if they are in a place where they could eat fruits or keep that down if we're looking at a tummy bug or something like that. So when we're looking at tummy bugs, things that affect our intake or our ability to handle different things on the stomach, we're really just focused on hydration. But this also applies to even just a cold or a minor fever that just makes us feel crummy enough that we don't want to eat many other foods. Your primary focus is hydration. With that, I hear from a lot of parents, okay, but I want to make sure that I'm boosting their immune system when they're sick. So should I be giving vitamins or gummies or elderberry shots or all these different things that I see frequently floating around on the internet, telling parents that this is how you can boost your child's immune system. And my biggest thing with the immune system, and what we have to understand about your little one's immune system as a baby or a toddler is that it is underdeveloped. It is not fully developed. And the way the immune systems work is not that boosting them with a single shot of vitamin C once sickness has already come on, that something like that is actually going to help them fight infection at that time, as much as putting in the day in and day out kind of mundane habits and habitual work around building their immune system to be strong when they are not in a period of sickness. So when I'm looking at building a little one's immune system, we're looking at what we are eating and the nutrients that your little one's body is getting day in and day out in your normal average life when they are not sick, because that is what is actually building their immune system so that when sickness happens, their immune system can then work on their behalf. So, in terms of boosting the immune system, I'm not going to say that there is harm in wanting to offer more of those like higher antioxidant foods when they're sick, but again, appetite is probably going to be off. They're probably not going to be interested in much food or a lot of different foods. And the last thing we want to do is be pressuring our little one to eat certain or specific foods just so that we can quote unquote boost their immune system. So when you are in a season of sickness, the immune system is already at work. That is not the time that we want to boost it. We want to be building it before and after periods of sickness. Second recommendation is to allow yourself to be considerate of what might appeal to them most, like what they are most interested in at that time, or what their safest foods are. So I work with a lot of parents who have the goals of increasing variety in their little one's diet. They want to see them eat a wide variety of foods and to know that they're getting the nutrition that their body needs. And periods of sickness, it can really feel like you're taking steps back from that. It can feel like, you know, maybe you were on a good track and we were seeing a lot of exploration and we were increasing the variety. And then we get sick and it feels like all they want is carbs or beige foods or pouches or their safest foods. And it is totally okay for those to be the foods that your little one eats when they are sick. Because again, we want to consider what might appeal to them most, what might feel best to their body. And we have to give credit to the facts that appetite is one of the first things to take a hit when your little one is sick. So our primary focus, again, is hydration. Secondary focus is that the food that they are eating or consuming feels good to them. Now, depending again on the type of sickness, we may need to look at things like more bland foods or lower fat or sugar foods for easier digestion, especially if we're dealing with things like diarrhea or vomiting. So there's definitely nutritional considerations to have there in the midst of acute illness. But largely what I want you to be able to focus on without any guilt or without any worry is that it's totally okay if your toddler only eats buttered noodles for three days while they are sick at home. Or it is totally okay if we live on crackers and pouches for a couple of days while we're also prioritizing hydration. So doing that for that short period of time, what I want you to know is that it's not going to completely erase the work that you've been doing. Having those few days or a short period of time where we are relying more heavily on things like pouches or snacks or whatever foods feel most comfortable and appealing to your little one is totally okay. But then the goal after that, and when sickness has subsided, when we are healthy again, when the fever is gone, when our personality is starting to come back again, is that then we go back to our normal approach to food. Now, the key here is that we do that without pressure to eat. Again, it can feel really daunting and scary when your toddler goes from eating normally to all of a sudden maybe a whole week of barely eating anything. I've been there as a mom and I know it feels a little bit freaky, but we can trust their body. Again, if you think about how you feel when you're sick, that is not a time that you want somebody pressuring you to eat something that doesn't sound good to you or that you're not even hungry for. And in normal life, appetites fluctuate. There are days that your little one is going to be hungrier or days that they are not going to be as hungry. And with sickness, that is even more highlighted. So that erraticness of a toddler appetite can feel so strong during sickness. And so we want to make sure that we are not pressuring your little one to eat in that time, even if it feels like, okay, but they're back to normal, their fever's gone, or they haven't thrown up in two days. Shouldn't they be feeling better by now? Shouldn't I be trying to get food in their body? And this is really where I see sometimes that struggle come out of a bout of sickness is when parents feel desperate to get their little one to start eating again after they've been sick, because appetite recovery can take time. Even once you're kind of back to normal, or once you feel like they're kind of back to normal, their appetite coming back fully online can take some time. And we want to give them the autonomy to drive that. In terms of you having peace of mind around that, what I'm always looking at when I'm looking at a little one's nutrition is their intake over the course of multiple days and weeks, right? We don't meet overall nutrient needs in single meals or even single days. They're compounded over multiple days and weeks. And so even if there's a week of sickness and appetite is really low and we don't really eat very much, that is okay because we're gonna look at getting back on track, getting their appetite back online, and getting them back to that varied diet with a lot of different nutrients so that we can continue working on their immune system again for the next time that they get sick. But we don't want to get so lost in that week of sickness or few days of sickness that it spirals us into a place of taking more control or feeling like I need to control that my child gets something in their body because that is what's going to set you up on the track to a month down the road, two months down the road, be looking back and saying, Oh yeah, everything got harder after they were sick. We want to prevent you from getting to that place. Recommendation number three is really just practical things to try while your little one is sick, or even to consider prioritizing. So these are the things that have helped me when I've been home caring for a sick little one, either baby or toddler, and also things that help my clients frequently too. So one is to attempt to keep a loose routine. Again, this is going to vary based on the kind of sickness and what you're actually dealing with. But if you already follow some type of regular eating schedule or pattern for your little one, we want to continue those eating opportunities as essentially offerings. So no guarantee that your little one is going to eat at those times, but keeping or trying to keep somewhat of a loose routine where you do still bring them to the table, you do still attempt to put them in the high chair. We'll talk about comfort at the table in a second, but you do still attempt to put them in the high chair or have a meal time, even just let them sit there and explore if they are content without expectation that they're going to eat much. But again, going back to the way that toddler appetites or even baby appetites are very erratic, that we don't know when they may actually be interested in something that you put in front of them. And asking your toddler, are you hungry or do you want to eat is probably the worst question that you could ask a little one because they don't have the full capacity or brain development or understanding to be able to answer that question correctly. And so instead of turning to your little one and saying, Are you hungry or do you want something to eat? We just want to present that opportunity to them and then follow their lead. So keeping that loose structure or routine so that you're not just like guessing all day long or randomly pulling things out of the fridge or the pantry, thinking maybe they'd be hungry right now, maybe they wouldn't be, will help your little one to just have their predictability in their day too. And then going back to the high chair piece, we do want to prioritize comfort at the table. So you can let your little one sit on your lap or take the high chair outside if that's going to improve our mood. We can keep that structure without the pressure to eat. And our goal is to keep mealtime associations positive. So if the high chair is a no-go when we are sick, that is okay. Our goal is to keep them comfortable and feeling like food is safe and approachable. We do want to kind of do away with time stamps when we're looking at that keeping your loose routine because your timing in the day is going to change. We have to let go of that perfectionism piece a little bit. I think this is probably the hardest part of parenting for me is letting go of all of my own predictable routines and patterns. I like my days to be predictable and to kind of be rinse and repeat. And with a little one, you never know what you're gonna get. And so I think especially with sickness, it's important to let go of some of those expectations around like, well, things are supposed to happen at this time or that time. And we can look more at the patterns throughout the day and looking at how long has it been since their last eating opportunity. Instead of thinking, well, breakfast needs to be at this time and lunch needs to be at this time, we can look at how long has it been since their last eating opportunity and go from there. A note on this related to feeding babies too. So with babies, depending on how old your little one is, you may even be in a place where you're only offering solids like once a day or twice a day. You may not be at the point yet where you are offering three full meals a day. And so when they're sick, it might feel like, well, now we've gone completely backwards with solids or with table foods because they only want their bottles or they only want to nurse. And so we're not even doing any solids. And what I want you to know in this season is a few days of sickness without offering solids. I mean, you can still offer, but even if your little one is just completely not having it, taking a break for a couple of days and allowing their primary nutrition, which their primary nutrition is still breast milk or formula. So taking a few days and allowing that to be their primary source of nutrition and hydration, and then going back to solids when your little one feels happy and is okay with being at the table and wants to be there is going to keep together that positive mealtime association so much better. And it's totally okay to do that. Recommendation number four is to avoid sneaking food in or trying to force bites. And this is where I see a lot of parents start to go backwards, or where I end up working with families months out of bouts of sickness who are telling me, yeah, the struggle started when they were sick, because after they were sick, it just felt like they didn't want anything. And so we just started making what they would eat, or we started trying to bribe or reward so that they would just eat something. And our entire relationship with food just kind of went off the rails, and now we're really stuck and need a lot more help. So this is not the time to start buying anything you can possibly think of that they might want to eat. So appetites take time to come back after sickness. And when you are going back to your normal routine or you're starting to offer regular meals again, you're putting the family meal in front of them at dinner again because you feel like their tummy's back to normal, maybe you're not seeing them come back to eating on the timeline that you want to see it happen. But if we go down a path of, okay, now we're just going to start making what they are eating today and repeat and repeat and repeat, that is going to get you stuck in a food rut. And so instead of going that way, what we want to do is go back to your normal. And this is assuming that your normal is offering regular meals throughout the day, a variety of foods, feeding the family meal. But assuming those are things that you are already doing, we want to get back to doing that after sickness without the pressure to get them to eat. And then recommendation number five, this is on a personal note, is to not forget to feed yourself. So this actually might be when your little one is interested in eating. This has happened countless times to me, where I've been home with a sick toddler who was not interested in eating, wanted nothing to do with the high chair or being by the table. But if I was eating something, if I was snacking on something, if I was sitting at the table eating, that was when food interest did happen without me even like asking or bringing it up. Because when they see you do it, it may spark that interest for them. So I say this in two camps. One, when you're feeding yourself, this actually might be what sparks that interest for your little one. And two, it's also really easy to let your own needs take a back seat when you're in mom mode and you're just trying to get your little one back to health. I've been there, but the smallest things, like having snacks on hand, making sure that you do eat a meal, even if it's when you're nap trapped and you're eating a protein bar, like that is better than nothing. You do not need perfection, but it is not a flex to get to the end of the day and say, I haven't eaten in 12 hours. Okay. You need the energy to be able to show up for your little one and care well for them. And the other piece of that, just from a nutrition side, from an immune system side, if you are not fueling your body or if you are letting yourself run ragged while you're caring for a sick child, then you're more likely to get sick too, if your body isn't getting what it needs to be able to fight off that infection. And again, I know that is so much easier said than done. This is not a time that we're looking for perfection, or that I'm even like, you need to be meal prepped so that when your baby gets sick, then you have something to eat. Like that is not real life. But you do need to make sure that you feed yourself and eat throughout the day too, because otherwise you will not be able to show up with as much capacity for your little one, and your chances of getting sick yourself will be higher. So I hope this was helpful for you, that you're taking away a few things for when your little one is sick. Again, there's a lot of individualization that goes into this, but what I see very frequently is parents feeling more stressed about nutrition when their little one is sick than they really have to be. And so remember that hydration is your number one focus. And also when you don't feel good about something, when you're worried, when you're concerned, that is a time to reach out to your pediatrician to get more support. And then, of course, when their appetite is coming back online and you're starting to feed again, remember to give your little one grace and yourself grace too. I hope this brought some peace of mind to you. And also, I would love it if you shared this with another mom friend because we all know that every mom faces sickness with their baby or toddler. As always, you are welcome to message me on Instagram at the minimum dietitian. My DMs are always open to you, and I will see you next time.