Another article I've read http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1028854/How-strict-vegan-diet-children-ill.html
Referring to parents and nurseries who are damaging their children's health by eating raw foods, higher quantities of fruit and veg than required for toddlers etc.
I've always felt that our girls need enough carbs to fuel their mountain goat adventures, protein to keep them going in general and fruit and veg to keep their nappies in working order :D
Twingle 2 eats no end of bananas and grapes and is constantly on the go, Twingle 1 is less of a busy bee, eats much slower, eats slightly less and around two thirds of the quantity of the bananas and grapes of T2.

Apparently, and I don't any links about this on hand, brown bread is not ideal for small children. It's normally all we have in our house but the more slowly digested and bulkier content of the bread is apparently less ideal for a baby or toddlers digestive system.
On that one, we hit a balance and use wholemeal, white and brown.

Always fascinates me how we're being lectured about healthy eating and yet trying to get advice about kids' diets is like trying to get blood out of a stone! I'd love to know how much an 'average' baby should eat but I just get told to give him what he wants. So frustrating!!!! :mad:

Kids have special needs though, and I get worried when well meaning adults apply dietary rules for adults to their kids. How many people know that to a child, skimmed milk is basically of no more nutritional value than water?

There have been a number of cases lately about vegan kids getting sick - one of the cases was the daughter of well-known vegans so it couldn't have been a case of those parents not knowing how to 'do' that diet correctly.
Back in the 'old days' kids were given milk at school to combat rickets and other diseases as due to poverty kids weren't getting enough dairy food, however nowadays, due to affluence kids aren't getting enough dairy!

I do wish that if we are going to be berated and accused of 'neglect' if we have a larger than average baby then us parents could be given some proper advice about balanced diets for little ones. All I do right now is to make sure that out of four portions of food each day he gets 2 savoury, 2 sweet, and that they include at least one protein, one dairy and 2 or more fruit and veg.

I don't know about brown bread specifically but I wouldn't give shop bought bread to any child under 12 months as it has too much salt. I think worrying can cause more problems than anything as children can see it as a battle. My youngest son doesn't like vegetables but does like fruit. His main food was ham sandwiches with cucumber and Apple. He likes milk and will eat cheese as long as its cheddar and not cooked. His other meals were pasta with ham and soft cheese and weetabix with bananas. To me it's a very boring diet but it does cover the food groups and gradually we've added a few more foods to the group but if I pushed it too hard at the beginning I think he would have just dug his heels in. My husband as a child would only eat bovril sandwiches for years. He eats normally now but he talks of the misery he had in childhood as various adults tried to force feed him food he really disliked. I don't feed the children snacks but always have plenty of fruit available and say they can eat as much fruit as they like. I don't worry about portions I look at the children. If they have bags of energy, skin is a healthy colour, they have good resistance to colds and infections, cuts heal quickly and they are neither overweight or underweight I think you can say their diets okay. I don't want the children obsessed with food so I try to stay laid back and don't use a lot of processed food and give them a lot of variety to choose from. Seems to work.