Got it in one

I remember asking around on parent Facebook groups how you keep a kid as young as M eating everything he needs to stay on ratio when most of his food prior to the diet ended up in his hair, on the floor, in the dog's mouth, his shirt, down his diaper, and lots of places other than his mouth. Most of them shrugged and said "Well you just have to make sure he eats everything." Cool. No problem. *You* tell him that. He doesn't talk yet, but he sure as hell can communicate "No!"

Pre-diet, we didn't adhere to any particular philosophy of feeding babies but we were loosely on the Baby Led Weaning spectrum. We'd put piles of food on his tray, he'd eat what he wanted. We never spoon fed him the standard purees, but I did often lightly mash up foods for him that I sometimes spoonfed him, but I mostly kept them sticky enough that they'd stay on a spoon he could pick up and put in his mouth. So when we had to keep our pre-keto food diary for our dietician, it *looked* like he was pretty good at eating a variety of discrete things we put on his tray. Our (excellent) dietician put together menus for him that were things like "this many grams of meat, this many grams of broccoli in this many grams of butter, and this many grams of heavy cream to drink." Theoretically, this was in line with how he would eat pre-diet, but when it became necessary to make sure he ate everything we were giving him, this proved frustrating. If he ate his fruit or veggies before he drank his cream and then he refused the cream, we panicked. If he threw some buttered veggies on the floor, we'd be pulling up our diet calculator frantically trying to figure out how much more fat we had to give him in some other form. It was frustrating and became a two-adult job trying to make sure he ate everything, and he was unhappy with our very hands-on interference in his previously enjoyable mealtimes. (Say what you will about my kids, they have always loved their food)

So we switched strategies - I started finding ways to make all-in-one meals where every spoonful was the right ratio. That way, if he threw something on the floor or mashed it into his hair, the only concern was that he wasn't getting enough to eat in that meal - an easy problem to fix - rather than that his ratio would be off and potentially cause breakthrough seizures. Moving to all-in-one meals and snacks has been a logistical lifesaver for us and everyone is much happier. If you're going keto with a very young kid like ours, I highly recommend this approach.

I'll share as many all-in-one recipes as I can for both meals and snacks. Some are mashes, some are baked goods, all of them are designed to make life easier. I also have a few where the primary component is a little above his ratio, so if he doesn't eat all of the four blueberries (or whatever) that he's allotted with it, it's no big deal, and we don't stress. If you've also ended up going this route, I would love to hear about your kid's favorite all-in-one combinations in the comments below, too!