Infant Menu by Date on the Full Version

This article will tell you about planning an infant menu that covers all infants in care and includes the USDA meal pattern portion sizes for each age range but does not link specific amounts to individual infants. If you are looking to record the foods and quantities offered to individual infants, please refer to our article on Infant Menu by Name.

To plan an infant menu:

• Click on Menu from the main dashboard. This will take you to the menu calendar.

• From the menu calendar, select the date and meal type for which you want to plan an infant menu. This will take you to the Meal Details screen.
• On the Meal Details screen, click on the blue “Edit Infant Menu” button.

You have the option to use a saved menu if you have added those to My Food Program. Selecting a saved menu will populate the food items. Learn more about saved menus for infants here.

• If you are not using a saved menu, you will need to select the food items that you are using to satisfy the infant meal pattern requirements.
• You may add food items two ways
• Use the Favorite Foods dropdown.
• Search our food database. If you use the search function, we recommend keeping your search term broad as the system will not recognize mis-spelled words. Some sponsors limit the use of the search function. If you do not see a search box, then this feature was turned off by your sponsor.
• As you add food items, you can see portion size reminders that correspond with the minimum amounts in the infant meal pattern.
• If you attempt to plan an infant menu with only formula or breast milk and an infant that is developmentally ready for solid foods is checked in for the meal already, then you will get an error when you save prompting you to add solid foods to your menu.
• When you are done, click the green “Save” button to return to the Meal Details screen.