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Day 1 today. She went to preschool still a bit under the weather & ate none of her packed lunch there at all. On return home, she ate small petit filou and a bit of ham, that was it. About 45mins-1 hr later she said "I'm hungry!" Usually I would have said, nope, you should have eaten your lunch but today I said "Go and get the [ready prepared!] snack box from your cupboard!" She then spread an oat biscuit with peanut butter by herself, ate that, then ate a mini rice cake, then a big savoury rice cake with margarine (again spread herself) and then a few bites of a (rather sickly looking i have to say) cereal bar.
I don't think she knew what hit her, it was like christmas had come . It was hard for me though, she wanted to keep the snack box out & open in the living room but i made her choose one thing at a time then put the box back. That was the most control I've had, otherwise I've let her eat what she wants from it. I feel so odd not limiting her, it has kind of opened my eyes to how controlling i have been all this time about how much & when she can eat... I do wish she had chosen the raisins & apricots there though!!
Remains to be seen how much tea she will eat (though we will be having oven chips, fish fingers & peas, a dd fave!) I have a feeling all my theories will be proven wrong and she will actually eat more at mealtimes...
Anyway thanks for your suggestions on the other thread. Can I ask, what do you do if your children don't eat anything at all at mealtimes? If dd starts consistently doing that, happy in the knowledge she can just help herself to her snack box, I'm not sure I'll be entirely happy about it any more. (I won't be allowing the snack box to come out while i'm preparing meals mind you, just not sure what to do straight after meals).
I'm not franny or greeny but I don't do anything if my kids don't eat. I'm not always hungry and don't see why they should be, really. Sorry if I've missed some background here though
You are still in control because you choose what goes into it. Make sure you are really happy with all the contents and that there is not too much of any one item (so that if she eats 4 cereal bars you will not be happy)
Erm it depends how I feel and what the meal was, really, how I would react to him not eating. The thing is, it is his snack box so he can help himself when he wants to, but if I am serving up I would tell him not to.
I think if you would not be happy with her missing meals to eat the snacks then it could backfire. What is in the meals that she is not getting from the box? Or is it the social thing? I would require her to sit at the table even if not eating, for a bit.
I hope it works out. I feel I am not being very helpful here so will send Ms Greeny over if she hasn't already turned up like a tramp to a kipper
sorry can I butt in and ask about snack boxes.. age groups etc I'm sick of hearing my dd say "I'm hungry" although she is a fairly good/healthy eater...
my ds does actually make his own food to an extent, including lighting the gas - oh here, have some smelling salts people, he is watched like a hawk and knows to use the back burner only. But am kind of intrigued.
I started when ds was about 2.5 as we were constantly wrangling about what he was / wasn't allowed as a snack (and he was a big snacker)
I cleared a drawer in the kitchen and filled it with things I don't mind him eating during the day whenever he chose
healthy stuff like bananas, oat cakes, dried fruit, etc
it removes the control and the constant hassle thing - "I am hungry what can I have?" "Go and look in your snack box". The idea is it will help children to regulate their own hunger, make choices about food, feel in control, etc etc
Ms Greeny had to go one better and she has a ruddy mini FRIDGE for her wee princes which is such a cool idea
It does feel a bit weird relinquishing some of the control, especially if you weren't brought up like that yourself, but I really think it will enable her to develop a proper sense of when she is hungry and what and how much to eat.
I would be prepared to have to adjust your attitude towards how much she eats at dinner time though - if she eats a snack when she is hungry, and stops when she is satisfied, she may need less at official meal times and this isn't necessarily a problem IMO. Children have little tummies and sometimes little and often works better for them.
ok this sounds like something that my dd would be into to and would help my stress levels
How old is your child floating??
Mine is 6, is that a good age???
This is interesting - I have two grazers (who also eat at mealtimes, usually) and I get a steady stream of "What would DS1 like now, Mummy, please, Mummy?"
Franny - She would be missing out on fresh vegetables, basically, and stuff like rice, pasta, meat, fish etc.
Everything in her snack box is "healthy" (no crisps or chocolate there, we do occasionally have them but usually when out & about at cafes or when i give in to my own cravings! ) In fact the over-control developed because at one point snacks were quite often chocolate biscuits... i wouldn't mind but she has a tiny appetite (Greeny this is why i'm concerned about the increase in snacks impacting too much on her mealtimes) so 2 choc biscuits wld quite often be the same size as her meal!
Reasons for mealtimes - both to get the good stuff down her, and same as you say, importance of the social aspect of it.
i love what you say about removing the control & hassle thing and putting the control in their court, and learning about hunger from themselves.
Filly- i too was sick of dd forever saying - no, whining - "I'm hungry!" EVEN if she'd eaten well at mealtimes times, grr.
Greensleeves - i'm not sure how we were brought up. Later on, I know that dinnertime was pretty late & we were allowed to come home from school & help ourselves to sandwiches, cereal etc. But waiting for dinner was a pita & it was quite often something veggie-like and unusual so i'd spend the entire mealtime picking at my food. At my grandma's on holiday I would STUFF my face, I was a completely different person (beef & yorkshire pudding type cook). So I actually WANT to give dd more control over what we have, but I also want her to eat healthily so it can be a struggle!
Dd is 3.5 and has no problem with food. If anything, she probably has too much. She is constantly asking for something to eat, even though I'm sure she cannot be hungry.
My reservation is that she will plough her way through the entire box as I'm not sure she has an 'off switch'. Is restricting her items eaten from the snack box defeating the object?
I don't know, maybe only put a limited amount in there to start with, if she finishes it that's it?
Greeny, been thinking, my mum wasn't controlling atall when it came to food - like I said, when we were a bit older we could help ourselves. We weren't made to finish our meals or anything. So I have no idea where my pattern has come from. I do know that I have always been anxious about food - if i go out, I always make sure i have a snack on me, because otherwise I worry constantly about when my next food is coming, and I can't go for a meal at other people's house (unless it's an informal or spontaneous thing at a close friend's house) because I have a panic attack and can't eat a thing. Perhaps the worry about where my food is coming from translates into worrying about whether dd eats enough at mealtimes or not, and then just thinking all the time about whether or not she "ought" to have a snack. Or something. I don't know!
my mum was hospitalised after a psychotic break & diagnosed with catatonic schizophrenia when i was about 3-4. i don't know the details. I have no idea how she coped on a daily basis as a SAHM (right up till i was 9 or 10). who knows, perhaps i was hungry a lot of the time or something, or staying with my grandparents was traumatic because my grandma had a wholly different attitude to food (have heard hints from family friends "it's because of your grandma!" said very mysteriously). Prob more because of traumatic separation from the maternal figure.
omg how can all this waffle come out of discussion of a snack box????
dd not overweight but I am. Have numerous hang-ups and issues surrounding food so I think I panic that dd will be the same. I assume she can't possibly be hungry because she eats 3 good sized meals a day and has unlimited fruit to snack on.
I so want her to have a healthy attitude towards food but as I don't, I'm at a loss as to how to show her what one is iyswim.
As I say, she is not overweight but seems fixated on foods like biscuits etc and when at parties she would rather sit a munch her way through fistfuls of biscuits than play with other children, which I find worrying.
Mascara, no, you don't restrict their intake except that you are choosing what food goes into the box (so if you don't want them to eat chocolate all day don't put chocolate in there, or only a tiny bit)
They can help themselves to as much and as many times as they want
if the food is all healthy stuff you don't mind them eating, then it is not a problem
If there is a food your child goes mad for and you would rather they did not eat it all day long without stopping, then don't put much of that in. With ds it is fruit - he would eat 8 satsumas if allowed and give himself the runs. I don't put fruit in the snack drawer, he usually has a piece after each meal. So I am still exercising parental control but he gets to have more choice when and how to satisfy his hunger. You can't really learn to do this if your food supply is strictly controlled by another person.
Bobolina if you feel your dd genuinely overeats (greediness, stress, boredom or whatever rather than genuine hunger) then it might be a good idea for her to discover the after effects for herself. If there are only healthy foods in the box she should in theory learn to regulate her own hunger if she is not already doing this. If she is prone to overeating then she may find the after effects (feeling sick, having a sore tummy etc) are unpleasant enough to avoid doing it regularly?
FIS I do see your worries about her having chocolate biscuits if she has a small appetite. I would make sure the things in the snack box were aggressively healthy and nutritious - unsalted nuts, dried apricots, bananas, cherry toms, carrot sticks, pepper slices etc
you don't have to have a fridge to have a little bit of veg in there, as long as you change it each day
Bobalina I think a healthy attitude to food is eating when you are hungry and choosing something satisfying and nutritious for your body. Stopping when you are full. Enjoying food, enjoying shopping for it, cooking, preparation and sharing with others.
Children can't learn to do this if we take resposibility for controlling their food intake. We cannot feel the signals from their body, as to whether they are hungry or satiated. Our own idea of whether they have had enough or not is completely irrelevant. If we refuse them food when they are hungry, encourage / force them to eat when they are full, tell them when to eat and when to stop, and encourage overeating by making them save the favourite part of their meal until the end (when they are probably getting "full" sensations from their stomachs) then the natural, healthy signals from their body get ignored and after a while they fail to recognise them at all
Franny - there'd be no point in putting veg in her snack box, she simply doesn't eat raw carrots, cucumber, peppers etc. But no harm in trying....
I really wish I could turn back time to around 7 mo when weaning her onto solids, i would discover MN, ignore the panic from the HVs about her slow weight gain and not get whatever i could down her (ie mixing nearly everything with baby rice or potatoes- in fact i would hardly puree at all, i'd try BLW.) I'm sure that's why she doesn't have such a wide taste in veggies.....
In her snack box atm there's oat biscuits, rice cakes, raisins, dried apricots, cereal bar, banana. She also (bizarrely as she doesn't eat any other fruit) likes home made fruit puree as she did when a baby.
Don't blame yourself for her not liking veggies - some children just dislike the taste, I think especially children who have very sensitive palates. It's still worth putting them in there occasionally, you know - she might try them just because they are in her special box
Ds loves jars of fruit puree
you could put small portions of cheese in her box? (it would be ok for it to be out of the fridge for part of the day IMO, think of a lunchbox...) Does she like nuts? They are a brilliant snack for children this age (the unsalted kinds). It's worth trying all the varieties before giving up as ds has very strong views on which sorts are nice and which are not (he prefers cashews and brazils, loathes walnuts and pumpkin seeds, and tolerates anything else).
Things like bagel or hot cross bun (wholemeal if poss) good as an occasional treat? Homemade stuff is good, naturally.
Little portions of bean salad? Those mini pots of hummus, with breadsticks? You could get a cool pack in there We will have you getting a mini fridge before you know it
Although, my mum recently bought dd little animal ice pack thingies, so will use them (as we do for her packed lunch) Have to say though, a mini fridge is becoming more & more tempting...dd would love it...
She has recently been trying nuts, and same as your DS, she didn't take to most of them, and I've forgotten which nut it was she actually ate properly, might have been cashew...
Beans, humus, breadsticks she loves. cool! With all that in her snack box, I wouldn't have to worry about meals at all!
Bobalina - u can see why i called for franny & greeny!
Fantastic idea. I might start one for my 4. (do you think they'll need 1 each- probably otherwise the will squable if 1 eats all of something) Can you all tell me whats in yours, if you haven't all ready?
Recently had an epiphany with food. Ds (21 months) is very picky. Has driven me to tears/rage/huge anxiety - but I recently decided to give in, and now that I have relaxed he has started asking for cheese/tomato/cucumber/toast etc - and I just let him have it
It's made me realise that if there is only good stuff in the house, and he is hungry, and there is no battle, he will eat!
"Things like bagel or hot cross bun (wholemeal if poss) good as an occasional treat? "
feck me
occasionaltreat ?
wholemealhotcrossbuns ?
(omg are you saying that cakes and suchlike should be occasional treats also? even if they are home made and have acai berries and all sorts of foul crap in them?)
Oliveoil, I'm relieved to read someone else who has set snack times too. Neither ever pester for biscuits because they know they are pretty much guaranteed biscuit or cake will be on offer at afternoon snack time although they sometimes choose a healthier option.
just put out snacky plates of food and ignore them
let them play, run around, help themselves to a bite
Get them to sit down and enjoy mealtimes as well but at their own pace. Most aren't capable of enjoying an adult length meal while sitting down so don't force them.
I got this from Dr Sears and developed the snack drawer from it as ds got older - but "a snack plate" is still his favourite sort of meal (and you can fit a LOT of healthy stuff on a snack plate )
I don't know what you mean by 'missed the window of opportunity?'. It would just never cross my mind to give DCs something to eat when we are at home if not at a table.
Franny and Zooey, I agree with a lot of what you have said about healthy eating habits earlier in the thread. But I think that part of that it concentrating on what you are eating (so that you really taste it, are aware of feeling full) rather than eating while doing something else.
i just love this idea, it seems to me to be such a natural extension of BLW. DD is 14 months and if we are playing in the house she generally has a cup of water and a plate with some celery, frozen peas (the poor dear is teething) and an oatcake and cheese or dried apricot or prune or cut grapes to nibble at. she's very funny the way she picks at everythign in turn.
I truly believe this and am not trying to get a rise out of anyone but am interested in differing opinions.
In RL I don't know anyone who gives their kids food like that in the house. Now I'm beginning to wonder if it is just because they know I like mine to sit at table. But then I'm sure their DCs would have given the game away 'no, I want my snack in the living room like we usually do'...
when i was growing up we had to eat snacks in the kitchen, the dining roo or outside as my mu felt she had plenty of cleaning to do thanks very much. which i think is fine. the thing about the snack box, it seems to me, is not about the location of the eating but the opportunity. if your child can eat from the box when they want it doesn't seem to me to be at all contrary to say 'come and eat it in the kitchen with mummy' or something. i might be wrong, though.
Otherside, the window of opportunity thing was a joke from another thread, I apologise
I feel that children generally learn socially acceptable behaviour in their own time and that while we can model and encourage, a degree of being laid back about these things often makes life easier and more pleasant all round.
I don't personally see a safety issue with eating on the move, except perhaps for whole nuts. I think sitting at a table to eat is a social construct and not essential to my child's wellbeing. I find that toddlers who are picky eaters anyway, eat better if not pressured and having a plate of snacks near where they are playing, so they can help themselves, is a hassle free way for them to fill up on foods at their own pace.
I have a laminate floor - crumbs don't scare me
I agree food should be savoured and not ideally eaten while doing other activities - but I don't think a toddler is always capable of savouring a meal anyway. Food is fuel at this age and social graces come later.
I think a relaxed attitude to food can include an ice cream while walking around the park, a picnic on the floor, or just a plate of biscuits to share while playing cards on the sofa. Why not?
Aitch the thing that amazes me is that this is seen as an unusual or original idea It seems pretty straightforward to me
well as you know i am permantently gobsmacked by the whole outrage over BLW. of course it's obvious if it's obvious toyou. if it isn't, because we have been conditioned to think about food as being at specific times/locations/delivered neatly on a spoon, then i think it's fair enough to give it a name and say 'look, over here, there's another way'.
it's weird, but i think the fact that so many women are required to work out of the home and that we can't afford to have such large families (feckin house prices...) means that in the last twenty years we've forgotten how to be sensible and trust ourselves to rub along. my mum had four of us, she did a lot of these things cos she didn't have time (or guilt) to individually fuss over us. and i'm yawning at myself even saying this, but it didn't do me any harm...
I don't know, Otherside. I think so much of these sort of things develop because that is how your friends do it, and none of you question that there is another way, because that is how you all do it
In my group of friends it is quite normal to just bring out snacks where the children are playing and let them help themselves. I think we started doing it when the children were babies, and haven't changed it because it works well. Not every child is hungry, or wants to sit down. My son would eat and eat and eat - I wouldn't want the others to be sitting there thinking "I don't want a snack!"
It's what I would do for my adult friends, as well - I wouldn't insist they came and sat at the dining room table. However I must confess I am a bit of a dining table refusenik and vastly prefer to sit somewhere comfortable. As a child we were never, ever allowed a meal on our laps - my dad refused to have it - but tbh me and dp only use the table because of teaching ds good manners
because you are Too Thin from eating all those vegetables, that's why. no, i love dining tables, we always ate as a family and had lovely (or more accurately, ludicrous) conversations with my father, so lots of happy memories there. plus we drew a lot and did our homework there while my mum cooked next door, that sort of thing.
When one of my kids is hungry, he/she is quite happy sitting at the table while the other one is playing nearby. I guess it is just what they are used to. I put them in the highchair to eat when babies and now they climb up on a chair when they see a snack or meal is ready - if they want to eat!
Adult friends get tea/coffee biscuits at the coffee table but usually it's covered in toys so they end up putting their cup down on the dining table!
othersideofthechannel - yes, you are quite right, snacking/eating other than at table are far less acceptable here in France than in the UK. In another life I did a consulting case for Mars (as in chocolate) who were desperate to increase their market size in France to something approaching that of the UK but weren't able to overcome the French "resistance" to snacking outside meals.
I am motivated by sheer laziness about shopping and cooking and in my family there are three balanced meals a day and no snacks at all. Huge saving of energy.
They aren't bad at all, Filly, and I never said they were
I knew you were stewing, I was thinking about it over breakfast!
What I said was for a child who has a small appetite and likes to snack, and does not eat many full meals, I wouldn't make them a daily thing, and I wouldn't. Ds has phases where he eats like a horse and if he wanted to have a hot cross bun every day I wouldn't care. But if he was a picky eater I would be trying to make sure every mouthful was full of the most concentrated nutrients that I could cook / buy. Which I don't think that hot cross buns are. There's a difference between "not the most nutritious food you could find" and "bad". Hot cross buns have lots of energy and wholesome ingredients in them but I would substitute e.g. nuts in the snack box of a child who didn't eat much.
Just wanted to say stumbled across this thread and found it really interesting, and relative to having a very hungry all the time 5 year old boy. We're going to implement the food container idea next week and see how we go. Thank you
filly <waves> haven't spoken to you in aaages. i Must Have that recipe for the blog... you couldn't send it to me at aitch at bablyledweaning dot com (and what the hell are lexia raisins btw?
dd has always had her snacks while wandering around playing, unless they were particularly messy like a sarnie-based one. I just could not have coped with five sittings at a table a day!! So what about the bloody crumbs? I hoover about twice a week, and sweep the kitchen floor every 2-3 days, and my floors are perfectly OK. Any particular pile of mess can be swept with a dustpan & brush if you have to.
3 times a day otherside!! Well it's no wonder you're making your kids sit at the table to eat anything if you're that fussy about your floors! Mind you, i have one dd, i don't know how many kids you have?
I have to say, it was when i started occasioanlly allowing us to sit at dd's small table watching telly at teatime sometimes that I noticed how very different mealtimes could be - I was focused on the telly (Neighbours actually ) and dd consequently - apart from repeatedly getting up which was a pita - was more relaxed & - - ate more. It made me realise how focused I used to be at the table on what dd was/wasn't eating, and also I eat more myself if i'm focused on something other than the meal! Since then, at the table I make a point of talking about everything & anything but what dd is eating (as much as possible anyway!)
Franny -it's sad you are a table refusenik though because I too had good experiences growing up at mealtimes - we would always have great discussions & debates at the table and was one important family bonding time i have to admit, and food & meals are still a big & very fun part of going to visit my parents!
Actually reflecting on this is quite interesting <warning - amateur psychoanalysis to follow>
from when I was about 10 my mum went a bit barking through the menopause and it was pretty awful being in her company
I could avoid her pretty much of the time (as did my Dad by hiding in his study), but mealtimes were as I say, compulsorily eaten in the dining room - a cold formal room we never, ever used for anything else, so no cosy baking sessions or colouring in or so on. We used to cop the brunt of her bad moods while sitting eating, all the resentments of the day would come out, or we would just sit in hostile silence. Hardly surprising I loathe sitting in a dining room. Fk me you learn something new every day. Good old MN
Funnily enough while you were all discussing this last night I was watching American Beauty and at the mealtime scenes I said to my boyf "Does anyone actually live like that in RL?" You have just described those scenes from that film Franny!! Have you seen it?
snap! my mum went a bit barking during the menopause as well. she was absolutely vile, said some terrible things, most of which were directed at me, the eldest and a daughter to boot. denies it all now, of course. HRT saved my folks' marriage. and my poor mum's sanity.
I have read all the thread and while I do not intend to start a snack box there are some very interesting insights on here.
We eat almost all our meals at the kitchen table, which is also used for homework, craft activities etc. Over the winter we started instigating a Saturday teatime eat in the living room while watching a DVD. DH and I have a sofa and tray each and we bring down DS's little table and two chairs from upstairs. We are often out on Saturdays but do this every 2/3 weeks. The kids love it as a treat - would lose it's impact if done too regularly.
And last weekend DH redecorated the kitchen so we ate all meals in the dining room, which we only normally use when we have visitors and so can't fit in the kitchen. I rather enjoyed it - it made it more of a meal than just going straight from cooking to sitting where I can actually reach into the microwave! So we have decided to eat in there on the evenings when I am not working so we are less rushed - so that will be 4x/week. It was much nicer to be able to look out of the patio doors into the garden than at the kitchen debris.
I am somewhere on the same page as F&Z when it comes to the dining table. I was forced to eat everything at the table when young, even snacks and then when I was old enough I had to immediately wash dry and put away my plate. No crumbs anywhere.
These days I am more relaxed and we use the table but mainly for DS and at weekends when we eat as a family.
It's also just dawned on me that I've probably been forcing dd's eating routine on ds and maybe that's why he is such a bad eater now.
He stopped eating properly when he was 18 months, that is, just when dd started full-time school. Certainly when dd was little she had (sort of) set snack times.
Plus, ds has realised that dd has a lunchbox for school - maybe I should get him one too.
I don't think I'm that fussy about my floors, Floating. Mealtimes are definitely messy!
I have two DCs age 4 and 2 and after every meal there are crumbs, couscous grains, etc all around the table. Everyone walks through the kitchen to go everywhere else in the house and so if I didn't sweep after every meal, there would be crumbs all over the house. Doing the kitchen after every meal saves me sweeping or vacuuming the whole house more than once a week. It is really is time saving.
I can't imagine the scenario if they were on the loose with food!
However the messiness might be something to do with the fact that I don't serve food on plates but in dishes and they help themselves to the amount they want on their plate. Then it has to get into their mouths. So there are two opportunities for it to go on the floor!
I was joking around with you, otherside. I don't know how dd & i manage to be so neat (if you can call it that!) at mealtimes tbh. Though I do get the dustpan & brush out to sweep up the specific mess around dd's place if it has been a particularly messy meal (cous cous would qualify!). We don't eat in the kitchen (too small) so perhaps the crumbs are less notiecable on the carpet in the living room !
btw helping themselves from the dishes is cool - a bit of independence & choice exercised there! There doesn't seem any point to that here, being only 2 of us most of the time.
But walking around with a biscuit or a rice cake is a bit different to a meal, don't you think? And if you are sweeping up that often, a few crumbs dropped from those snacks won't matter so much surely - esp if the snacks are usually fruit, bananas etc as opposed to crumbly things ("something crunchy" as dd always plaintively asks for!)
This is turning into a Good Housekeeping thread now! I haven't tried it so I don't know, but I can imagine bananas being worse than crunchy crumbly things. DD dropping a chunk, DS standing in it and squashing it....
Anyway, back to the food issue, I think the snack box idea is an good one because although we have a designated snack time and place - DS is always saying 'what can I have?' and sometimes wants to eat several of the same things type of things eg prunes followed by raisins, rather than prunes followed by a yoghurt or cheese or biscuit.
I didn't start the helping themselves thing until I had two children (rather than one child and one baby). Like you say, there doesn't seem much point when there are only two of you at lunch time. But there are lots of advantages: when I leave everything in pans on the hob, I'm going backwards and forwards all the time and never get a chance to eat my own meal. It cools the food down quicker too.
Othersideofthechannel- am totally with you on the sitting down and organised snack times etc. I think it may be a cultural thing though, although I'm not sure I classify gouter as a snack. This snacking thing is very definitely an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon. No running aorund with food here, thank you very much. Apart from anything else it is a safety hazard, and I don't feel confident enough to administer the Heimlich manoeuvre unless in extreme cicumstances. A snack box would definitely not fit in with our family ethos.
I always considered that when the children were little, every bit of food counted for more, so no need for them to consume rubbish (although I understand that the snack boxes you gals are mentioning do not contain rubbish). Since they turned 3 or so, they have been on fruit or carrot, pepper etc only for snacks. As far as I'm concerned, one can never get enough fruit and veg down one's neck.
I remember as a child growing up in France being aghast at the poor behaviour of our English visitors' children, and on their insistence on a constant supply of food and drink as far back as the early 1970s. They were mostly on the chubby side compared to us and our schoolfriends. I do not feel that encouraging constant snacking is doing them a service. In this house, it would spell the end of family meals, which we are very determined to retain until they leave (13.5 years on and it's still going strong...)
I'm English and I'm sure my Mum had us sitting at the table because of the housekeeping issue (3 kids and a husband who left for work before the kids woke up and got home after we were in bed for the night). Sadly she's not around to confirm.
I guess the table thing comes from a combination of this upbringing coupled up with the example French mothers/childminders around me are setting. Of course there are plenty who set examples I don't choose to follow! It's a whole new thread but I get my kids in bed by 7 so therefore 'gouter' in our house is reduced to a snack otherwise they wouldn't have room for their evening meal.
I'm English too, but I'm pretty certain my parents emigrated to France due to a combination of the behaviour I mentioned earlier and the oil crisis of 1972 (?). I don't think their childrearing views were exactly mainstream in the 1970s.
"This snacking thing is very definitely an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon"
well no, I think it evolves from when we were hunter gatherers, doesn't it? Grazing is seen by some to be a healthier alternative than eating at set times because the clock / society says you should
"Apart from anything else it is a safety hazard"
You seem to be under the impression that our children are literally sprinting around while eating. Playing on the floor and snacking, or pottering about with an apple in one's hand is not a safety risk in any way that I can see.
"Since they turned 3 or so, they have been on fruit or carrot, pepper etc only for snacks. As far as I'm concerned, one can never get enough fruit and veg down one's neck."
I disagree, children's stomachs are very small and they are (hopefully) extremely active people. My son couldn't manage for 4 or 5 hours (average time between meals) without something more substantial to give him energy - there are very few calories in the snacks you mention. Too many fruit and vegetables in children this young can cause diarrheoa and even weight loss. I personally could not go between meals without something filling, to give me energy, and I would be pretty hacked off if someone told me I was only allowed pepper and carrots to eat. I don't think I or my ds is "on the chubby side", btw
Your post about the poor behaviour of visiting English children is just rude and bordering on offensive, IMO.
The thing is, by making food available to our children and letting them choose when to feed themselves, we are not "encouraging constant snacking". We are not encouraging anything. We are leaving the decision up to them and their bodies' regulatory systems, which if they haven't been interfered with by well meaning but controlling adults, should do the job very nicely, thanks.
Milk is an important source of nutrients that you and your family shouldn’t miss out on. If someone in your family has lactose intolerance and the rest of the family still want to enjoy the taste of real milk, try Lactofree - the UK’s first virtually lactose-free dairy drink.
. It was hard for me though, she wanted to keep the snack box out & open in the living room but i made her choose one thing at a time then put the box back. That was the most control I've had, otherwise I've let her eat what she wants from it. I feel so odd not limiting her, it has kind of opened my eyes to how controlling i have been all this time about how much & when she can eat... I do wish she had chosen the raisins & apricots there though!!
which is such a cool idea 
At my grandma's on holiday I would STUFF my face, I was a completely different person (beef & yorkshire pudding type cook). So I actually WANT to give dd more control over what we have, but I also want her to eat healthily so it can be a struggle! 
and not get whatever i could down her (ie mixing nearly everything with baby rice or potatoes- in fact i would hardly puree at all, i'd try BLW.) I'm sure that's why she doesn't have such a wide taste in veggies.....
