to think my toddler eats too much?!

[TeaAndFag]

DD is 19 months old, nearly 10lbs at birth so has never exactly been small, she fed for England as a baby and is still the same as a toddler! Now matter how much food I give her she still asks for more 'num nums' and if I have food she will eat most of that even if she has just finished her own meal! Typical day goes like this: cereal for breakfast, packet of raisins on the way to taking DS to nursery, pot of grapes for way back (if she's not eating while in the pushchair she screams), toast mid-morning then lunch of sandwich, fruit, crisps, yoghurt, more snacks while on nursery run, dinner (she doesn't have a small portion either), more yoghurt or banana. She doesn't drink milk but drinks water/weak squash throughout the day. Does anyone else's child eat CONSTANTLY or is it just mine? Obviously I don't have a problem with feeding her if she's hungry (all the time!) but I feel like her while life is just focused on food and am worried that it could be a sign of something? Worms maybe? An actual health condition? DS eats enough to sustain a gnat so maybe I'm just comparing them and her appetite is completely normal???!!!

I have never regularly given my kids snacks. Even when they were toddlers I usually just gave them breakfast, lunch and dinner. I would add in a snack if they went swimming or if they were having a later dinner but I didn't like them 'grazing'. I tended to give them dinner fairly soon after school when they were school age.
Even now that my kids are 17 and older they don't snack much.

I wasn't draconian about it but, generally, there were no expectations of snack. I didn't restrict their food at mealtimes. They were all healthy and way too energetic.

Have you considered stopping giving squash completely and drastically reducing the amount of snacks.

I forgot to say I added an extra mini meal, (a high tea?) if their dinner was late. So they often had 3 1/2 meals a day but no snacks - even when they were toddlers.

Fairy arf at "Peel"

YABU for "num nums" boak

Sorry.

The rest of it...if she´s not overweight and she is eating healthily...I wouldn´t worry!

You will find she isn't constantly hungry if you give her more fat and more protein. Her diet is mostly carbs which convert to sugar and play havoc with your blood sugars and leave you hungry... try things like cheese. full fat plain greek yogurt, ham, bacon, eggs for breakfast and carrot sticks, homous, cheese, ham, avocado etc for lunch.

Toddlers need 1000 - 1400 calories per day, what she's eating sounds about right to me. Unless the HV etc has concerns about her weight of course (but from what you've said she sounds fine).

I wouldn't worry, but would try to include more protein in her breakfast to get her through the morning. The only thing I would try to stop is the expectation that pushchair = snacks.

sounds like a lot of snacks (rather than one snack consisting of several things), and I would deter her from taking from someone else's plate. For buggy trips, little books, small figures, that kind of thing. Cup of water.

I would maybe try to get into a snack routine, snacks are at a particular time in a particular place (kitchen table at 10, for example) - she will then start to learn when to expect (and get) food and when not. That's what would happen if she was at nursery, for example.

Ds2 is21 months and the compete opposite- most of his food gets thrown on the floor. Yesterday he had:

A fromage frais and 1 strawberry,drink of water. Toast was thrown on floor.

1 slice of cucumber, 1 bite of seedy bread and butter, he threw his chicken , cheese and grapes on the floor. Water.

1 bite of ginger biscuit, water

Tiny bit of chicken, quarter of a boiled potato, a slice of cucumber, fromage frais and water.

Bf at bedtime.

Today he has had a fromage frais and a mid morning snack of about 6 pieces of plain popcorn and 1oz of soya milk (he used to have cmp allergy and still only likes soya milk).

I wish he ate more!

My son ate like this a lot. I think two things were the cause . He has low muscle tone around his mouth (and generally). He drooled for a long time and his mouth hung open with his tongue visible and floppy. This gave him low sensory awareness in this area and drinking vast quantities of squash and eating (usually stuffing lots of food in with each bite) provide sensory feedback to his brain. So he ate and drank a lot to get that sensory feedback his brain wanted. Plus he is lactose intolerant which we picked up quite late so most food went straight through him (we put this down to him eating loads of fruit at the time). Now he is lactose free and getting older he eats much less frequently.

BTW one unwanted side effect of his frequency of eating (all quite healthy foods, fruit, rice cakes, breadsticks etc) and particularly of drinking weak squash - which he swills around his mouth before swallowing, again for sensory info - is that he has had several cavities, unlike his siblings.