To not carry about endless snacks and things for my DC?

[AwfulMaureen]

I seem to be seeing an awful lot of parents with snacks in bags....I remember that I did do that a bit when the children were tiny...as in under 3...and their meal times weren't always regular. But now they are 9 and 6 I don't...however I see that the parents of their friends have things in their bags all the time....bags of cheese or chocolate bars...cartons of juice etc. This is not for long gaps between meals whilst waiting for swimming lessons or anything...it's constantly!

Walking about town with a friend and her bag is full of bloody food! Her son is NINE...surely he can wait a couple of hours?

[HobbetInTheHeadlights]

this thread isnt about starving childrenor being stricy about food it is about the endless drinks and grapes and whatever else that parents give children when out and about in little pots and bags a lot of parents

I have to admit I'm bemused by DN - my parents and her mum constantly give us stuff to snack on but then are surprised she doesn't eat her meals. I do think her overall eating habits are poor - they stuff she is given to snack on isn't great. I think a lot of her behaviour is habit and partly to keep her quiet and to avoid giving her attention.

But if DN doesn't eat her meal - 20 minutes later she will ask and be given something else.

My youngest will do that - but is always disappointed when she gets told she wouldn't be hungey if she'd eaten the meal and gets nothing. Hopefully as she ages she'll stop this.

Yes my DC might form the habit that after school they expect a snack but other routines and behaviours have changes as they have grown so I don't see why this would be different.

I don't think snack per say are the issue but the frequency and how well thought out it is - I think when it became an unthought of habit then it's an problem.

[LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726]

... Indeed I wouldn't, MrsJay I would keep it for myself

(disclaimer: No, not really, just in case 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells is reading).

[funkybuddah]

I've rarely since DC's were 2.5 ish taken drinks and snacks out.

I dont have a car and everything is done on foot or via public transport. On long journeys I pack them lunch (if time is over lunch time) but always a drink, they rarely touch it.

But then on days out I usually only pack what they would normally have in school packed lunch plus 1 'extra' as we often miss our trains and get stranded an extra hour or 2.

I only have 1 water bottle that isnt used for school in my cupboard.

[HobbetInTheHeadlights]

Parents at my local school seem to think the only way to get younger, non-school siblings through any event is to stuff white chocolate buttons in their gobs constantly.

I bf passed aged 1 so would often bf to quieten them - later books, pens, my camera and yes sometime food -fruit/ possibly chocolate.

I stopped that when they got to school age - because then the could stay quiet.

Before that them staying quiet was much more important than giving snack because while younger DC were tolerated if they made noise it would upset everyone and if it got loud I would have to leave and possible missed the older DC performance. I didn't have the preferred option of leaving them with someone else.

A snack even of chocolate endless chocolate buttons in a healthy diet to ensure quiet for a short period of time for one of events seems to me a minor issue.

Are we all talking about the same thing when we say snack? To me a snack is anything you eat between meals.

That would be my definition of a snack - I'd be surprised by any other.

[floofyapogo]

Really Hobbet? So how do kids ever learn that there are situations in which they need to be quiet/behave? (That's a serous question, not a knobby PA one ).

[TheUnemployableLeech]

I don't know the answer to that floof but I'd be interested. I have never put DS (4.5) in that situation because I know he would not manage to sit still for so long. He has no concept of time so telling him he has to be quiet for 30 minutes means nothing to him. It upsets my parents that I won't take him to church with them or to a concert but I just don't see the point. It would be enjoyable for no one and I would have to take him out. He is fine at restaurants etc because we can do things with him and he doesn't have to be quiet, but yes, if I had to take him somewhere like that I would go fully armed with a load of snacks to keep him quiet. It's not like it happens every day.

[MerryMarigold]

Floofy, it depends on the child really. Kids learn they need to sit still, but not at 1, 2 or even 5 sometimes. Ds1 would not be able to sit still and listen to something for 30 mins until he was about 7. Ds2 was ok at 4. You cannot just 'expect' them to do it, and then set your child up to fail if you know they can't. Always aim slightly higher than you have seen, and a lot of reward for doing it (chocolate buttons ).

[floofyapogo]

I actually really like when I hear little kids shout things out randomly at assemblies, or get all excited when they see their bigger siblings, or start singing themselves - I think it's shockingly cute, so maybe I'm just ticked off that the chocolate buttons prevent that .

But . . . it's the automatic shoving in of sweets that I don't quite get. Of course, I don't know other people's children as I know my own, but they're given as soon as they sit down (or in the buggy while they wait at the school gates), and there doesn't seem to be any distraction with other stuff, like books, or toys, or anything else but food. That does sound judgey - probably because it is. I don't know their lives in huge detail, but I do see it happening even if, for example, I go round to a house for coffee and the child gets given sweets to keep them distracted while the grown ups talk. I'd rather talk to the kids really . . .

[HobbetInTheHeadlights]

Really Hobbet? So how do kids ever learn that there are situations in which they need to be quiet/behave?

They have all been compliment from age 4 starting school on their good behaviour.

They manage to behave on long train, frequent bus journeys in theatres, in GP and hospital waiting rooms before this age with help of books, snacks and distraction well before aged 4.

At 3 and 2 older DC surprised the hell out of the MW by quietly sitting and reading children's magazines while she dealt with me. She was anti - DC being there but I had no choice and she was initially very hostile to their presence hence me remembering.

My now all past 3 aged DC's are not allowed electronic devices many other parents seem to employ with older DC to keep them quiet at such events.

They are not allowed to tear around in public places and are perfectly capable of playing quietly on long journeys now or waiting around for their siblings activities to finish.

So despite my parenting, pre school years, them seem to have picked up these skill very well and much better than many other DC I see around.

Perhaps helping them achieve quietness pre school year using distraction techniques such as food and books actually help reinforced that there were times they need be still and quiet?

[HobbetInTheHeadlights]

I actually really like when I hear little kids shout things out randomly at assemblies, or get all excited when they see their bigger siblings, or start singing themselves - I think it's shockingly cute, so maybe I'm just ticked off that the chocolate buttons prevent that smile.

I do too but I have been in parental audiences that are shockingly intolerants of such behaviour.

Personally I always tried other things than food first - though it was usually in the arsenal though not always needed.

So I do get automatically resorting to lots of food would raise eye brows.

[cingolimama]

OP, you're totally right. Constant snacking is a terrible habit for a child. There are many children who actually have no idea what it is to be hungry. Relentless snacking creates in children (and adults) a pyschological dependency on food - the idea that it's essential, that something's missing unless something's stuck in their gob. It's also unhealthy for internal organs - everyone's liver needs a break.

Look, I've done it. When she was younger I was constantly trying to get my skinny DD to eat - bananas, cheese, peanut butter sandwiches, fruit, the odd cookie etc.. And then I was surprised and horrified when she would only pick at her lovingly prepared dinner. I'm half Italian - she might as well have stabbed me in the heart with a broken pencil!

I wised up, stopped the snacks except for something very small after school. Now she genuinely tucks in.

[NaturalBaby]

I'm 33 and I always have a drink and a snack in my bag. A few sips of water and a cereal bar in case we get stuck out for longer than planned...what's the big deal? I eat little and often, so do my kids. We're all pretty active and slim.
I'd rather feed them a couple of plain biscuits than give them my phone to play on. They only get one snack between main meals and it's often when we're out.

[BertieBotts]

I like talking to people's kids too floofy but you get slaughtered for assuming that others might be interested in yours apparently

I don't get the protein thing either. I tried it but I was still hungry all the time, in fact it was worse. Especially eggs and you can't exactly stuff chicken breasts and entire steaks all the time, it's expensive.

Carbs are cheap, even if you eat twice as much pasta it's still cheaper than meat.

[EssenceOfGelfling]

I carry snacks and a bottle of water at all times. However I'm paranoid about an impending apocalypse and so we don't actually eat the food, they're only for when the emergency happens!

How having a sleeping bag and a box of biscuits in the car will actually save us from an asteroid strike / bird flu / yellowstone eruption, I have no idea.

[JohnnyBarthes]

The concert thing is relevant - at the cinema it's pretty standard to have popcorn, lollies, Kia Ora, Revels... (and has been forever). It is not the norm to scoff crap at a concert in quite the same way.

[minipie]

Hmmm in theory YANBU OP but I'm not sure what age you can say the need for snacks definitely stops.

Toddlers need snacks, they can't eat enough at meal times to keep up with their needs. Older children going through growth spurts (even teenagers) might be in the same position.

I do agree there is a need for children to learn at some point that it's ok to be hungry for an hour or two. Just not sure what that point is.

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

"No need to take food if you are only out for a while, I always took water but that was it. Mind you I am the worst prepared mum in the world, I never took spare clothes, often forgot tissues/wet wipes and plasters that all stuff real mums seem to carry. its amazing mine made it to teenagers."

Are you me, teenagetantrums - because that's exactly what I was like when mine were little!

[PrincessScrumpy]

I agree. I have 3 dc (6yo dd and 2yo dtds) j always have snacks for dtds (part of that is to control/distract when needed) and sometimes dd1 well ask if I have anything for her but generally the answer is no as she's old enough not to need snacks as her meals are bigger. Sometimes I will let dd1 have some but only so she's not left out. I have no intention of carrying picnics everywhere I go once dc are older, certainly not once they're school age.

[bonesarecoralmade]

"Toddlers need snacks, they can't eat enough at meal times to keep up with their needs." This isn't true, not for all toddlers anyway. When my dd1 was 18 months - 3 she needed to eat meals at the right time, but could only eat meals. If we were going to be out over lunchtime, I would pack the lunch rather than make her wait an hour, but I would give her the real food she would have had at home, like a cheese sandwich, because if I gave her some stupid cereal bar that would be it, she would have eaten, and only eaten crap. Then she would have fruit in the afternoon if she asked for it, usually didn't, and eat dinner, unless some eejit had given her a crap cereal bar, in which case, again, that would be it.

"I eat little and often, so do my kids. We're all pretty active and slim." well there you are then, if you dont' have a problem with putting weight on, this is why you don't see that snacks are EVIL (only half joking). My friends who carry cereal bars around are naturally slim too. I am not, carbs make me blimp out. I need to be very careful to stay slim, eat only whole foods and little or no sugar, enough protein, and basically almost nothing that comes in a packet - so meals, basically, not snacks. I don't want my children to think that carb-grazing is a human right, because if they are like me, it will make them miserable - either because they have to curtail something that feels socially normal, and that has become a habit; or because they will put weight on.

[minipie]

Yes sorry bones I didn't mean to imply all toddlers need snacks. Some can manage fine without and aren't interested in them. But some do need them - I'm assuming nobody would say a toddler ought to learn to wait for their next meal!

[Lucylouby]

Children do not need to be fed loads of snacks all day long. I run events for the scout and guide movements quite a lot. These events will sometimes involve sleeping over and will generally involve a lot of running around and physical activity. The children will be fed, 3 good sized meals a day, a morning snack, an afternoon snack and supper in the evening befo bed. The children are not constantly moaning they are hungry, it's very rare to hear them complain about this issue. They are all so busy with their friends having fun.
Ime parents give out too many snacks as a way to keep their children quiet and use snacks as a form of entertainment, as another poster says, they use food in the same way they use the tv.

[TheUnemployableLeech]

lucylouby do you not see the irony in what you have just written? Children do not need to be fed loads of snacks....and then you say it is perfectly ok to feed them three snacks a day? And they don't complain, well, why would they? They get three snacks.

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

If your child can eat enough at meal times then I can understand what you wouldn't want to carry around snacks. Some kids are grazers though, just like adults.

[KellyElly]

I think five hours between eating is quite a lot and DD will have a snack at nursery and a snack mid afternoon. These are usually quite healthy - fruit/rice cakes. Also when we go swimming I take a snack for afterwards as swimming makes you hungry for some reason. I think it's pretty normal and a healthy way to eat (depending on what the snack is obviously).