Wtf do kids eat this much?

[Esmeismyhero]

Ds is 5 and 3 months (I don't know if that is relevant)

He goes to school, he does karate one day a week and the weekend he is usually running around out etc. After school he watches his iPad, does homework, runs around the house, plays toys etc.

He is very slim but very tall for his age. Lately he has been eating me out of house and home.

Today for example he ate

A bowl of cherrios
An apple
A school dinner
1/2 punnet of grapes
5 strawberries
2 x chicken dinosaurs
Beans

He is apparently still hungry????

Hasn't he had enough? Or Aibu?

He will have milk before bed and I'll ask dh to give him a carrot if he is still hungry while I'm at work tonight. He likes eating whole carrots on his own, I keep finding the carrot stalks hidden :/

In all fairness op, i have a child thats sen, and in the morning he will eat a peice of fruit because he will not touch milk products, he will have a packed lunch with sandwhiches and 3 peices of fruit, which he may not always eat, then he will have a snack at after school club and breakfast club too, then he may come home to spag bol, then he will have fruit and then more and then a biscuit, some days he will eat tonnes, other days not so much xxx hes actually has days where he has eaten himself sick, we make sure this doesnt happen now though xxxx

My youngest is 5. And she can eat a lot more than that.

Breakfast: Bowl of cereal like Weetabix. Or a bowl of porridge. Sometimes toast. Can also have fruit and yoghurt if she wants it.

About 10 when at school she has toast and milk.

Lunch is either hot school dinners. Or sandwich box with sandwich with ham/cheese,bovril/cheese spread etc. Small packet of crisps. Cherry tomatoes or slices of cucumber. Yoghurt. Piece of fruit. Drink. Sometimes a small cake or chocolate finger.

Afternoon snack at school of fruit and water.

Tea: Sausage, mash and veg. Or spaghetti bolognaise etc.

Supper: Bowl of cereal. Or some crumpets. With warm milk

Op, I am a low carber and I eat the omlette with bacon with dd and watch ds demolish a huge breakfast, which is all protein. They get to menu plan ( ds loves salmon on crackers (!) which is v good breakfast and not expensive tbh. As a LC I eat the salmon with Brie.

The DC eat at school and choose what they want

For supper they have a roast or whatever and I have everything except the Carbs. As we can all say what we like/ don't like and it's in dishes on the table to serve yourself - it's easy to eat and quite frankly the DC don't notice I don't have Carbs- they see my plate loaded with veg And they know I hate pasta. No one is left hungry.

I'd suggest you post a bit on the LC bootcamp or look at recipes there - you might find you and your DC filing up and happy and them as happy as Larry and you also:) ( no ones hungry - even if the DC have the carbs and you don't )

Esme
Also, kids suddenly go through growth spurts for several weeks where they eat double, then it all goes back to normal. Maybe that's why he suddenly seems so hungry.

My DD (12) is currently eating far more than DS (nearly 15 and 6 foot 1), but it won't always be that way.

Also, I know you said your DS was slim, but if they gain a bit, don't assume it's overfeeding (unless there's a long term pattern). Two of mine tend to grow a bit of a tummy then shoot up and look stringy again.

I am a Beaver Scouts leader (kids aged 6-8) and on sleepovers, it's amazing how some of them eat a big dinner, then hot chocolate and biscuits at 9pm, then cereal and milk at 6am, emergency biscuits at 8am and still tell their parents they're 'starving' and 'haven't had much' on collection at 9am :)

Op you've had plenty of good advice (and some more anxious comments!) My tuppence worth is that I load as much into breakfast from across the food groups as possible. I've got a 7 and 5 year old, both very healthy appetites and I find a lot of nutrition boxes can be ticked in the morning which sets them up well for the day, esp as they can eat really small amounts at school dinner. Breakfast at ours includes:

Cereal (weatabix or porridge)
Toast or muffins, occasionally with eggs, or peanut butter
Yoghurt
Piece of fruit
Fresh juice

They then have school dinner, after school snack and dinner varies depending on their appetite between full works of meat/veg/carbs or something simpler like beans on toast/soup.

If you have a hungry child I don't think you can go wrong with a very good start to the day though

I must say, I'm a bit confused by the call for 'more carbs' - I thought the anti carbs brigade always said it was protein that fills you up.

Esme - I never doubted you for a second. Some kids do seem to live on fresh air.

A slice of peanut butter toast may be all he needs extra to not feel hungry.

I have 2 boys. They have days when they inhale carbs (and yes, for all the carb haters, it does seem like only carbs hit the spot on those high energy needs weeks. DS1 often loses his appetite for anything else, then grows out of everything.)

Just glad coco pops aren't an option for mine (coco intolerance). We're already having to ration biscuits just to make sure that 3 packets last a whole week!

Mum to an always really hungry 12 yo beanpole and an often hungry 9yo turning into a dumpling.

Might be late to the party here, but people are saying "where are the carbs" when that food list is mainly carbs (which isn't a problem).

Cheerios, carbs.
Apple, carbs.
Strawberries, low carb, mainly fibre and water, some carbs
Grapes, carbs
School dinner - balanced (will have protein and carbs, with limited added sugars due to guidelines at this age)
Chicken shapes - mainly protein but breaded - balanced
Beans - protein and carb, with a slight lean on carb - balanced.

Pretty low in added sugar - probably within the whole "6 lumps a day" thing which is kudos to you.

A 5 year old needs 1800 calories a day, and technically, should only have 20g of added sugars a day. Depending on what the school dinner was, you might be about right.

Kids will say they are hungry for a variety of reasons, including boredom, the fact that what they just ate was very yummy and they want more, the fact that what they ate was kinda meh and they want better, thirst, or genuine hunger.

Sometimes they will have a ridiculously hungry day, or hungry week, or hungry month, for no apparent reason (which usually ends up as a growth spurt) (or can end up with them just starting to look a bit round, depending on the child).

Personally I'd be interested to see if he was less hungry if you substituted the dinner for a small chicken breast or a couple of mini fillets, a small jacket potato or some new potatoes, and a reasonable volume of veg like broccoli/mange-tout/Mediterranean mix - for the same sort of calories I suspect he'd fare better due to the volume factor. But I get that it can be difficult at this kind of age to get success with that kind of mix. You kind of build up to it by around 7 or 8...

Fruit sugars are totally different to carbohydrate sugars, they dont count as carbs unless you are cutting them out as part of an adult weight loss diet.

Haven't read the whole thread, but even my 14 months old DD eats more than that. Sorry, but you should feed your child. I'm not surprised he's hungry.

They count as carbs Bogeyface in that they are carbohydrate, in the same way the non starch polysaccharides in broccoli are carbs. Carbs are carbs, and people were asking where the carbs were, and they are most definitely there. Not just in fruit, but cereal, beans, bread, and in the school dinner.

They don't count as added sugars, which is why in my post I mentioned the "added sugars". There will of course be added sugars in the cereal, the school dinner, the beans, and possibly a relatively small amount in the chicken shapes, but probably not more than the 20g recommended. (Unless the beans was a big portion, and the school dinner depends on what it was - some of them will include a yogurt as desert which will have the entire daily allowance in one item, depending on the item, but probably won't have added sugar in the savoury element).

But in terms of people saying it is somewhat low carb, it is not. It looks to be at least 70% carb, depending what the school dinner was.

Sorry to pick apart your post Bogeyface, but I'm going in for a 2nd one

"Fruit sugars are totally different to carbohydrate sugars".

No, carbohydrate "sugars" are "sugars" (not "sugar - refined white sugar, i.e added sugar). So, fruit sugars, milk sugars - if you look on the side of your milk bottle it will say "sugars", even though the ingredients contain only cows milk. The "sugars" are lactose. In fruit, the "sugars" are fructose. In cake, the "sugar", is...sugar.

The current guidance says you don't have to "worry" about "sugars" that come from fruit and milk (if consumed in their whole form). For children.

My point about carbs in fruit was in response to the fact that fruit contains carbs and people kept saying "where are the carbs".

I realise your post wasn't necessarily in response to my post, but for some reason I had to bleat on about it anyway.

Forgive me, I might just need some sugar soon.

haven't read the whole thread but my DD is 5 and a very active one at that. I don't rely on her having school dinner as she is a fussy eater so I don't know how much she has actually eaten.

when she gets in from school she normally has rice/pasta/fajita/spud something filling followed by bowl of fruit/yogurt. she may even have some dinner with us again later whatever were having or a glass of milk before bed. she drinks lots of water (not sure that's relevant).

But OP it sounds about right to me that your little one is feeling hungry as my DD seems to eat a lot more and can still be hungry.

Carbs are carbs

No, they really are not.

Fruits (and some veg) contain simple sugars in that they are broken down and digested really quickly, so they provide a short term "hit" of sugar and then disappear. Complex carbs (wholemeal bread, pasta, brown rice, bran etc and to a lesser extent other foods) are complex carbs that take a lot longer to digest and therefore the energy released is slower and gives energy over a longer period. These are the carbs that people are referring to when they are asking "Where are the carbs?"

In terms of energy gained, fruit is the equivalent of a Mars bar, you get a quick boost and then unless you top it up within an hour or so, your levels drop back down. Complex carbs are like a bowl of bran flakes, they make you feel fuller for longer (probably why the DC in this thread complains of being hungry) and the hit lasts a lot longer.

tatty yes I know what you mean about "sugars" being on labels and there is a massive difference between naturally occurring sugars and added sugar. But I was talking about carbs meaning, as I said above, complex carbs. Most people refer to those as carbs, and fructose, lactose etc as sugars, because it makes clear the difference between the two.

I think you're being a bit pedantic Taddy. You know that people aren't asking where the simple, easily available carbohydrate is. They're talking about the more slowly digested carbs, not the 'of which sugars'.

As an aside, when people talk about their kids going crazy after blue smarties or whatever, its rarely colourings that are the problem. Its more usually the vast sugar rush they get and the tears an hour or so later is the crash. I dont eat sweet things anymore as I get terrible sugar crashes, something that never happens after a baked spud.....sadly. Would rather have a bag of Haribo than spud and beans .... :(

*Tatty

Sorry

We cook from scratch and involve the biters which I believe contributes in no small way to the wide variety of foodstuffs being easily eaten or tried in our house. Fruit is always eaten like it's about to be prohibited available and sugary stuff is usually kept in the pudding or special treat domain.

Everyone is different though, I remember serving up spag bol in varying portion sizes to practically a street worth of children after a garden play session and one little boy saying
"Wow. It's like a man versus food dinner" whilst mine all wolfed it down and came back for seconds.

Growth spurt eating led directly to the term 'having a python day' in our house.

My 15 month old eats more and he's on the 50th centile but there's nothing to him.

Breakfast is 200ml of formula followed by either- 2x weetabix, shreddies or egg on toast

Lunch-.chicken, egg or tuna sandwich with salad (2 slices of brown bread) followed by grapes/strawberries/raspberries and either a yoghurt or oaty bar or sometimes crisps

Dinner- (whatever we're having) spag Bol, cottage pie, roast chicken, pork.
Anything with protein, carbs and at least 2 veggies followed by a dessert of yoghurt or homemade cookies or cake.

Plus at least 2 beakers full of water throughout day

You've been given a bit of a hard time on here op, well done for coming back.

I recently replied on another thread what my 6 year old ate and someone described it as a banquet.

He's a big eater, and I noticed around the age of 5 is when he really needed more food and upped his intake. He also takes carrots from the fridge when he wants as he loves them.

In comparison ds2 who is now 5 himself eats very differently and a lot less.

Yesterday he had

B: 2x peanut butter on toast, banana, glass of milk

Snack: Nut bar (school gives milk)

Lunch: Wrap with tuna/Mayo/salad (he ate half) watermelon and grapes (ate watermelon, left grapes) carrot and cucumber (ate one carrot stick, ate cucumber) and a mini biscuit

After school he had a cube of cheese

Dinner: about 1 tablespoon before he said he was "full"

The phrase "being eaten out of house and home" totally applies to my 6 yr old. My 5yr old however is completely different.

You've said you're going to add carbs to dinner which is a good start. When ds2 was going through a real fussy stage, I gave him a peanut butter and banana smoothie with/for breakfast. He loved it and it filled him up. Maybe you could try that too.

OP I think you're fab. It takes a lot to come back to a thread after a bashing. I would have run away!
Absolutely ridiculous you have been called neglectful. You sound like a brilliant mum.

If your child says they are still hungry I would just feed them more - toast, eggs, pasta - something easy. I wouldn't get narky, unless you are struggling with money.

Well this morning he asked for a small bowl of cereal, I put a med bowl, a slice of jam on toast and a cup of milk!

He's eating it all after whinging the jam is sticky? Lol

OP I'm really pleased you have managed to take on board the constructive comments, sifting through some of the more OTT ones.

I think what you did this morning is the way to go - offer more, and if he's hungry he'll eat, if he's not he won't! Does he like peanut butter on toast rather than jam? Maybe cream cheese?

Have a go at offering some cubes of cheese with his fruit snacks maybe later on/after school snack?