To ask for healthy after school snack ideas (portable)

[MoonStar07]

So I'm fed up of seeing kids with haribos, quavers or curly dried up fruit sugar things...what's a healthy kids portable snack? I've been taking little pots of fruit chopped up but I need some protein ideas? Cubes of (God forbid) cheese?! With the fruit? And what about a low GI carb snack to go with fruit and cheese? Thanks

Lol you'd think. But when I open the bag I get a cluster of interested children only some of whom are mine.

Same effect with mini Cheddars tbf but I think after school the snacking thing is more about fiddly fingers and the sensory experience than actual nutrition. For infants anyway.

Cheese and apple
Sesame ryvita and butter/marmite
Homemade wholemeal banana muffins
Banana wholemeal sandwich

I do:
Hard boiled eggs
Pieces of cheese / babybel / cheesestrings
Carrot sticks and hummus
Small sandwich
Fruit - berries in summer or an apple/banana
Rolled up fruit things occasionally/ Nakd bars (waiting till we leave school gates as they contain nuts)
Oatcakes

How long is the walk home that you have to meet your kids from school with food?

Are they not eating their school dinners?

I thought that worra. I think I am one of the few who doesn't meet with snacks even though the catchment of the school means nobody has a walk of more than 10 minutes. Some meet with snacks to walk to the car

We have a walk of 25 minutes. DS is hungry and thirsty as he comes out. A little something keeps him going.

A sandwich?

Let them have the quavers !

Sorry, I thought you meant low carb AND low GI not low GI carb, read it wrong.

Cheese
Dried fruit
Apple
Banana
Carrots
Rice cakes - the big plain ones
Oatcake & cream cheese

I think nuts will be fine if you don't give them to him till after you're out of the playground

I have three pickups at one school - preschool come out at 2.45, infants at 3.10, juniors at 3.20. It takes me twelve minutes on my own; with them it can be easily half an hour, and longer if we stop at the park on the way home. Minimum time from pickup to home for the littlest one would be probably 50 minutes.

Youngest two start lunch before midday so 4 pm is an awkward time for a snack before 5.30. Then there's an additional factor: logistics. Sometimes you're feeding them not because they're actually going to starve, but because you know they won't get through Rainbows/swimming/piano lesson without something in their tummies.

It takes me twelve minutes on my own

That is, the walk takes me twelve minutes. Not the whole pickup process.

Sausage roll and Froot Shoot

My DCs the same. Starving after school.
I bring a banana and a bag of mini breadsticks.
I have started putting more in lunch boxes, and seems to help too.

My ds needed a snack last year in Reception when he got out of school, gave a boost for the walk home at the end of a day. It was always a banana. Eminently portable. If they're hungry they don't need variety

He can make it home without one now, but if he stays late for football I meet him with a jam sandwich, he also likes malt loaf, cucumber, pepper, carrot sticks, apple rice cakes etc. banana sandwiches also a favourite.

I love giving them a proper Famous Five mini tea when they get in some days - honey on toast, teacakes, banana bread with butter. Better than Haribo.

I sometimes make little 'chocolate balls'- blitz up dates, peanut butter, almonds, coconut oil and chia seeds then roll them in coconut. Delicious and very easy to eat walking home, just wait until you get out of the school yard.

Children don't need to be fed the very second they announce theyre hungry
Parents ripping open packets of things ready to shove into dc hand is embarrassing, even more so if you turn ed up with avocado & chicken seriously

Yes but my ds wouldn't actually articulate he was hungry. But the marked difference in his mood, behaviour and ability to cope with a walk home was enough of an indicator. Yes, it's probably tiredness rather than hunger, but i eat when I'm tired, as long as it doesn't become habitual it's fine. I don't really like sweets as it doesn't really solve any hunger problem, just gets them into the habit of chewing something while walking.

I think there is a middle ground somewhere between Haribo and avocado though

Why is it so difficult to imagine that some children might be a bit hungry when they come out of school, and eapecially might need something to tide them over if they have an after-school activity? And that the majority of parents (certainly those on MN...) can probably be trusted to judge at what point they should be allowed to give them half a banana or a Babybel?? I genuinely don't understand why a pp was horrified that some might might provide a snack of hard-boiled egg or cold chicken? Surely it doesn't mean you're showing up with 12 eggs per child, à la Gaston, or an entire roast chicken?!

I have had 3 children go through primary school. Never have I felt the need to hard boil eggs or cut up fruit or make a sandwich to take to the school gate
All 3 had a 15-20 minute walk home and managed to wait until they get home to eat
We sonetimes used to get an ice cream if I had any change
Do children have to eat the second they are hungry now?
To be honest if your child can't wait 10 minutes I'd be more concerned about how much lunch they are eating and deal with that rather than assume they need food every day just to walk home?

I've asked re lunch and they said child is eating well at lunch! Today met me at the door and asked for a snack. Every child seemed to have a snack as they were walking out. I'm not going to deprive my child

It's not depriving your child to ask them to walk home from school without eating all the way

Come on. This place is full of people who rear up in horror at sausage and mash but yet have children unable to walk home without eating

Are you currently living at the top of Everest?

I wonder how many of the children ask for a snack/are hungry simply because they know food will be given though?

As emergency extra bits in DD's schoolbag (no nuts policy in school - there are a number of DCs with allergies), she keeps:

A bag of popcorn (I get the 15g bags)
A bag of mini breadsticks (Tesco do a multipack of snack sized ones)
A box of raisins (matchbox sized)
A Nature Valley bar (currently a choc chip one, we also do oats and honey, or maple syrup versions)

The way I look at it is that she will only accept her hot food flask for lunch food. She does eat fruit but not at school. She does eat breakfast, but sometimes not enough or actually gets quite hungry at school or afterschool, and while afterschool give a snack, it is not usually substantial.

So she keeps a few bits that won't go off in her bag, and we check that every few days and restock as needed. Since going back, she's actually been eating quite a lot, but last term, she'd maybe eat the popcorn once a week or the cereal bar once a fortnight.

And the days that she hasn't eaten enough, she comes out in foul form and growls at everything. So I also keep single finger twixes in the car and some plain chocolate to give her a finger or a square to get her bloodsugar back up.

Oh, and snacks when we get home are things like pieces of cheese (generally real cheese rather than cheesetrings type - although we have gone through phases of those too), cherry tomatoes, carrot sticks, salami, parma ham, cooked chicken (DD likes to mix that with mayonnaise and curry powder!). I try to avoid crisps and sweets for that time of day, although I do allow them the odd day and they do make it into lunch boxes some days too.

All things in moderation....