To wonder if my 4yo wants too much food?

[BlurryFace]

DS1 is 4 and has recently started demanding lots of food.

Yesterday is a good example.

He had:

Alphabites cereal for breakfast, soup and toast and hot chocolate at playschool for snack (he didn't eat the soup), his packed lunch (half a cheese sandwich, banana, grapes and a fromage frais) then I picked him up and he immediately demanded an apple - fine, I got him one when we were home along with a couple of choccy buttons - and once he ate it he immediately demanded tea. At 3pm!!! Tea was sausages and sweet potato mash and frozen veggies. He didn't eat the frozen veggies but scoffed his sausage and mash and when DS2 didn't touch his mash he climbed over the table to eat it!

He's quite tall for his age and very slim - you see every rib and back muscle IYSWIM, but he's food obsessed - if I go to the kitchen "are you cooking tea? Are there treats? I want I want I want". He will literally polish off breakfast and start asking when I'm making lunch! Piss off, I've not had my coffee yet you little terror!

When I say no I often get floods of tears and I've had to work on his politeness as well - marching into granny's and bellowing "do you have grapes or not?!?!" obvs isn't on.

My only mum friend to ask about this has the opposite problem - a seriously restrictive eater who eats like a bird and is tiny for her age and looks at me like I'm mad when I say DS1 wants to eat all day.

So is he asking for too much food? I feel like he gets loads!

OP i had the same problem. Increasing his portion sizes didn't work as he left most of the extra i put on his plate each mealtime.

Constantly asking for food almost immediately after a meal can be so frustrating so I underatand!

In the end I had a crack down on the amount of sugar and processed foods in our diet because as PP has said they are empty calories. He has been alot better since.

He still has hungry days (don't we all) but the obsession with food as stopped.

Gosh, my just 4 year old will eat pancakes for breakfast usually 2 with watermelon. Fruit snack and oatcakes with milk for snack at nursery. Cooked lunch at nursery usually roast dinner or a pasta with vegetables with a sponge or fruit pudding. Chicken or tuna whole sandwich after nursery at 3.30 with a small kinder bar, dinner of fish or chicken with mash and veg, with again banana or more melon for pudding. He eats all that, but doesn't ask for anything in between.

He is off the centiles for height and weight but healthy.

That is not much at all!!! My boys (4 and 6) eat twice that!!! They r both in 50th centile for weight. I think he just needs to be given more to eat - bigger meals at neal times and more substantial snacks :)