Still feeding 2 year old “baby” food

[Disneymagic321]

Such as cereal bars or Ella’s kitchen biscuits or even crisps . At what point did you switch to “grown up” food (e.g wotsits) that has a lot more sugar, salt etc? So far he doesn’t know any different and is happy. I give small exposure here and there, so he’s not completely sheltered and try to keep snacks healthy ish e.g, fruits, raisins , rice cakes with hummus, dates. Someone said to me why are you still giving them baby versions, he’s big now! So I’m interested in your experiences to help me get a good balance 😊

DS is 2.5 and I generally have a pouch of baby yoghurt and a baby cereal bar somewhere about my person. He has plenty of normal food but they're so useful when they get hangry or need to be bribed into doing something. I don't know that there's a massive difference between a box of Aldi baby cereal bars and a box of adult cereal bars and as he's the only one who will eat them, it doesn't make much difference. Plus as PP said, some of the yoghurt pouches are long life and don't need to be kept in the fridge so they're handy to have around.

my 2 and a half year old eats anything ! after she turned 1 we started giving her more '''our food'' than the ellas stuff for dinner/lunches etc. my meals are tastier and healthier than them so it mad sense.

In regards to snacks IIRC that just naturally progressed. She doesn't have a lot of that stuff generally being at nursery all day. Grandparents certainly don't help with the no sweets agenda but the rare occasion she has them it's not an issue.

I think because she doesnt have them much but we dont say no when she does we dont get the sugar highs and lows or the tantrums. she knows she can't have crackers for dinner and cheekily smiles when we say no lol

@Babdoc

When did "snacks" for babies/toddlers become a thing? I had my DC thirty years ago, and simply mashed or gave small portions of my own meals to them. None of us were eating stuff between meals.

The nhs suggests that toddlers need 2 snacks a day and 3 meals. I'd hazard a guess that they know more than the average joe.

My first born dd used to think grapes and sultanas were sweeties until she started school. By third child they knew what a KitKat was from about 18 months. Keep them on low salt and low sugar as long as you can.

Thanks guys ! Good to see I’m not alone , I am just mindful of the amount of sugar and salt in the grown up versions ! I’ll keep it going for now and see how we go 😊

@Babdoc

When did "snacks" for babies/toddlers become a thing? I had my DC thirty years ago, and simply mashed or gave small portions of my own meals to them. None of us were eating stuff between meals.

I don’t regularly give snacks. My kid doesn’t need it. He’s a bloody good eater and scarfs down his meals, which are generally whatever we’re having. But the occasional biscuit or packet of crisps feature in his life and on those occasions, I give him miserable baby ones because why not, if he doesn’t know any better?

My children have always eaten what we have, just regular normal food. The baby is 11mths and for snacks eats, fruit, vegetable sticks, yogurt, bread sticks, cheese, crumpet, plain Biscuit, Crackers and yes occasional few Quavers or some flapjack. Baby snacks are just ridiculously expensive and unnecessary for the most part (mine do like the occasional fruit pouch! Lol)

Dc1 switched to non- baby stuff by about 18 months, although we'd stopped the pouches by 10 or 11 months. dc2 never had any of the things marketed as 'baby'. He's always just had what we have and I keep an eye on salt/sugar intake.

I realised with dc1 that we were paying a fair bit more for less when buying the baby stuff and she was happy to ditch them.

I don't see the problem with giving these snacks at 2 though.

@Babdoc - there’s been ‘kids’ snacks around for ages. I was born 30 odd years ago and I’m sure we lived of those sugary rusk biscuits for years. And snacked on whatever, even adults.

You should hold off of sugar until two as much as possible, salt is reduce as much as possible but can have more after one.

Sugar - solidstarts.com/foods/sugar/

Salt - solidstarts.com/starting-solids/sodium-and-babies/

This is info backed up by peer reviewed studies referenced at the end of the article.

@Babdoc

When did "snacks" for babies/toddlers become a thing? I had my DC thirty years ago, and simply mashed or gave small portions of my own meals to them. None of us were eating stuff between meals.

30 years ago I had hula hoops and chocolate buttons as snacks!

OP, if your child is happy to have the low sugar/salt baby snacks and you don’t mind the cost, then no need to switch to adult versions.

My 5 year old loves the fruit pouches.

I have a 4 and 2 year old and they still have the organix/Ella's kitchen snacks. My 4 year old only has toddler crisps in her lunch for nursery and will have a small toddler biscuit as well. While they are still happy eating them i will still buy them. I do let then eat quavers on occasion but that's really only if I'm eating them so they share with me.

My 5 yo still eats some 'baby' snacks rice cakes, oatie bars, wriggly worm fruit things, veggie stick crisps and the heinz biscuits. He likes them and has 'normal' snacks too.

I give my 1 year old bits of what I'm eating and I eat wotsits so he has had some!

He has his own snacks too which I intersperse with fruit. Today he had something new from M and S, full fat cream cheese bread roll and he loved it!

I struggle with 'just give them what you're eating' at dinner time as he eats much earlier than us so I do tend to make 2 dinners but his are proper food now.

He doesn't have the fruit pouches but I do have the frozen forest fruits mix in the freezer so I will defrost them, put them through a sieve and add to a yoghurt. The vit C hit is great! And it's super cheap and lasts for ages.

My 12 year old still likes those Organix cereal bars 😂😂

My 14 year old likes Ellas kitchen fruit pouches in her lunch box!

I never gave 'baby' food at all.

Mine started on normal food when they began weaning at 6 months. I use low salt, low fat. low sugar versions of most things so it was never a thing for us to buy 'baby' foods.

My 3 year old loves the organix oat bars. When i was young we ate such rubbish. 🤣 more monster munch than Ella's kitchen

I'm in my late 30s and still buy myself those toddler Organix versions of wotsits that mine used to have, they taste so much better! We moved on to home baking until they were old enough to ask for other specific junk foods themselves (school aged).

If you're doing it to avoid sugar or avoid them developing a sweet tooth, I'd double-check the sugar levels on their favourites. A fair number of baby and toddler snacks are actually really high in total sugars per 100g, and concentrated apple juice is not really much different nutritionally than concentrated sugar beet juice.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59218313 was a recent article on it.

My nearly 2 year old loves "raspberry and beetroot melty puffs." Seems mean not to get them just because he is nearly 2.

I love them too actually, that and tomato flavour baby crisps.

Having said that if he ever sees me eating normal crisps he makes a beeline for me so he can have a couple.

I never bought any special baby food, just gave them food. Highly processed snack food, whether marketed at adults or babies, is a major factor in the obesity epidemic. Nobody needs it in their diet.

Are oaty bars bad nutrition wise?

This says
The recommended intake from the American Heart Association for kids aged 2-18 is no more than 25 grams or 6 teaspoons of added sugars each day.

The oaty bar has 7.5g it has 5 ingredients.

Don't apples have up to 19grams of sugar?

@Crimesean, have concerns about Aspartame passed you by?!