The snack requests are going to kill me off.

[3AndStopping]

One week into the summer holidays and if I hear ‘I’m hungry.’ One more time I might actually bang my head against a brick wall!! Helppppp!
(light hearted(ish) of course.)

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER

Dbro and Sil had one of those, for their (usually several) foster cats.
Dbro put a notice on the front of it saying, ‘Self Service - Thin Cats Only’. 😂

I'm so not down with the kids. I thought you were perhaps talking about some Croatian cousins. It took me far too long to figure it out....brother and sister in law 🙄

I used to get:

“I’m thirsty!”
”I’m Friday!”

Although, and I’ve seen others on MN comment on this in the past, no one seemed to give kids water/water bottles back in the day so not surprised I was always thirsty.

@PoshPineapple, it was a couple of jam sandwiches and a pop bottle full of water in my day.

Constantly Snacking is a new thing, mine didn’t know about snacks until they heard their friends asking for them, now it’s normal to them.

when they were younger and starting to help themselves to food, I put a rule in place; up to one choc bar and one bag of crisps a day, fruit is unlimited but only one of each kind a day (so they could have one apple, pear and orange to stop all the apples going in a day).

Now they are teens and still follow the rule automatically so it helps me know how much to buy each week, if they want extra they buy it themselves, but they rarely do that as they’d rather didn’t their money on cinema tickets of bowling with friends.

Did not think snack box would work for mine but it absolutely has - only 2 days in though! NOBODY asked me for food yesterday! Today I directed youngest (5) to his snackbox when he asked. Eldest (8) did help himself to a second bag of crisps but that was when his friend was here and having some so I'll let him off.

I never had snacks as a child and had a chocolate bar on a Saturday.
My children only ever had a snack straight after school. I genuinely cannot remember them having snacks in between meals during holidays/ weekends. Surely this constant grazing is bad for teeth and weight 🤷‍♀️

Mine never asked about snacks until post covid we went back to nursery and various groups.

Now he asks for snacks bloody constantly.

@Skinnermarink

@Hihosilver123

Possibly controversial (on Mumsnet) but don’t children need to learn that it’s ok to be hungry? We don’t need to be constantly filling them up and it’s actually quite nice to be hungry before you are about to eat a meal?

I agree but it’s a bloody nightmare. They come out of school absolutely crazing for snacks as do all their friends. Was never a thing when I was growing up and I’m not that old.

Agree with this too, but I'd imagine not easy to implement! Does the difference in the types of foods we now endorse in our children have something to do with it? Certainly in my childhood, nothing was low fat, low sugar etc. Although we had only two/three main meals a day (and a hearty pudding once a day), those meals must have contained way more calories than an average kids meal now, especially during school time. Guess we were full of stodge and simply stayed feeling full longer. I never recall feeling massively hungry.

The almond mums are out in force on this thread…

Am horribly old but can confirm that until recently - blame adverts/marketing if you like, but I think it's more complex - childhood snacks simply were not a thing.

We had breakfast (porridge, cereal or toast) then, if thirsty, very dilute squash mid morning (if at school it was compulsory milk, which I loathed), then lunch ('proper' main course eg stew with potatoes and green veg in winter or ham/egg/cheese salad in summer, followed by a fruit-based pudding).

Then after school/at c 4pm 'tea' = a slice of cake or else toast, butter and jam/honey/marmite/ processed cheese spread (!! horrors, but my childhood favourite) plus more dilute squash or milk/milky tea.

Supper was something like welsh rarebit, beans on toast, scrambled eggs, baked potato and grated cheese, bubble and squeak etc etc with an apple, orange or banana for pudding. If, before bedtime, we said we were hungry then we might get a milky drink (more horrrors to me) and a couple of biscuits - digestives, rich tea or somthing plain but crispy called 'Lincoln' that I don't think exists today.

One summer, we were living by the seaside and I can remember my mother saying to us 'you can have an ice cream every other day OR you can have pocket money, but not both. ' We were genuinely free to choose.

Looking back at photos we were slim but not skinny, and have survived in good health for many decades.

I KNOW that conditions today are much more complicated, but as a child I can never recall feeling really hungry and never, ever deprived.. I suppose it depends on what you are used to. We simply were not used to the idea of 'snacks'. But then our parents never had to contend with the pressure of supermarket displays/junk food advertising. Or the 'me me me' culture.

What’s an almond Mum?

I just don’t allow snacks. Never have. Kids don’t need to eat all day. It’s boredom or thirst or habit.

I was so glad once mine got past the constant 'snacks and juice' phase. Many years ago but I still remember the relentlessness of it after school or in the holidays!

Parents who have an unhealthy mindset about food, believe snacking is the root of all evil and that going hours in between meals is absolutely normal. They’ve convinced themselves that they don’t get hungry and don’t understand why anyone else could be, leading to another generation who has an unhealthy relationship with food rather than being taught that eating is fine as long as it balances out.

It stems from Bella Hadid telling her teen daughter that if she felt hungry she should ‘chew some almonds really well’.

YABU for saying it's lighthearted. Or, rather, anyone who couldn't work that out without being told is BVU.

I keep in loads dried fruit (apple, mango, strawberries, cherries, watermelon), plain biscuits in packs of 2 (individually wrapped), fig rolls and make energy balls out of a mix of oats/peanut butter/honey/coconut/raisins - my DS knows he gets a mid afternoon snack and any more requests will be denied.

Of course he'll have ice creams etc on hot days and on holiday but I just cannot be bothered with the mood swings and crashes that come with him eating loads of shite.

I dont know if I'm an almond mum,but I'm certainly an old one. Constant snacking is a modern thing and doesnt happen in many other countries. Can only speak for the ones my family and friends live in, ( Belgium,France,China,Turkey Spain) but the kids there just dont snack all day. We didnt as kids - mum couldnt afford it to be honest. My own kids,now grown up had the choice of cereal,toast or fruit if they were " hungry", with chocolate and sweets a treat on rare days out. I cant believe the amount of crap some kids eat.

Mine haven't even started school yet and this drives me mad all day . Oldest starts school in September!! I wish they could just help themselves but they'd eat it all in one day and I just can't afford it. It makes me so mad when I hear the weird "want snack " or "hungry" 😂 I feel your pain

But as @Poshpineapple says, 'traditional' meals in the past were probably more calorific, satisfying and nutritious (!) for a child than various food fashions today. They were designed to taste nice and fill you up from one meal to the next . I can't recall, for instance, ever being restricted to what I ate at a main meal. Extra helpings certainly existed. And if I was very hungry at tea-time, for example, I would be allowed two slices of toast and butter and marmite and probably also a small piece of cake.

But crisps, chocolate, fancy biscuits, sweets, (processed) snack bars etc etc were simply unknown. Fruit - apart from stewed - was served as nature intended. So no 'empty' calories. Any sweets we were given - parents did not normally buy them for us except at Christmas and Easter - went into a tin. We could have two items from that, free choice, after lunch. Nothing more.

I think, in today's environment, it might be quite difficult to organise such a way of eating. But it did once exist, and it certainly worked. As children, we did not feel deprived and really, honestly, did not feel the need to nag for more.

Mine are 10 & 7 now so can sort themselves out. I just tell them to have a look and sort it out. I just say no choc or sweets and only 1 pack of crisps a day. They usually find something like fruit, bread sticks, crackers, flap jacks, brioche, babybels etc. I’m not overly fussy about what they eat though.

own kids,now grown up had the choice of cereal,toast or fruit if they were.

If I offered my kids toast and cereal every time they were hungry they’d never eat anything else. They would absolutely not eat a healthy, varied breakfast lunch or dinner if they knew they could have toast or cereal instead!

Then they're not hungry, are they? Constant snacking leads to fat kids. Breakfast, lunch and dinner with a snack mid morning and one in the afternoon. That's all they need if they're eating good food for their three main meals.

How do you afford these endless snacks?

It's also unhealthy to pass on normalising constant mindless snacking, chances are it doesn't balance out for many people. There's a reason there are a lot of obese children nowadays and it's scary.

Such a dad joke! I love it