To give toddler snacks in the morning

[juicepeese]

Bit of a debate going on in our house.

I'm the one who gets 3 year old DS up every morning as DH leaves for work early.

DS can be very full on in the morning so in order to get some time to brush my hair and put on some makeup we have a routine where he watches some cartoons in his PJs and he's allowed 2 things out of the "snack box" whilst he waits for me.

These are not things like chocolate etc.. I try and get healthy snacks for his box. 1 of the pieces has to be fruit and the other can be something like a lunchbox maltloaf or a yoghurt.

This gives me the time to get ready and we all go to nursery/ work happy.

Sometimes DS will get some cereal too if he wants it when we get to nursery, however, a lot of the time he says he doesn't want any when we get there.

DH thinks shouldn't be giving snacks so early in the morning (usually about 7), I think it's easy to say when you get to waltz out the door with no responsibility for getting DS dressed (and yourself) and to nursery on time.

Am I being unreasonable to give toddler two snacks in the morning?

Why don't you hust give him a real breakfast instead of snacks? You can prep it the night before- like overnight oats or something.
And toys instead of screens. Just sounds a crap habit to start the day with TV and junk food.

FlingThatCarrot. The fruit and yoghurt isn’t junk. I’d not be keen on maltloaf as a main part of breakfast though. I think some quiet screen time is fine, nursery is a long day and a bit of time watching CBeebies is fair enough imo.

Wish I could be as perfect a parent as some on here.

My 2.5 year old has similar for breakfast, along with the odd slice of toast, bread and butter or croissant.
And she has that while sitting at the table with her sister and either DH or me (whoever has less to do that morning)

She also has a snack box of dry cereal (cheerios usually) to pick at in the car to drop her sister off before she goes to nursery.

If DH suddenly decided to start questioning what works for everyone and he wasn't involved, he'd soon be responsible for getting the kids sorted to implement his own routine!

I think it would be unreasonable if your DS had nothing to eat while he's waiting for you to get ready.

Is that not just breakfast?

Surely the issue is that you are calling it “snacks” when basically it’s just breakfast food that you haven’t had to cook and won’t make a huge mess.

As long as your kid isn’t having a bar of chocolate and a packet of crisps for breakfast every day then your DH doesn’t really get to comment on how you feed him his perfectly normal breakfast if he isn’t there.

@FlingThatCarrot

fruit and yoghurt isn’t junk.

op needs time to get ready for work.

what would you suggest?

OP I do the same. DS gets breakfast at nursery but that’s a long time away from when he wakes up. He often asks for milk and snack. Like you, it’s usually some milk, a piece of fruit with a smoothie or some bread and butter. Otherwise we’d hear no end of the “I’m hungry. Snack mummy” before quickly turning hangry, and I’d never get ready for work or get us out the door.

Are you seriously saying that your husband disagrees with giving your child fruit and yoghurt? I don’t know anybody who will be upset about this. Unless it’s a case of snacks meaning biscuits, crisps and/or sweets. My friend was talking about the same issue with her husband but it transpired it was chocolate biscuits every morning and her husband was not happy about it.

If he is often not having more food when he gets to nursery, then it's not really a snack but his breakfast.

Personally I wouldn't want them to get into the habit of having food twice - at home and at nursery - within such a short period of time.
So if that routine works for you I would make it a bit more filling so it is real meal (and tell nursery he doesn't need breakfast there). It wouldn't take much from what you describe.

It's a school of thoughts though, that children should get used to eat at regular meal time and not in-between meals (the amount of snacks my kids get at nursery makes me cringe a bit lol). At that age you want to get them used to not eat for 3-4h at a time. Not everyone agree with this obviously.