Is my toddler over-eating

[Sparkleandglitter]

DS is nearly 3 and ALWAYS hungry. He’s constantly looking for snacks or sitting up to the table to wait for his food (even if it’s not actually a mealtime).

He eats so much and I honestly have no idea if I’m over-feeding him or not.
I try to make sure his diet is fairly balanced and healthy but he has a massive appetite.
If we go to a party he makes a beeline for the snack table, and at the park he’s always there when his friend’s snacks come out.
I do make a lot of his snacks myself because it was costing a fortune and I also wanted to reduce how much salt and sugar he was having.

He’s very, very active (Walks/bikes/scoots everywhere. Does football, swimming and riding lessons every week. Spends a lot of time at the park running around with his friends and climbing).
He’s 98th percentile for height and 65th for weight so he isn’t overweight.

But he just eats so much and I don’t know whether to keep giving it to him or whether we need to cut back.

As an example, yesterday he ate:

Breakfast (7am): 1 slice of brown toast, 2 scrambled eggs. Pot of Greek yogurt with blueberries and a banana. Small cup of orange juice.

Snack (10am): 4 oatcakes with cream cheese, apple slices with peanut butter.

Lunch (12.30): Wholemeal pasta with bolognaise sauce.
Avocado, tomato, cucumber and mozzarella salad.
Satsuma.

Snack (3.30pm): Homemade banana, walnut and date cake.

Dinner (6pm): Salmon fillet, sweet potato wedges, broccolini, baby corn and mange tout.
Coconut milk chia pudding with mango and pineapple.

He drinks plenty of water throughout the day so I don’t think he’s thirsty.
He won’t drink any milk at all, so the only thing he has other than water is one small glass of juice/smoothie with breakfast.

It’s obviously hard to describe portion size, but it’s about enough to cover the bottom of child’s plastic plate from IKEA.

So AIBU to give him this much (and sometimes more if he wants it). I’m very aware that this is a lot of food for such a small child.

Honestly, you say he's growing well (very tall), healthy weight, active and he has a well balanced diet - stop worrying! He's fine. Let him eat what he needs. If any of the above changes then obviously re-assess.

Sounds like one of mine. Now older and still eats loads compared to their friends, but rake thin (not sure about now but was always 99.6th+ percentile height and something like 70ish for weight). Still food obsessed, but eats healthily like yours. I wouldn't worry.

Growth spurt? I find my 2 primary aged DC go through times where they eat non stop & other times they barely eat anything

Unfortunately he hates milk (it’s the only thing he doesn’t like apart from kale, parsnips, green peppers and ‘spicy’). I probably could just give him more water instead of juice though.

It’s a good point about giving him the fruit/pudding alongside his main meal. We never had pudding when I was little so I’m not really sure why I started doing it with him (probably because he was still hungry or was asking for snacks quite soon after meals).
You’re right that it might be better to just give it alongside the meal though so he doesn’t feel that every meal should have a pudding (even if the pudding is just fruit/yoghurt or something similar).
I think I avoided it because if he could see yoghurt he wouldn’t want anything else, but he has got better about this as he’s got older (at nursery he has a yoghurt with his breakfast and he still eats everything else).

You’re also probably right that I should increase the protein he has at lunchtime- it does tend to be his lowest protein meal and that might be why he gets hungry mid afternoon.

It might well be a growth spurt, although he eats like this pretty consistently and has had a big appetite since he was a baby (his nurse referred to him as ‘the biggest, hungriest baby in NICU’ 😂). He is always growing though 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Apileofballyhoo you’re probably right about the snacks, especially when he’s on
his own with me (if there are other children around and they have snacks then he asks to share or gets quite distressed if he doesn’t have one too).

It's categorically impossible to eat too much whole fruit. Whole fruit does not equal sugar

I think for a really active child thats a good amount of food, i really though you were goinf to say much more.

You are wrong, there is a lot of sugar in fruit,

A great menu lucky boy if only other children were so fortunate.

My almost 4 year old is the same! He's taller than all his friends at nursery and in size 6-7 clothes.

I'd say that diet is healthier than 99% of kids his age. If he's hungry crack on.

If you think he's overweight then you could offer less variety at each meal - that much variety encourages eating more in total as it's not boring.

You might find his appetite fluctuates and reduces over time. One of my kids used to eat 2 salmon fillets or 5 fish fingers per sitting but now will eat about half a salmon or 2 fish fingers.

On a constituent basis there's a lot of sugar. But
it's not free sugar and therefore is not harmful. Sugar in whole fruit isn't bad for teeth, doesn't cause blood glucose spikes, doesn't lead to obesity.

It's completely fine to have snacks when others are. Nothing has to be a hard and fast rule. It's easier for you at home if he has bigger meals and you're not providing a lot of snacks, and it's probably a better habit for him too. Some good suggestions here. My DS used to eat lots of pancakes, good for protein and milk. Still make them sometimes and throw in some milled seeds (easy on these as they can make the batter a bit weird) and ground almonds for some of the flour (more protein and fibre). A dash of vanilla extract covers up any unusual taste but DS would eat anything anyway really. French toast was another one we did a lot and it's quicker than pancakes. Avocado and tomato on toast was another. Always add seeds to porridge. I always use some ground almonds when baking too, DS can't eat gluten anyway, but they up the nutritional content nicely.

God I wish DS (2.8) would eat that variety of food. The only undisguised veg he'll touch is cucumber.

That’s a good reminder, I was batch making pancakes and waffles and keeping them in the freezer (then I had baby 2 and got a bit lazy). He’d absolutely love them, and so would his baby sister. He won’t be bothered if I put some weird stuff in there to increase the protein. I accidentally took him to a fancy cafe the other day and everything was vegan, sugar, gluten and dairy free. He happily ate some very worthy waffle made out of quinoa flour and topped with ‘healthy Nutella’ (which is more than can be said for me 😂).
Maybe I’ll get him to help me make a batch next week to put in the freezer.
French toast is also a good idea.

If he's high centile for height and lower for weight doesn't that mean he's on the slim side for his height?

My 3yo is also constantly hungry. What has helped a bit is having set snack times and meal times so everyone knows when the next food is coming up so they don't need to ask all the time.

I dont know why you think this but you are wrong

Show me someone who got obese by eating too much fruit... I'll wait.

@Sparkleandglitter "worthy waffle" 😁😁😁 yes, DS will eat anything, often thought a he'd eat a piece of old leather if it had a bit of sauce or something on it

My 4 year old is the same! Feels like a never ending pit 😁as long as he's a healthy weight then I wouldn't worry at all

Oh dear.

My daughter is the Same, eats and eats and eats but is very active. She's actually 0.4 centile for height and weight so we just let her eat but sounds like your son is healthy weight and height so wouldn't worry.

Are you joking? It’s 3 pieces. We eat way more than that in our house along with loads of veg too. Fgs so many kids are eating packets of crap and a gazillion UPFs daily, this child’s diet is super healthy and varied.

Op, you’re doing fine, more than fine, his diet sounds brilliant. He’s a healthy weight, growing like a weed and enjoys his food. Crack on.

I'm reading this and feeling like it's a humble brag..... but I'm actually just jealous that I can only get my child to eat chicken nuggets 😂