To not give my toddler snacks?

[doweneedsnacks]

My four year old has copious amounts of them so I’m not being smug. But he is a hoover and devours everything. She is very fussy and just won’t eat fruit. She used to eat apples and cucumber sticks but now has stopped.

She will eat vegetables mixed in casserole, chilli, bolognaise etc. so I’ve just been doing this for her meals. Today she had boiled egg and toast for her breakfast, chilli con carne with rice for lunch and chicken stir fry for dinner.

Her brother has had the same but plenty of snacks … he had an apple after breakfast, then some cucumber, grapes and melon after lunch and more apple mid afternoon. He’s now eating strawberries and banana … But should she be having something even if it isn’t fruit or veg?

Well no - I’m a bit lost by that post to be honest. I explain that she doesn’t eat fruit or veg; some I can hide but some she just won’t eat! I’m not really sure how much more obvious I can get, to be honest. I genuinely don’t know what you mean by ‘a fairly cooking repertoire’; I’m not trying to be difficult, I genuinely don’t know what you mean!

I did qualify in my first post, if a child's energy levels are flagging. I wrote it perfectly clearly.

‘Fairly limited’, that was meant to say.

The posts were giving pretty clear advice, so not sure why you feel lost or like you were being interrogated. And, no, you haven’t explained that. You said she eats veg in sauce, but seemed to think that could only happen with certain veg, so you were asked what you’d tried and given advice about that. That’s all.

So, not a snack free household, then.

Yeah, whatever.

Oooh we should get together and test the theory and make our millions! I suppose two take-it-or-leave it breastfeeders doesn’t make a great scientific sample on my side, but baby three is two months old and also can’t really be bothered - let’s see what weaning had in store. 😂

Its just a bit odd today you're a "snack fee household" when you're clearly not 🤷‍♀️

I think @Krumpit covered it really. There seem to be people who go everywhere with their child, the playground, toddler group, armed with snacks, even when they are only out for an hour or so. I suppose I was of the 3 normal meals pattern with DD and would only think about snacks if DD was obviously hungry. That was all. Of course you feed a hungry child but I don't personally, think constant snacking is great. Obviously each child is different.

I can cook well, but if what you cook isn’t eaten then it’s no good.

I get that we all read posts differently but that one was awful. It was firing question after question at me, and I read it and honestly thought ‘what the hell.’

’have you tried … I’ve found this helps … also, you could …’ are all fine. ‘You say you’ve done this? Have you? And what did you do then? And you need to do this. Have you?’ They have very different sort of tones to them.

There were exactly two questions in my comment + a bunch of suggestions. ‘Awful’, ‘firing question after question’ and ‘cross examined at the old Bailey’.

Right. Good luck, then.

It was quite phasey for mine which seems quite common when I chat to other parents

Both of them went through a phase of just not really wanting to stop and eat proper meals and then they would get too hungry to eat. This was around 1.5 to 2.5 I would say and keeping them topped up on snacks was essential. Then they moved towards two breakfasts, lunch and small tea for a long time.

If she's growing and energetic, then she's just self regulating with food and getting what she needs. If she's hungry, she'll definitely let you know. I've got 4 kids. 2 were snackers and grazers, the other 2 were perfectly happy with just their meals. If you bear in mind the size of a toddler's stomach, it's not a lot of space to fit large amounts of food in.

I find with my 4 year old the best thing is to offer hard fruit and veg in its original form - so a whole apple, whole carrot. They only eat what they need. If I know they are hungry then I might offer sliced apple and peanut butter for example.

I think it's child and situation dependent.

My 5yo will sometimes eat one bite of pasta at dinner and declare herself full and then might have a few spoons of porridge in the morning...

Other days she'll eat her whole dinner, the have fruit, cheese and Greek yogurt for supper. Then have 2 eggs and toast for breakfast, come out of school ravenous and eat a cheese roll and a banana at 3:30, eat tea at 5:30 and need something else again at supper.

Some days she'll need something between her meals, other times not.

Other kids seem to exist on half a wotsit and looking at a piece cheese 🤷‍♀️

Mine 95% of the time eat really well at mealtimes. But think I'm going out and about without an array of chopped fruit, veg, fruit leathers, breadsticks, bread and butter, leftover pancakes etc. to put in little pots for them to eat as a mini meal in the pushchair, on the go? Ha, no! They want food, they get food. Food is not a battleground I'm willing to fight on.