Food ideas for suddenly hungry 3 year old

[BlueBumedFly]

Hi - DD has never been an eater, had reflux as a baby, was dreadful to wean and has am egg allergy. Recently she was poorly and stopped drinking all milk so I am guessing that is a loss of a couple of hundred calories a day.

She is a perfectly bright happy girl but is suddenly hungry all the time. She has never learnt to 'fill up' at mealtime, eats half of anything at best. She does not eat carbs in any great volume, will tolerate rice but nit with every meal. She does not eat pasta (makes her vomit if egg included) or potatoes or much bread, just does not like them. Also does not eat cheese (mad child)!! Or eggs, obviously.

So when she gets back from nursery at 6pm with me she is starving. But bedtime is 7.15pm so what do I feed her?? I work full time, don't want to resort to grabbing an M&S childs meal (then again they all practically have pasta in them). I do make an freeze food but half the time she is too tired to attack a proper meal.

Her faves are chilli and chicken curry. I do picnic teas with chicken, ham and veggies and fruit but with without the ability to mix in bread and/or crackers it gets rather repetitive.

Anyone any good tea time ideas please?

At the risk of sounding obvious, have you tried pasta and potatoes in all their varieties (i.e non-egg pasta in a tomato-based sauce, or a cheese-based sauce to hide the texture, or mash/boiled/baked/cottage pie topping etc)? Also protein in the form of yoghurt, cheese chunks, chicken etc is good. The other easy and healthy(ish) fillers are fishcakes which already have potatoes in them.

We also use breadsticks to dip into cream cheese etc - makes the non-bread thing a bit of a novelty.

Toad in the hole is also an abs. fave with out girls and fills the hungry tums. Very easy and quick to make too.

with our girls (not with out girls - obviously! )

What do you eat for dinner? I mean, do you make her a separate meal or just give her the same thing as you?

Does she not have a meal at nursery? If she does I would just give cereal or toast, my ds has discovered he likes bagels and will polish one of them off for a supper

Thats the point, she does have tea at nursery, just cannot seem to fill up at home.

Egg free pasta still makes her vomit for some reason and believe me I have tried every combination of potato and cheese product!

She eats whatever we do to a point as my husband is vegetarian and does not return from work until after 8pm so we don't eat until late.

I just was wondering what other people do post nursery, any natty ideas. Am def going to give bagels a try and also egg-free toad in the hole at a weekend!

I wouldn't be cooking another meal if she is getting proper tea at nursery. I think there has been similar threads on this before, and may be worth searching the archives for other suggestions.

Porridge
Weetabix
Noodles
Soup
Fruit and custard
Rice pudding

Our regular snack foods are:

Yoghurt
Avocado
Banana
Sausage rolls
Tomato soup

If not eating enough carbs, have you tried the more bready type of cakes:

Scotch pancakes
Crumpets
Scones
Rock buns

If she's had a hot meal at nursery, I'd probably just give snacks for tea.

Bowl of porridge
Oatcakes with cream cheese, or mashed avocado
A flapjack
Slice of cheese on toast
Leek and potato soup
Lentil soup
Felafels
Breadsticks and hoummous
Dolmades
Brioche roll and banana
Fruit cake

My very picky toddler will eat rice cakes with phillidelphia
or a few fish fingers
after nursery.

Thanks so much, sorry not been back but was away and we had zero signal. Had not thought of avocado, will most def try some of these new ideas :)

I have to avoid eggs as she is allergic, what would you bind the fishcakes with? She loves all fish, will eat lots!

Crumpets - great. She loves them, must buy more, thanks v much. Saw Nigell's gnocchi 'roast potatoes' so going to try that too.