What does your 4 year old eat?

[Cambridgegirl90]

Interested to understand what your four year old eats on an average day and how it compares
Today was a typical day for my four year old. He has had:-

1.5 weetabix, few seeds and skimmed milk
1 slice seeded wholemeal toast with butter and honey (usually marmite but trying local honey to ease hayfever)

Raisins and banana

Small whole meal roll with mini steak burger
Carrot and cucumber crudités with hummous
One large plum
Raspberry yoghurt.

Strawberries, raspberries and blueberries
1 stick KitKat

1 slice wholemeal seeded bread and scrambled egg
1 small chocolate cupcake

2 cups (sippy size) of skimmed milk and water .

I am quite concerned about his sugar intake, both in terms of fruit, dried fruit, yoghurt etc and I admit he will have one and sometimes two "treat foods" per day - usually a small fudge, I stick of kitkat, a pot of custard or a few sweets.
He also doesn't eat as much protein as I would like. I am going to try and substitute some of the fruit with nuts and get some more fish into his diet to help with this but his food repertoire is not as diverse as I would like - he would live on bread and butter if he could!

I would love to hear your opinions. When I research the average diet I always feel quite guilty about the amount of sugar that my son has and also the fairly narrow range of foods he eats. Any advice welcomed ...

My daughter is just under 4, tall but slight. I think she probably has too much sugar but I've been too knackered/busy during lockdown to worry too much. She is dairy free due to allergies. She prefers water to juice.

Breakfast - 2 small bowls of Cheerios, or Rice Krispies etc with oat milk

Morning snack - banana or maybe small bag of biscuits

Lunch - cheese sandwich, or fish fingers and beans. Sometimes has fruit shoot.

Afternoon snack - fruit, crackers or a crumpet or if we've baked then a little bit of cake.

Tea - whatever I'm cooking like pasta with bolognese sauce, or curry and rice etc. If I'm doing something she doesn't like, she'll have something like fish (loves salmon) and vegetables. Dessert - soya yogurt.

I don’t think that’s bad OP! Obvs in an ideal world he would lose either the cupcake or the kitkat but I wouldn’t worry too much about that unless his bmi is above average or his teeth are bad?

I think his diet sounds pretty good for a normal four year old TBH.

The main things that stands out there is bread at all 3 meals and only salad veg. I'd try to add rice or potatoes and some broccoli and carrots for one

And add whole milk instead of skimmed

And I d not give a Kit Kat and a cupcake in one day among all the other sugar

According to my doctor, skimmed milk should never be given to a child under 5 as it does not contain enough fat, whole milk is the ideal.

The meals seem fine, but why is he having skimmed milk? I thought you were supposed to offer full fat until they are five years old?

We give skimmed as that is what the rest of the family drink. I wasn't aware that it wasn't recommended so thank you for letting me know. I will get some full fat next shop.When I wrote it down it also becomes apparent about the lack of variety with carbs as one poster kindly pointed out - and I know green veg are quite lacking as well. He does eat peas and broccoli but only 2-3 times a week.
I struggle to get him to eat potatoes in any form (except chips!) and he's also very lukewarm about rice and pasta - I am going to make more of an effort with this though, trying to find new ways of making them enjoyable. it's helpful when somebody else points out so thanks!

Same as other posters.

Raisins with a banana - I’d do just a banana. Maybe dipped in peanut butter if he’s really hungry. Half a tbsp? Raisins don’t really do anything for hunger. They’re just middle-class candy, really

Cupcake OR KitKat in a day.

Full fat milk (will help with filling him up, too).

Try other carbs: corn in the cob? Couscous? Rice? Chickpeas? Rice noodles? Egg noodles?

I don’t put a limit on fruit. As much of whatever they like, as long as it’s actual fruit and not juice or a processed fruit item. It takes longer to eat, has fibre, and is what it actually is. I do blitz overripe fruit with oat milk or almond milk (unsweetened).