2.5 year old overweight

[CCsweet]

Hello
I have a 2.5 year old. 32 month old to be exact.
He was born on the 75th centile. He quickly shot up the centiles and by the time he was 12 months old he was on the 99th centiles for height and weight.
His weight is now on the 91st centile (weighed by nursery assistants at 2 year review). They did not do his weight. I have recently done his height and is on the 50th centile.
Neither myself or my husband are overweight. My husband was very overweight in his teenage years up until the age of 21. Now, we both have normal BMIs. My husband is 6ft and I have 5'3.
I am at a loss because I don't know how to manage my child that has a huge appetite. I am making a huge conscious effort to exclude sugary foods and for them to only be a treat when we see Grandparents etc.
When my toddler wakes he is SO hungry!
He could eat half a sachet of porridge with skimmed milk. He then may ask for more after he's eaten this. Sometime I try and drag it out by waiting 10 mins to see if he's still hungry....but he is.
Then an hour later he may ask for more breakfast. I then to offer 2-3 small homemade pancakes which I batch cook for a few days. They contain apple, oats, egg and milk.
Literally half an hour after this he may ask for some fruit. So I may give a couple of strawberries.
If he has a nursery, he may then ask for more breakfast there!
After about an hour or two after all of this he's hungry again! I can't keep up. I make a small snack box every day and these are his snacks for his day. Example of snacks may be a cracker with peanut butter, a few grapes, a few stripes of red pepper, a small amount of cheese. My toddler may not eat all of this. I want to portion control but give him some control. I have only recently started the snack box as I want to monitor what he is eating and because I was fed up of always being in the kitchen cupboards and he was also climbing up to them to try and get food! The snack box has helped a lot. It's a snack box with 6 small compartments.
My toddler rarely has pudding after meals and if he asks for more he may have some greek yoghurt or fruit.
Before he goes to bed at night, he may ask for a breadstick.
I am trying to distract from food... especially when I think he is bored. There have been a few times where I have told him no more food for now, we have had tears. I have stuck to my boundaries. I am not depriving him of hunger but trying to set boundaries and offer healthy options if required. I know toddlers can eat like horses sometimes but should I be saying no to food right now? This is all new to me as I have never been in a situation where a member of my family has been overweight.
I am tempted to call the HVs for some advice as I don't want to cause issues or even issues as he grows in to an older child/adult.
Maybe I am just worrying too much. I am hoping that he may just shoot up and balance out a bit more.
When I am not working we probably spend 2-3 hours outdoors or at soft play.
He attend a forest school nursery twice a week, so is active there.
Has anyone had any experiences?
I am a mum trying my best and just want to get things right.
Thank you 😁

All under 5s should have whole milk, not skimmed or semi.

I would feed him five times a day. Three meals, where he can eat as much as he wants of non-sugary non-UPF foods. And two snacks of a sensible size, where he does not get more than what you give him first time. If he asks for more food outwith these times, make sure he's had water and then tell him 'not long until lunch' and distract him with something.

Just to add another perspective, are you sure it's hunger and not behavioural?

From the age of 9 months to 3.5 years my son would ask for food all day every day. If we was at a social thing like a play cafe or a kids party, all he would do is focus on the food. He would have meltdowns if he couldn't eat. He is on the 2nd centile for height and weight but was born on that level and has followed that trajectory so nothing to do with a growth spurt etc. When I say his eating habits were extreme I am not exaggerating. It was so stressful as I would be out with him and he could have just eaten a 3 course meal and still ask for food.

Somehow, since about 3.5 years, it has calmed down, still loves food but asks less especially if he is distracted and I notice it is worse when he is over tired or bored.

His diet sounds fine. My younger one would typically have the following:

• Porridge and fruit for breakfast.
• Peanut butter toast/cheese and crackers for snack.
• Scrambled eggs with added veggies for lunch.
• Half a banana plus small homemade muffin for snack.
• Whatever we're having for dinner - spag bol, fish fingers, half a burger, roasted fish.
• Half a cup of whole milk 3 times a day.

She'll get a treat sometime when we're visiting family or out and about. She goes through stages of looking a bit podgy and then shooting up and looking very skinny. I'm not worried.

It’s a fairly recent change to advice but as per the NHS over 1s can have semi skimmed milk. Handy if you want to buy one milk for the entire household and you don’t like whole yourself (that’s what we do and we have an under 5). But agree they shouldn’t be having skimmed and the rest of your advice is absolutely spot on!

Oh really? I didn't know that. What a shame, as whole milk is so full of essential fats for children. I get that semi is more convenient if the whole family drinks that though.

Honestly I feel like you're setting him up for an eating disorder being so restrictive and controlling.
Half a sachet of porridge is nothing!
My youngest is 5 now but as a toddler she would have a bowl of porridge that I'd make using oats, or 2 weetabix with fruit. She was born on the 99th centile and is still there!
Also, skimmed milk is awful, let him have the full fat!

Is he actually overweight? Ignore the percentages and actually look at his body. He either has excess fat or he doesn't?

I'd consider trying an opposite approach to other posters suggestions and try and cut out snacks. By giving him food and snacks so often you are making him think about food all the time. He won't know what feeling hungry actually feels like. At that age I gave my kids 4 meals a day and almost no snacks, They ate well because they were hungry.
I'd sometimes give a snack if they did something like swimming and I wasn't crazy strict about it but generally they only had the four meals. I also didn't give them milk or juice outside of meal times. They could sometimes be hungry for their meals but it wasn't a problem.

It worked for my four kids. They still don't snack often as adults.

I think endless snacking causes a problem with some kids. It's simply untrue that all toddlers can self regulate their food intake. If it were true why are there so many overweight kids.