Advent calendar treats for toddler

[Cuppaqueen]

I've been given an advent calendar for my son by a family member - it's one of those with little pockets for each day where you put your own treats.

I'm just wondering - what do you put for a young toddler (he's 19 months)? I don't really want him eating chocolate every day for a month and in any case the couple of times we've let him have some, he wasn't keen. He likes mini mince pies but they'd be messy. His snacks like Ella's Kitchen bars are quite big especially if he ate it first thing in the morning before breakfast. (I'm guessing once he gets the idea of there being a treat in there, he'll run up to it immediately.)

I am probably massively overthinking this - but any suggestions?

Does it have to be food every day? What about a little toy? Poundland and Wilkinsons could be good for mini toys and you could intersperse with snack things that he does like and perhaps place in some satsumas on an ad hoc basis too.

Can you put in activities? Write and post a letter to Santa, make Christmas card etc

Could you just hide a little toy in there and move the toy each day after it's been found? I'm thinking of a little Elf or Reindeer, and turning it into a game rather than him actually getting something every day?
'Let's see which door Rudolph is behind today...oh look, it's door number 4' that kind of thing??

I've been collecting small toys and cars from charity shops to use in dc advent calendar.

I've got Christmas stickers and plan to put 2 in for each day.

www.organix.com/our-foods/apple-orange-and-raspberry-apple-mini-oaty-bites

Would these work for at least some of the days? They're quite small and individually wrapped.

You can get mini pots of bubbles in Tesco. Depends how big your pockets are though!

raisins

When my dc were around that age I did a calendar with a finger puppet in each day (you can get a pack of 20 on Amazon for a couple if pounds), a different year I did one with a plastic animal in each day (bought second hand from ebay).

We have something similar - and advent train with little drawers. We put chocolate in about a third of the drawers, tiny toys in another third, and a balloon in the other 8 drawers

For 2.5yr old I’m going to do stickers and new pencils.

These are all brilliant ideas, thanks. I'm embarrassed at my lack of creativity