Do your children have snacks between meals?

[Socci]

Message withdrawn

I've always given my two 'snacks' though tbh when dd was under 3 it was more like 4/5 mini meals per day.

If for some reason she misses out on the mid-morning fruit at school, she always complains that she is starving by lunchtime. And if anything, has often eaten less because she needs to fill her tummy quickly to diminish the raging hunger. She is now ravenous after a full day at school.

I do give snacks but sometimes forget. Tbh ds rarely asks for food, even meals - if we relied on him telling us when he's hungry he'd never eat (unless he can actually see a bag of rice cakes/raisins or some chocolate). Thought it was common knowledge that babies, toddlers and young children need two snacks a day as well as meals? He gets rice cakes/raisins/fruit and occasionally chocolate.

PS A diet full of high fibre food is bad for young children (apart from fruit which is easily digested and also contains sugar). Fills them up, so they don't eat as much energy-rich food as they actually need, and causes constipation. The nutritional needs of young children are different from adults. Doctors have a phrase 'middle-class malnutrition' for the poor kids whose parents feed them low fat, low sugar and high fibre.

Sorry merrySOAPBOXingday - brain was bit addled last night, totally misunderstood your post I think!

Agree with you PantomimEDAMe about the middle class malnutrition stuff - there's so much confusion out there about what we should all be eating - loads of press about having low fat this & that, then babies are supposed to be on "adult" food by a certain age so no wonder people are confused! I tend to ignore all of it & just have a little of everything & so does my ds - as long you get plenty of exercise then full fat is ok for adults in my book - lot less processed & tastes a lot nicer! We've switched to full fat milk so we get used to the taste because ds will have it.

Mine eat a lot in between meals and still (at age 5 and 4) get grouchy if they haven't eaten for long (and I'm sure this is why both of them are absolutely starving when they come out of school because they don't get to snack enough!).

They have free access to the fruit bowl during the day (although they do ask first in case it's too close to a meal) and ds will still drink quite a bit of milk if given half a chance. Other snacks they love are fig rolls, raw veg, bread and cakes.

I vividly remember when both of them were toddlers and I daren't leave the house without marmite rice cakes in case they got hungry!

Yes, because they are often hungry during the day. I'm really trying to cut back though as they are terrible eaters at dinner time. Breakfast and lunch they are fantastic but they are often rubbish at dinner.

The only snacks they have are fruit, breadsticks, round of wholemeal toast.

Just read whole thread now - maybe i shouldn't be so harsh abuot the snack thing - I guess if it's all healthy stuff it doesn't really matter if it's at 3 set times does it? Come to think of it, I graze too.

DD (3y8m) often has snacks during the day. We don't have our evening dinner until 6:30pm, so she often has a snack around 3.30pm to put her on. She may alwso have a mid morning snack. Mainly these are "healthy" snacks - fruit, sandwich, veggies, cheese and crackers, etc. However there are also times when she will have some biscuits or chocolate.

DD is very active and never stops. She eats really well and has a pretty balanced diet. We don't have problems getting her to eat anything. And she is really slim. So I am more than happy for her to snack if she wishes.

Think it is supposed to be more healthy or better for our bodies to eat regularly and small amounts rather than just 3 big meals isn't it?

DS was extremely hard to establish onto solids and for a really long time the only way he would eat at all was little and often, and I mean little and I mean often, for a while there I was offering something small every hour. Now he is past most of his medical probs he eats like a horse (doing some catch up I think) On an average day he will eat a bowl of cereal, a piece of fruit and a piece of toast for breakfast, muffin/ricecake/crackers and a piece of fruit am tea, a bowl of cooked lunch for lunch, same as am tea for pm tea, a bowl of cooked dinner (meat and vege of some discription) and a soy yoghurt/milk pudding/ soy icecream for desert. He is 15months. Without snacks he would have been in serious trouble and now he clammers for food at every opportunity!!
PS please someone post after me I am having a bad thread killing tendency at the moment.

Yes, always. I think little and often suits them better.
Whenever ds starts to get grumpy or unreasonable the FIRST thing I do is try to get him to eat or drink something.

Yes, they do, DS3 in particular as he is only seventeen months and I think he really needs them.

yes mine do

dd1 would live, literally, on berries nuts and seeds like a woodland creature if she could

My children eat all day ... like deegward they eat meals between snacks ...

Food goes something like this (all times are 'ish'):
7am Breakfast (cereal, toast)
9am Snack (usually fruit)
11am Snack (YES I DO GIVE MY CHILDREN BISCUITS!!!)
12 Lunch for DD (sandwich, cucumber, muesli bar, yoghurt, fruit and raisins)
1pm Lunch for DS (during termtime he eats at 12.30) (Sandwich and fruit and yoghurt)
3pm onwards is constant grazing of muesli bars, fruit, microwave popcorn and YES, BISCUITS!!
5.30pm Dinner for DD and DS (if he isn't eating with us later) (Cooked dinner ... ALL healthy and home made I promise )
If DS is eating with us later he will still snack on something when DD is eating her dinner and then eat with us at 7.30pm
7pm DD has a bottle of milk.

I have to say, I think it is unusual not to give snacks. I cannot imagine how my ds would cope on huge gaps between meals. I certainly snack.
Don't you ever eat anything other that breakfast/lunch/tea Lonelymum? No coffee and a biscuit? An apple? A pick at the kid's tea?

And childhood would be much the less enjoyable without ice cream!

a typical day would be
breakfast - porridge, toast, fruit, drink
snacks between breakfast and lunch - fruit, nuts, a cheese dipper or a biscuit, cocoa
lunch - pasta or soup with bread and cheese
snacks between lunch and supper - as before or maybe a cake if out or if we have made some
supper - last night was chicken risotto with peas and broccoli then jelly
maybe more cocoa and if they are hungry and its a holiday night then a piece of toast

My ds snacks on....starbucks muffin (shared with greedy pig mummy) Blue Parrot cheese dippers, grapes, biscuits, chocolate, apple slices, mango, raisins, bits of cheese (cheddar or stilton favourites), kid's muesli bars, cups of milk, Organix puffs (like crisps) and sometimes crisps, cake of various kinds...anything really.
And he likes spinach, olives, salad leaves with dressing and lots of things that children who are - horrors! - allowed to eat cake aren't supposed to eat.

My goodness you lot are a real 'perfect moms' aren't you.

No biscuits, cake, flavoured crips, chocolate, sweets, ice-cream. Even limiting raisins!!

Just fruit, oatcakes, rice cakes and that seems about it.

What do you lot eat yourselves, do you never eat crisps or chocolate?

My kids eat snacks, sometimes I worry about them being unhealthy - Jaffa cakes or whatever. But their brakfast, lunch and dinner are pretty good, so one bag of crisps a few jaffa cakes or whatever each day isn't going to kill them

yes they have sweets and cakes and stuff. uusally sweets when out and about.

but we don't have them laying around the house, no

ice cream is a pudding, not a snack!

My children spent their early years in Australia where there is an enshrined morning and afternoon tea culture! I don't think my dds would survive on the 3 meals a day routine. A piece of fruit, jam sandwich or even (whispers) a biscuit doesn't spoil lunch or dinner for them.

Mine 6 and 4 have taken to raiding the fridge or cupboards all by them selves when hungry

LOL Aloha ... my DS eats everything too ... from sushi to spinach ... AND HE HAS BISCUITS, CRISPS AND CHOCOLATE for snacks!!!! Not that much chocolate to be fair because I don't have it in the house because I eat it and that is not good for my waistline .... and luckily my DS doesn't like sweets ...

But he knows the difference between healthy and unhealthy and he will say to me "Mummy I am hungry and I'd like to eat something unhealthy" Or "Can I have something healthy like an apple?"

I don't think it is a bad thing to have biscuits and crisps available ....

BAD MOTHER AREN'T I??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

yes, my children do have meals between snacks.

Ghosty - I'm like you - I try to limit the amount of sweets/chocolate etc because I have absolutely no self-control. Nothing to do with healthy kids. IN fact ds just behaved so badly in the shoe shop I told him he cuoldn't have the chocolate buttons I was bribing him with....and ate them all myself!

constantly