Should 14m old be "snacking" between meals?

[Posey]

Today we had a very whinging afternoon, thought ds was tired as he hadn't slept too well, but he wouldn't nap. Anyway come tea time and as soon as ds saw his high chair at the table, he was over like a shot saying "more, more" He wolfed down a huge dinner of casserole, carrots and potatoes followed by a yogurt.
Because I have an older child, I'm sort of into the thinking of not too much snacking between meals but I feel I must be wrong here.
So tell me, how should I arrange my ds's food intake? I know all babies are different but a rough idea would be most welcome.

Dd has always had a snack after her afternoon nap - so about 3 hours after her lunch. She sometimes has a snack between breakfast and lunch too.

It is good for you to snack, as long as the snacks are healthy (eg fruit, yoghurt etc rather than biccies).

Dd, 17 months doesn't have a snack between breakfast and lunch but does have a snack between lunch and tea as the gap is so long. She has lunch at 11.30 and sleeps til 1.30ish and when she wakes up she has a yoghurt / cheese / milk / potato waffle etc. to help her get through til tea time which isn't til 6ish. If your ds is a big eater he may get hungry more quickly. It won't hurt to give some snacks, he can always refuse them!

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My dd has snacks between waking up from afternoon nap and tea time. I find rice cakes are great as they don't contain sugar and she really likes them

I have read that the ideal way to eat for anyone (not just babies) is 5 or 6 small meals a day. Not really practical I know.

DD is 22mo and generally at home and nursery has :

7-8am Breakfast
11.30-12.30 - lunch
3.30 - high tea or snack
5.50-6.00 - dinner

Sometimes she may also be allowed a chocolate treat or a biscuit at other times. She is such a fab eater it doesn't bother me to allow this from time to time and doesn't affect her eating her 'proper' meals either.

They have tiny tummies and huge growth rates. I don't know when snacking should stop, but not before 4yo, I would have thought. My kids are runts but eat 4-6 good size meals every day.

MIL makes this great fuss about how she brought her kids up not to snack between meals, then she casually mentions that she always gave them something when they came in from school. And from observation, I've seen the post-tea biscuit fest that her sons indulge in most evenings. That only leaves mid-morning, when MIL wouldn't dream of going without her own cup of tea, what do you suppose the little boys used to get then???

I don't know if stacks do have to stop at all. Especially as we get older we tend to go much longer between main meals, the odd healthy snack is a good thing surely - bit of fruit, etc. here and there. I think it is just the unhealthy snacks we need to be careful about.

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dd (12 months) has had a mid-morning snack since New Year. I did this partly because I wanted to change her mid-morning drink from milk to water and so it seemed logical to give her some other kind of calorie intake. She has an Organix Fruit & Cereal Bar each morning. I was not giving afternoon snacks, until last week when she pointed to the fruit bowl as we were going out and said "Ba". I ignored her to start with and she started crying, so I peeled a banana and she literally snatched as much as she could and wolfed it down! I've been giving her a banana every day since at around 2-2.30pm (She has lunch at 12.30pm and dinner at about 5pm)

as long as snacks dont interfere with main meals like they would rather just snack on junk food instead of eating proper meals i asy snacks are good for all of us

For the maintenacne of stable blood sugar levels, adults should not go longer than 4 hours between eating. Preferable low GI foods.

Children should eat more regularly than that as their stomachs are smaller. They too should try to eat low GI foods but should not have too much whole foods as too much bulky fibre stops them getting enough calorfic value from the food that they eat and can stop vitamin and mineral absorption as the food moves too quickly through the digestive system.

So definately children should snack between meals.

dd has
Breakfast at 8.00 -9.00 -
Snack at 11.00 - piece of fruit
Lunch 12.30 -
Snack 3.00 - piece of fruit / yog
Tea 5.30 - 6.00

DD was 2 in November and she still snacks mid-morning and after her lunchtime nap. I try to give her bananas or yoghurt or something healthy but sometimes the biccies creep in.

Thanks for that everyone.
I think he is getting hungrier as he's much more active and also has far less milk than he did.
I guess you've just confirmed what I thought but didn't want him to "spoil" his mealtimes.