What healthy snacks do you give your children?

[Crouchendmumoftwo]

Hello,

I need healthy ideas for my 7 year old son (fussy eater) and 5 year old daughter (sweet tooth) for snacks, particularly after school, before the sports clubs they do and in general.

Ive been guity of giving them far too much sweet stuff and I want to give them less sugary foods and more healthy foods that appeal to them, fill them up and satisfy them.

Id love to know what your ideas are to inspire me and gradually wean my kids off so much sugar.

Thanks : )

I offer fruit or veg. Cucumber, carrot, pepper, celery etc with a hummus or cream cheese dip. Sometimes it's just a banana or apple. If I've got time a bowl of berry type fruit and mango or pineapple.

Sometimes it's a peanut butter or Nutella sandwich on 50/50 bread. Just one slice folded in half then cut in two.

Sometimes it's a pack of quavers and a babybel!

I think variety is the key. It's hard not to offer fruit as it's quick and easy but apparently we need to e careful of not giving too much fruit now.

My teenager loves smoothies, fresh fruit and home-made fruit cake. Plus occasional chocolate biscuits or Kit Kats which I buy in small amounts once a week on a 'when it's gone, it's gone' basis. If they're active and getting balanced meals with plenty of vegetables and grains at regular times I don't think you should be too draconian about removing sugar entirely.

Dd is 8 and luckily she's not fussy yet so usually takes first thing offered. Ds2 who is 12 on the other hand has become really fussy so I tell him together his own snack. He's usually heading off for some pretty tough fitness training or rugby or lacrosse so he afford a few more calories than dd who although she's doing hockey or netball it's not as fast paced or hard as ds2's activities.

I try to only offer fruit as snacks. And if its peeled and chopped and in a bowl it gets wolfed down!
So satsumas, grapes, apple, raisins and banana is what I make sure I have in all the time.
I also give them pancakes, homemade raisin cakes, toast or fruit loaf if they are starving!

Home made popcorn is the favourite since dcs got a popcorn maker for Xmas. It's great as needs no fat and dcs happy with naked popcorn

Fruit, toast, ham and cheese, bread sticks with cream cheese, rice cakes, pop corn, veggies are all favourites here. We have a rotation so they don't get fed up and change up the cheese types so they get different flavours

Popcorn
Nigella's cheese stars or cheesy feet

My dd has porridge after gymnastics.

Homemade cheese scones (or plain, they are just as popular here), rice cakes, cream crackers with cheese, decent ham is so expensive so I tend to save it for sandwiches only but sometimes get a reduced pack of ready to eat chicken breast pieces which make a nice snack.

I say bollocks to not offering fruit too often due to sugar - it HAS to be better to give them 3 pieces of fruit, than to give them 2 pieces of fruit and a chocolate biscuit. I also offer cherry/plum tomatoes, cucumber, carrot sticks which are ok instead of fruit.

Cheese and grapes, or cheese and crackers is popular here.
Fruit
homemade fruit muffins (banana or apple ususally).

Nuts as DS loves them. He complains about too many apples. If I'm feeling flush and he's got a few nights of squads/matches then watermelon. They seem expensive but diced up & kept refridgerated one works as snack for a few days (& DH takes some to work).

I will stick up on prepared fruit if I go to my mums as she lives near an asda and you can get large packs of watermelon mango pineapple and melon slices for £1. Aldi sell pomegranate seeds for 87p and cubed melon for about the same.

Multi veg muffins - easy and freeze well if you have any left!

Dd (9) does not eat her lunch in school very well a lot of the time, claims she does not have enough time, in reality is too busy playing / chatting so I give her a good snack after school at 3pm and then dinner as usual 6.30/7pm. Works well for us. Depending on what she has actually eaten in school I make her one of the following:

Hot chocolate with full fat milk, toasted brown soda bread, real butte and a mini banana

Homemade pancakes (mix keeps for 2 days in the fridge) with a scrape of nutella or crispy bacon and maple syrup

Homemade banana smoothie (banana, yoghurt, honey and full fat milk whizzed in the blender) toasted brown soda bread

Hot choc / or milk with a fruit scone with butter

Brown bread toast with slices of cheese on the side (she especially likes parmesan thinly sliced)

cream crackers with butter and jam

grilled bacon in a sandwich (usually white bread for this but working on it)

petit pain bread rolls hot from the oven with a banana (she loves these)

beans on toast

If she has eaten ok in school she might have something lighter and she loves popcorn / pistachios / fruit / cake / apple tart / biscuit

I try to keep it as healthy as I can get her to accept. She was an exceptionally fussy, hard to feed child and very very slight so I don't worry too much about restricting fat / sugar as she needs it still.

Plain yoghurt with banana or berries

Wholemeal rolls/wraps/bagels or toast with peanut butter or cream cheese

Chopped up fruit

Crumpets

Wholemeal mini pittas with houmous and carrot/cucumber sticks

Home made muffins (easy, even for a crap baker like me, and you can control how much sugar goes in or make totally sugar-free ones sweetened with fruit - kids LOVE them).

Mini 'pizzas' - roll cut in half, topped with passata,grated cheese, herbs and grilled.