Constantly hungry DS - what do I give him?

[merlin]

DS's (8 and 4) seem to be pestering me constantly for food in between meals.

What do you give your kids? (Other than the usual biscuits/cakes etc which I'm trying to limit)

Going shopping tomorrow so need some ideas please?

We don't do biscuits or cakes.

If they are hungry between meals, they are allowed to make themselves a sandwich (with ham or cheese), plain (not chocolate) cereal, toast, or fruit. Or they can have leftovers.

That's interesting scienceteacher - because I have been seriously considering banning the cakes and biscuits (to stop me nibbling too!).

Do you really not have them at all?

fruit/raisins
breadsticks

mainly

I never buy biscuits. It is so easy just not to do it!

I can easily demolish a whole packet singlehandedly - it is better not to get started.

We have cakes for birthdays - not routinely.

I don't buy crisps either.

Message withdrawn

Banana
Rice cakes - plain or with butter and marmite
Breadsticks
Apple
Raw carrot
Ryvita and peanut butter
Cheese crackers (like cheddars)
A biscuit or two (yikes!)

My hundry 5 year old ds often says he's hungry when dinner is cooking and I'm going to be serving up in 10 minutes, so I give him something not to filling as a stop-gap.

If I think he is genuinly hungry and its a while til the next meal he can have a sandwich.

fruit, rice cakes, carrots, toast. No choc or crisps. Be surprised how they arent as hungery when its not cakes/biscuits and sweets on offer

Exactly, Lisa.

I bake cakes sometimes. Practically never buy biscuits.

If people are hungry between meals they have unlimited access to the fruit bowl. There's also brown bread and peanut butter or marmite. And milk. Breadsticks and oatcakes.

My DS1 is like this, i put a large bowl of plain Popcorn or bread sticks out and he helps himself during the day, the first few days were a novalty so he polished off the lot in minutes but now he has a handfull now and again.

Fruit (within reason at this time of year, unlimited when we have our own), oatcakes (very easy to make and they keep forever), cheese, nuts, dried apple rings (the ones without sugar), bread and butter, carrot sticks. Milk to drink also helps I find.

lisad123 my dd is just as hungry whatever the options are (in fact she can also take biscuits from the tin but generally doesn't - although tbh we generally only have 'boring' biscuits like rich tea). Sometimes I give up and make her an early tea pretty much immediately after getting back from school - but then she's hungry again before bedtime.

Thanks so much guys. Lots of ideas and tips.

Am thinking maybe banning the biscuits and cakes completely could be a step TOO far for us - but will limit them.

The pair of them will only eat apples so guess I will need to stock up more!

What we have found helpful is to have a 'Sunday' biscuit tin. Not only for dd I confess but as much for DH & me, otherwise if we buy choc bix or whatever they last about 5 minutes (actually dh eats them all & dd & I don't get a look in ).

So now we have boring biscuits like I say (which dh doesn't like much) in the normal tin and then another tin put away which comes out on Saturday & Sunday mornings & if we have visitors. So dd knows she can take from the normal tin, but none of us are allowed to take from the other tin just for snacks.

Largely fruit here, occasionally cheese sticks or cucumber slices. I do bake cakes, but DD isn't a huge fan of them (she only likes picking off the icing!) so it's rare she'll get/eat one as a snack.

Also, if your DS seems to be constantly hungry, perhaps consider giving him protein-based snacks (sticks of cheese, eggs, ham) as these are more filling and satisfying in the long term than carby stuff like rice cakes and bread (which in some cases can make you feel even more hungry afterwards due to blood sugar surges).