How many snacks?

[AmericasTorturedBrow]

DS is constantly whinging about being hungry, he has decent, varied and healthy meals and will say if he isn't hungry (turn down yoghurt at end of a meal if he's full or if offered a snack sometimes will say he's not hungry) but it feels like he wants snacks ALL THE TIME. I vary it by offering fruit or plain crackers or boiled eggs or toast and houmous or whatever and he's far from overweight but wondering if I ought to regulate it a bit better because I might be setting him for a lifetime of bad eating habits.

Am I being totally nuerotic?

He's 4....

I don't give mine any except for after their swimming lesson.

How old is your DS?

Mine get something mid-morning and mid-afternoon. I'm helped by the fact that the 5yo has Type 1 Diabetes and that's what we need to do to manage his blood sugar. So all 3 children are used to "snack-time". And when they get in from school I insist that they eat something - the older ones will tell me they aren't hungry but be grumpy as anything till they've eaten.

Eating constantly (every half-hour) is not great - it means your blood sugar is constantly slightly elevated. In a person with a working pancreas its never going to go too high, but a lifetime of that is what makes a person who is predisposed to it develop Type 2 Diabetes. If you have bigger meals, farther apart, then your body has a chance to get the sugar levels down to normal for a long period.

We have roughly

Breakfast 8am
Lunch 12.30
Snack 3-4pm
Dinner 7pm

Protein at every meal might help .

Boiled eggs or porridge are breakfast staples here. Toast with eggs, fruit on porridge.

Maybe just have set snack times so he knows when it's expected. So for example I don't think ours ever ask, but they still hae a nap, then wake up and are offered a snack/ drink so I suppose it's given before they ask.

If he knows that say every mid morning you both sit down with a drink/ snack and again mid afternoon, maybe he will gradually not ask so much? Make it a nice time where you both sit down at the table if in, you can have tea/ coffee then if you do, him a drink and some fruit each and talk/ take time out for 5/10 mins

Yeah I think I'm going to start that - the last few mornings he's had porridge and a boiled egg (his choice!) for breakfast which seems to have filled him up better.

It'll be hard at first telling him no and to wait until snack time, but I really don't want to start entrenching unhealthy habits without realizing....

Our official meal times are 8am, midday (or thereabouts) and 5pm, and DS7 usually also gets an afternoon snack. If he's 'hungry' at any other time during the day, he is allowed a piece of fruit. However, like the other posters, I've found that the more veg and protein he gets at main meals, the less likely he is to want to snack.

Mine don't have snacks on a day to day basis (both preschool) but if DD says she is hungry I will offer her fruit/yoghurt/rice cake/breadstick.