Snack ideas for a 4 year old

[countingelephants]

I really need to improve my snack repertoire. I have a 4 year old DS who hates veg (despite always being offered it, everyone else eats it) so things like hummous and carrot/cucumber wouldn’t be any good.

Luckily he loves fruit but obviously too much of that can be bad too.

Any suggestions welcome!

Some popular non-veg / fruit snacks for us: Small pot of plain cashew nuts. Crackers with peanut butter. Mini baby bells. Oat cakes.

My 4 year old snacks on fruit 'compote' (stewed apple purée handily sold here in sachets), baguette, cheese chunks, bananas and biscuits. Also yogurt.

My 5 year old loves bread sticks and cheesy dip (Philadelphia type cream cheese or dairly lee type cheese) buttered crackers with cheese cubes and cucumber on, pot of mixed nuts and raisins, she loves pod peas when they’re in season, and of course, Jaffa cakes!

Thank you for the suggestions! DS has always been a stocky build (he was 9lb 2oz when born) and is right on the healthy/overweight border according to his BMI. He scoots everywhere, swims, and is very active but I keep expecting a growth spurt (DH and I are both quite tall) and it hasn’t happened yet! If we go out for the day I do pack fruit but he loves those little bags of mini cookies (like the Maryland ones) which we share. I give him baked crisps or Pom Bears rather than ‘proper’ crisps and tip some into a bowl so he never has a full bag, but I wish he’d try cucumber and carrot sticks as a change from apples and bananas!

If he likes fruit I'd just let him have fruit. How often does he snack? My ds is 4 and he'll have an apple or slice of melon for a snack once or twice a day. He also likes crackers and cheese and malt loaf.

Well, fruit is certainly going to be better than cookies, pom bears or crisps, so I'd stick with that.
Also you can look at more protein rich options to keep him full - like a hard boiled egg, cheese on an oat cracker, mine love a scoop of Greek yoghurt with stewed fruit / berries on top, or cottage cheese, both are portable if you have small containers.

We no longer keep child-focussed junk food in the house, so there are no more battles. We buy biscuits or crisps occasionally and randomly so they're not forbidden and exciting, but once they're gone that's it, and we bake a cake or pudding once a week - to me that's plenty when they also eat tons of processed snack food at playdates and parties and pudding every day at school. With 3 boys I say at least once a day to someone 'if you're not hungry for an apple, then you're not hungry'

I have a 3 and 4 year old, and mostly limit snacks to fairly boring stuff. Boiled eggs, cheese, plain crackers, savoury muffins, savoury pancakes, carrot/pepper sticks, plain popcorn etc. I'd rather they just ate at meal times, so if they're really hungry they eat boring snacks!

Does he need lots of snacks? I try to give mine just breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes if I know we’ll be eating late or they didn’t have much breakfast/lunch for some reason I’ll give them a snack but it isn’t a regular thing.
An apple or banana is better than Pom bears or cookies though so if he does need to snack I would stick with that.

If he's bordering on being overweight he clearly doesn't need snacks. I have no idea where this snack obsession for children came from! Dd only has a snack if we're having a later lunch/dinner. Just give healthy meals with enough protein in to keep him full for longer and cut the snacking out.

He’s still at nursery (for the next week) and they do snacks there. Hunger seems to be a trigger for poor behaviour, his meals are pretty healthy and whilst I am happy for him to eat fruit too much can give him a runny tummy. That being said, he’ll be at school soon and won’t have the same food routine so it’s a good time to make some changes. A typical day for him at home would be:

Breakfast: 2 weetabix with semi skimmed milk, and a banana
Snack: apple
Lunch: egg/ham/tuna sandwich/wrap/etc, half bag of Pom bears, plain Greek yoghurt with some fruit chopped in
Snack: 2 or 3 tiny cookies, or another piece of fruit, or a small bowl of cereal
Tea: cheese omelette with reduced salt beans, or pasta, or jacket spud with tuna/beans

He only drinks water, he doesn’t like milk or squash. He was breastfed til he was 2.5, we did BLW from 6 months and he was very slow to even take to eating solid food - but he’s always had this build (was 91st centile throughout his first year). His sister is a dainty thing on the 9th centile.

Last bag of cookies has been eaten by me and I won’t get more.

I'd knock the Pom Bears and cookie on the head op (offer fruit only) and then try to work in veg. Mine do complain when I offer a veg snack (clearly they would rather have Pom bears!) but if hungry they'll eat it as they know that's all I have.

Apple
Banana
Pineapple

Some snacks I give my children (although they are 1 and 3)
Crackers with cheese or ham
Boiled egg wedges
Sweet potato wedges
Toast
Roast thinly sliced potato carrot and cucumber I season with paprika (basically veg crisps)
Rice crackers are a favourite in our household along with frubes
My son will happily snack on a wafer (like an ice-cream cone)