1 year old and snacks

[rubyroot]

Recently turned one, has been putting on weight fine until now- consistently on 75th percentile.

Typical day looks like this:
Porridge and mango for breakfast, dippy egg and slice of toast for lunch followed by homemade fruit yoghurt then dinner of what we are eating plus avocado, banana and some baby crisps and up to 16 oz of milk a day- sometimes a bit less.

Then I read they need snacks at 1 so I have started to offer this. Yesterday had half a piece of cheese on toast before lunch and half an avocado before dinner and worked okay.

Today had avocado before lunch and wasnt as interested in lunch.

Do they HAVE to have two snacks a day? Should I give something lighter for morning snack or just have a late afternoon snack instead.

Sorry to sound dense, seems silly to give a snack in morning if it is just affecting lunch time appetite,

You don’t have to give her snacks at all if she is happy with her meals and her weight and growth is fine.

My DD is 15m and has approximately this routine. It’s not set in stone though

7ish - breakfast
10ish - snack
12 - lunch
12.30-2.30 - nap
After nap- snack
5pm - dinner
6.30/7pm - cup of milk before bed

Our snacks are typically either fruit, or things like crackers or rice cakes. If she’s not eaten a good breakfast she might eat a bigger snack, or vice versa. So I don’t think they really affect her appetite for meals too much.

To be honest it’s nice to break up the day a bit and my 3.5 yr old snacks at those times. They are also a good distraction - for example at the supermarket or in the car.

Also half a piece of cheese on toast or half an avocado isn’t what I would personally class as a snack for a 1 year old. Those are very filling foods and would be almost a meal for my DD (and she’s a good eater and 90th percentile ish for height and weight)

A snack portion (in my house anyway, you need to find your own normal) is more like half an apple, or a single tangerine or 3 ritz crackers and a few slices of cheese or one of those bags of rice cake things or one yoghurt or maybe a small handful of blueberries.

Of course portions vary and it depends if she eats it all and seems hungry I might give her more, but that’s the kind of size

That sounds like a lot of food. Not suggesting that's a bad thing but I really wouldn't worry about snacks on top of it. I would give a few blueberries, half a banana, a few carrot sticks as a snack.

Don’t worry about snacks as long as she’s eating her meals. I’d imagine snacks would be more for a child who eats less as meals but more often?

Her diet sounds fab!! So much respect for mums who put effort into what they put into their children

Haha- thanks everyone, sounds like I may be trying to get my baby to eat too much then! This is what mumsnet is for. I was doing a bit of googling and read 1 year olds should be on 1000 calories and that they should have snacks so I started to think that perhaps he wasn't getting enough. I think I will go back to what we were doing and add some very light snacks if necessary. Thank you so much for your contributions. I'm new to all this food thing.

Mine tends to have a snack (babybel, banana, cracker breads, rice cake) around 11ish (she has lunch at 1pm) but not afternoon snack as I want her hungry for dinner. So today’s food was
B: banana pancakes with plain yoghurt and blueberries. One piece of toast with marmite.
Snack: one digestive biscuit and half a banana
Lunch: cream cheese sandwich, grapes etc
Dinner: pasta with vegetable sauce and then a kind of stewed apple/compote pudding.
She drinks 10-12oz of milk a day.

My DD has recently turned one and I read the same online with regards to eating 1000 calories. I was considering upping her intake, but now I'm now sure. 🤔

This is a typical day my DD.

6.30am - 8oz bottle
8am/9am - cereal
10.30am - snack
12pm - lunch followed by a yogurt
4pm - tea
7pm - 8oz bottle

My DD snacks at childminder as it’s a longer day but at home she doesn’t generally have a morning snack as she has breakfast later; she might have an afternoon snack depending on if she ate all her lunch but not always. I do tend to give her a snack before bed to help her through the night though as 5pm dinner all the way to the next morning seems a long time to go

My 16 month old old has:
5oz cow's milk
Breakfast of half a banana and a fromage frais
Snack of a rice cake and a few grapes
Lunch half a jacket potato, tablespoon of beans, couple of cherry tomatoes and cucumber slices
5oz milk
Snack of a slice of malt loaf, half a satsuma
Dinner of tuna and broccoli pasta (small IKEA plastic bowl)
5oz milk

I tended not to give snacks to my kids even when they were babies. I don’t know ho much of a difference it made but they were big babies who all breastfed easily.

I wasn’t strict about it though and if I thought they needed a snack I would give them one.
Most of the time I let them wait for their meals. I felt they ate better if they weren’t constantly grazing.
I carried on not giving them snacks throughout their childhood. Unless there was a reason to have one. It worked well for us. They’ve all grown up with a good healthy attitude towards food and they still don’t snack much.