I give my toddler far too much sugar and I feel terrible - what snacks do you feed your DCs?

[MsFrog]

I have fallen in to terrible habits of giving my DS (who is only 2.5!!) far too much crap. It start with grandparents offering treats (endlessly) and I started relaxing my own rules. Now, DS frequently has biscuits, yoghurt, jelly, actual sweets/chocolate, cake, sweeter cereals (e.g. raisin wheats) etc. Suddenly, I've just realised this and I feel terrible.

What do you give your toddlers for a snack? We do breakfast, 10ish snack, lunch, 3ish snack, and dinner. If he doesn't eat much dinner, he might eat something before bed, e.g. a banana, bowl of cereal, scotch pancake. Is this the same as other people?

We have good meals, healthy and mostly fresh, he has fruit and some veg (often refused or ignored, but always offered and sometimes hidden). But it's snacks and desserts I seem to be bad with. Any tips?

What mummy makes is brilliant. Loads of snacky stuff you can freeze and then give them. Especially like ginger oat cookies and cheese twists. I make a batch of sugar free cookies so if I want a biscuit I have one of mine and if she pesters me I give her one of hers
Then crisps I get Aldi ones and same thing. But overall I try and give fruit and Greek yoghurt with chia seeds for snacks as just as easy as junk. Put a bit of peanut butter on the fruit or raisins for a treat too

Also another good what mummy makes recipe is peanut butter and banana flapjacks. Each recipe only takes 30 mins too- promise I'm not paid to write this!!!

Raisins, dried apricots, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, walnuts, pecans, fresh fruit and natural yoghurt, cherry tomatoes, carrot and cucumber sticks, bread sticks.

And the odd slice of carrot cake, advent calendar chocolates, fruity ice lollies, Celebrations chocolates (good size for kids). But not every day.

I don't often do dessert, it's not necessary.

Snacks include cut grapes and little chunks of cheddar, crab sticks, carrots dunked in hummous, soft cheese spread on crackers, mini bread sticks, rice cakes, melba toast.

Mine can help himself to the fruit bowl whenever he wants too.

Snacks are usually bits of cheese, blueberries, breadsticks or rice cakes. In the afternoon one or two of those little biscuits you get in multi packs when collecting the others from school.

If I have bothered to bake then homemade cake/biscuit as well.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently because we’ve got so much crap in the house for Christmas. I feel so guilty for letting them have so much sweet stuff! After it’s over we’ll be back to fruit, crackers, cucumber sticks, homemade savoury muffins etc.

Dessert is usually a yoghurt pot here, we rarely have a proper dessert. Snacks are any kind of fruit, raw carrot, cumber, celery and a dip, raisins, tomatoes, rice cakes etc

I've fallen down this path before as well. Once you start going down it it's a slippery slippery slope. But you can get back out of it! Just get in your head that sugar is not for snacks just a treat. I still allow some sugary snacks so long as it has a good carb balance like a pain pastry, but also cheese and Crackers, cheese and fruit, cheese savouries, sometimes toast if I know a main meal is a long way off, pitta and humus. Also i find it really helpful to announce "it's snack time" and have him sit at the table like a normal meal. Rather than just giving out snacks whenever he asks (I fall back to this a lot and have to make a conscious effort to have designated snack time!)

Snacks - chopped up fruit, peanut butter on toast, apple crisps (kiddilicious brand from Asda), oat bars, crackers, carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes cut in half. Banana muffins (found a very easy recipe online - no sugar, just mushed bananas, flour and a bit of butter or oil).

Snacks here are:
No added sugar fromage frais (Yeo valley or petit filous do them)
Cheese
Hummus or soft cheese with Rice cakes or oat cakes
Bread sticks
Occasional baby biscuit (no sugar ones)

Bread sticks, wholegrain crackers, chopped strawberries, toast, sometimes crumpets, milk.

Oh and savoury muffins - with chopped up veg go down well with my DC1.

Just as a counter to the super healthy brigade above, my DS (same age as yours) does get something like a Soreen or Digestive biscuit daily, and he’d get a small portion of sweets or chocolate maybe once or twice a week. He also gets a yoghurt every day after dinner.

Other than that, it’s berries, rice cakes, houmous, breadsticks, bits of cheese, carrots etc.

I slightly think making your own super healthy snacks is setting the bar too high. If you’re in the habit of grabbing something to hand that’s not that healthy, then keep it convenient for yourself and grab something ready made that is healthy.

I do the same as @MsChatterbox and do a sit down snack time at the table. Even if we were in the park (like we endlessly are with fucking Covid), we’ll sit down on a bench and have a snack rather than grazing on the go.

My 20month old DS virtually lives on crackers. There are so many different types but his favourites are Ritz, Cheddars and breadsticks. I do worry he may have too much salt but he is very fussy and I need to feed him something.
His first word was Cracker.

I go back to the distant past when snacking was not part of the culture, but I remember in the morning they would sit down to watch Play School with a glass of orange squash and a plain biscuit. From being on here I realise that snacks have to be healthy, and that orange squash is akin to liquid arsenic. They have all survived.

I don't give snacks, and not because I'm so healthy or anything - it's the mess! Its too much to clean up 5x per day.

If my 2 yo is really hungry one day I give plain crackers like pp.

Snacks we have breadsticks and hummus, sandwich thin and peanut butter, apple and peanut butter cheese. We also do fruit/veg as snacks most of the time if he's hungry but he's only just gone 1.

Crackers, breadsticks, carrot sticks, banana, malted milk biscuit, rice cakes, cubes of cheese

Omelette fingers or egg muffins are fantastic.

Just break a load of eggs, whisk, add in any veg you want then pour into a greased Swiss roll tin or muffin tin and bake till cooked, usually 20-30 mins at gas 5.

They keep good in the fridge for a couple of days or freeze for a few months. If you freeze they defrost really quick and perfect as a snack or with some veg as a bigger meal.

DD has always loved cherry tomatoes, cucumber or sweet pepper raw.

She also really likes brocolli and will eat it cold, so I'll cook some of that in the microwave (3 mins with a dash of water in the bowl and covered in cling film) then either serve it hot straight away or let it cool and give it whenever she fancies.

Rice cakes with peanut butter go down well as do cheese straws.

Cheese straws are a big win as an activity too as it's lots of spreading and sprinkling so easy for kiddies to do. Buy some ready roll puff pastry, cut into half and roll out 2 rectangles.

Spread tomato sauce or tomato purée, or mustard on one sheet, then sprinkle a decent amount of cheese on top. We usually do a mix of mature cheddar, Red Leicester and Parmesan. Then put the other sheet on top and give it a light roll to make sure it's pressed down.
Slice into fingers and then twist each finger a few times, brush with milk and if you like add a little sprinkle of more cheese, bake at gas 5 till golden brown.

Like you, we had 2x snacks a day as a fixed part of the routine but DD is 3 now and we're phasing out the snacks a bit as they're generally not really needed as they get older.

I still give snacks if we've done a big walk, if a main meal is running late or sometimes just as a treat. I try to keep snacks mostly savoury as we tend to have a proper pudding most days.

Oatcakes
Sesame bread sticks
Cheese crackers (kids ones without salt)
Carrot/celery/pepper/cucumber
Croissant
Cheese/spinach muffin (Higgidy brand)

Otherwise it's a piece of fruit, homemade cake/biscuit or a bought oatybar (despite being free of refined sugar, I'm pretty sure these bars are laden with naturally occurring sugar...)

I have to admit looking at your routine, that's a lot of eating in one day. No wonder he doesn't always want his tea.

I just gave my kids fruit for snacks at that age.

No treats here Monday to Friday. Snacks are crackers, rice cakes, yogurts, bread sticks, toast, fruit, cheese, raisins, occasional oaty bars.

Breakfast at 7.30, snack at 10, dinner at 1, snack at 3, tea at 5/6.

Weekends they can have 2 treats a day so maybe a chocolate bar and a hot chocolate or a cupcake and some chocolate etc.

Right now of course they are doing the advent calendar so the no treats mon-friday rule is out the window for Dec but will be back in Jan. I too noticed mine getting bars, crisps etc daily and just decided that was enough, I told them treats are not treats if you have them every day so now it's just weekends unless a special occasion.

Most of the above work for me:

• Ceddar cubes or the odd Babybel
• crackers or breadsticks of any type or shape
• berries
• slice of toast with cream cheese (or with nothing sometimes)
• raisins or apricots
• natural yogurt, sometimes fruit yogurt but as less sugar as possible
• the odd cereal bar
• bananas, apples, satsumas or other fruit

My toddler is allergic to nuts and sesame seeds, so peanut butter, hummus, walnuts etc are banned from the house.

I have to try and offer more carrots/peppers/cucumber sticks as he's not much into those, but I want him to pick up the habit. And also savoury muffins!

Morning snacks I do fruit, sometimes with a couple of ritz crackers or a breadstick.
After school we have a bigger snack - something like a brioche, fruit loaf/malt loaf, cheese and crackers, hummus & breadsticks/carrot sticks, with milk & fruit.

Puddings are usually fruit or greek yoghurt/fromage frais. Sometimes banana & custard or rice pudding with a bit of jam.

Morning snack is fruit and half an Organix cereal bar or one Kidilicious biscuit
Afternoon snack is a savoury muffin (I batch cook and freeze) and a handful of berries or a few slices of banana

We don’t have puddings after meals but will offer a fromage frais after lunch occasionally and a bit of fruit after tea if she seems hungry.