Is my toddlers diet ok?

[Yebbie]

Breakfast - weetabix, shreddies or Rice Krispies (lots) occasionally a slice of jam toast as well

Lunch - some variation of ham/chicken/cheese/cucumber/sweetcorn sandwich or wrap. Usually followed by a yoghurt

Dinner - I'd say 4/7 nights he will eat what we are eating, curries, stir fries, meat and veg etc but a good 3 nights he will have pizzas, chicken dippers/fish fingers with waffles/potato smilies/chips and veg

Snacks - lots of fruit, but he does also quite regularly have small packets of chocolate, a few biscuits, a packet of crisps, a couple of yoghurts a day, a small packet of haribo etc

I'm just worried there's too many beige plates a week, and too many treats? Do I need to cut him down? He's 2.5

sounds fine to me, although lots of people will come on to tell you how awful his diet it!

It sounds fairly average
It does sound like he’s snacking a lot though, does he need larger meals? Breakfast and lunch in particular sound quite light and not very varied

@DietCokeChipsAndMayo

It sounds fairly average It does sound like he’s snacking a lot though, does he need larger meals? Breakfast and lunch in particular sound quite light and not very varied

He is very set in his ways! He wakes up in the morning asking for weetabix, has a small bowl, then asks for shreddies, has a small bowl, then asks for Rice Krispies and has a small bowl. In that order. Every day. I tried making him eggs and it was a melt down

He snacks a lot, he seems to constantly graze throughout the day and it's constant battles over food, he asks atleast once an hour and I do say no more than yes but may give in sometimes to spare a screamfest.

I wish my kids ate that variety of food! My 5 year old pretty much just lives on pesto pasta and raisons. It sounds fine to me OP. A lot of people on mumsnet seem to think giving children cereal for breakfast is a form of neglect, but it look like a pretty normal kids diet to me. As long as they're healthy then just keep doing what you're doing 🙂

Some people just prefer to graze rather than have big meals, and children are small so can't fill up and expect it to last as long as an adult would. But if he's pestering for snacks every hour and you want to try to get out of that habit, could you formalise it into more breakfast then a mid-morning 'second breakfast', lunch and then a mid afternoon tea, dinner and then a late supper? And consider it as five or six small meals, rather than meals and then snacks whenever he nags enough?

Rather than going for the carbs/sugar quick hit but not very filling snacks approach, what about offering something more substantial like peanut butter toast, or a chunk of cheese along with a cut up apple. Or some porridge if he likes that. Full on small portion of beans on a slice of toast would be a light meal level mid morning second breakfast! A cup of milk along with whatever else he's eating? If you look at what parents searching for things to fill hungry teenagers up with get suggested, it's usually more protein like hardboiled eggs, drinking milk, and the likes of porridge as cheap and filling and not as bad as endless packets of crisps they'd otherwise hunt out.

I'd recommend weighing out a typical portion of rice krispies that you give him, then read the label on the packaging to work out how much sugar is in each serving. This might be fine, or you might think of adjusting the amount. Just being aware is the main thing. Start with this only. Then do the same with other foods, over time. Having an awareness of the amount of fibre and sugar in the food will help you to work out whether your son's diet is okay.

Sounds fine to me and very much like what my toddler eats. My friends with older children tell me they usually get more adventurous as they get older. They only things I wouldn't give from that list are haribo and yogurts if they're sugary (thankfully mine likes plain). I do try to get through the day without giving him an unhealthy snack, but it doesn't happen often!

I'm not into wasting time and energy cooking things I know he won't eat. Mine tends to snack a lot too, but I think it's partly because nursery food timings are quite different to ours - he's used to lunch at 11.30 and tea at 4, so gets hungry if he's waiting until 1 and 6 when he's with us.

As I understand it, a lot of 'junk' food, ie waffles, fish fingers etc is a lot healthier than it used to be as it's simply not legal to put the same amount of salt and sugar in as they used to. I tried à Capri Sun recently and it was disgusting! Purely because it is aimed at kids so has to keep within certain parameters. If you're serving veg and the processed stuff isn't every day, I don't think it's the end of the world. Personally I'd avoid the Haribo and lots of choc but I worry about cavities and my 18 month old won't let me brush his teeth properly.

The variety is fine (DD mainly ate croissants and blueberries in her toddler years), but there's more refined sugar than standard (biscuits, chocolate, haribo). My main worry at that point would be their teeth.

I remember DD's dentist telling me (when she was about 18mo) that milk teeth could withstand 3 'acid attacks' a day - an acid attack is caused by eating any sort of high sugar food (from a single strawberry to a bar of chocolate) - and that's stuck with me.

His (the dentist's) advice was to only give fruit/juice/anything sweet WITH meals, rather than as snacks, to limit the number of acid attacks per day.