3 year old snack help! we’ve spiralled out of control!

[MummyDrinksWine]

My nearly 3 year old is a very good eater, not fussy and will eat and try everything.
She used to eat pretty much everything on her plate too.

However, since Ive had her brother I’ve become a bit lazy and a bit lost in our routine; I’ve found that I’ve been allowing her to have snacks more often and now we’ve spiralled out of control and she’ll fill up on snacks between meals and hardly eat anything on her plate.

now I want to get back into a healthy habit and she’s still not a fussy eater so it’s doable but I’m just not sure what is enough and what’s too much?

What would you allow between each meal snack wise? My idea is to get some Tupperware boxes and label them Mon-Sun and put her daily ‘allowance’ of snacks in there.

My thoughts were:
2 pieces of fruit
A box of raisins
A packet of crisps
A cereal bar
a cheese stick

In the hopes that she can have a piece fruit, a cereal bar and a packet of crisps and a box of raisins between breakfast and lunch (8am - 1pm) then a piece of fruit, a packet of crisps and a cheese stick between lunch and dinner (2pm - 6:30/7pm)

Is that too much between meals? Too little? At the moment she freely just goes to the cupboard, picks out what she wants and bring it to me to open.. I’m often saying no to a second packet of crisps, or a third box of raisins..

I mean you know your DD best….but that would be too much for DS for sure. But he eats big portions at meals and his meals aren’t as spread out as your DDs…so maybe if your DD is more of a grazer and you can’t bring lunch and tea forward, it’s appropriate.

I think at her age a daily allowance box is expecting too much of her self-regulation. I'd go for a meal routine at vaguely the same times. In lockdown we had the same issue with a 3yo and 1yo snacking all day just to keep them quiet, we ended up with a breakfast at 7, snack 9.30ish, lunch 12, snack 3.30ish, dinner 6ish routine that we still follow! Stops them from nagging for snacks all the time.

Not to sound too mumsnettish/smug about it but I'd aim for more filling snacks and less processed food. Fruit is good, cheese is good but raisins are a big sugar hit, crisps do nothing nutritionally and don't fill you up, cereal bars have loads of sugar too. They also cost quite a lot when you add it all up!

Our typical snacks are oatcakes or rice cakes or corn cakes or crackers/water biscuits spread with marmite or peanut butter, bit of cheese, piece of fruit, a few nuts. Raw carrot, cucumber chunk, or a bit of celery. Maybe a small bit of cake if you have it.

I wouldn't let my kids get stuff out of the cupboards, maybe I'm mean! I say 'would you like a snack' and then they get what we have, they choose what to have on their oatcakes etc. I hate it when I feel my kids are nagging for more food than they should really have so preset snack and mealtimes work because everyone knows what to expect.

It looks alot for me. We've had to really cut down on snacks with my 3 year old as otherwise she won't eat her meals.

She only has a morning snack now which is usually fruit, occasionally with a babybel or a mini malt loaf bar. I personally wouldn't want to be giving a cereal bar and bag of crisps everyday or on the same day, but I know others would be fine with this.

I have my own issues with a fussy eater and veg!

But my 2.5 towards 3 year old would struggle to eat all of that and meals (and is it 2 packets of crisps a day as that seems a lot?)

Our go to snacks other than fruit are rice cakes, cheese oat biscuits, flapjacks (can be made up and frozen), malt loaf, brocolli and cheese scones, thins with some cream cheese

Typically my DS will have a piece of fruit and rice cake between breakfast and lunch and then fruit and flapjack/scone between lunch and dinner

I've found a lot of toddler recipes for low sugar banana cake, blueberry muffins, oat cookies etc all freeze and defrost super well and don't cost as much.

I'm on maternity leave so try and do a few batches once every couple of weeks in an afternoon (and any biscuit made with a dinosaur stencil is a winner)

Two issues...

1. You're expecting a lot of self control from your toddler that she's likely not capable of, you're setting her up to fail.

1. That's an obscene amount of snacks for a 3yr old. One item between meals, not 3!

I get the feeling you're a bit lost with this - you need to remember that you're the adult, you're in charge! Put your foot down and ride out the tantrums.

Mine used to have 2 snacks a day and decent sized meals. I didn't want them getting used to grazing all day

I think that's an insane amount tbh!

I'd say two snacks, one between breakfast and lunch and one between lunch and dinner.

Each snack could consist of a couple of things i.e. a few cubes of cheese and some grapes or a few small rice cakes with peanut butter and half a banana or half a sandwich and a few raisins or a yoghurt and a piece of fruit.

That is a gigantic amount of snacks for one day, I thought it was the whole week's allowance!

I would probably stick to times. So you could have a morning snack and afternoon snack. If she wants snacks at other times, just say "Not now, it's nearly lunchtime" or "Not now, but it will be snack time soon" She will be angry and upset the first couple of days, but it will quickly become the new expectation. A good phrase when you're changing rules is "I know that we used to [eat snacks any time] but now we are (only having snacks at snack time.)" then validate feelings or distract or ignore or however you usually deal with tantrums.

A cereal/fruit bar or a packet of crisps or piece of fruit or cake bar type thing is a whole snack in itself to me.

You could do 2 small things - handful of pretzels, half piece of fruit/handful of grapes/berries/dried fruits, cheese string/babybel, couple of breadsticks - each of these things are small and would make up about half of a snack to me.

The point of a snack is it's just a little bit of something to keep you going, it shouldn't be totally filling her up otherwise she won't want her meals.

Thanks all, sounds like she’s having far too much now let alone a snack box then.

and now you’ve pointed it out she does have a lot of sugar in things I thought weren’t so bad (cereal bars duh!) Indefinitely need to quit the leniency of letting her pick her snacks, and get some better snacks in her.. we always have carrots/cucumber/tomatoes and cheese in so I don’t know why I don’t let her have that as a snack more often.. I’m just too used to cereal bars and crisps agh!

it is a shame as our main meals are always decently healthy and cooked from scratch with fresh ingredients.

realising I need to knuckle down and find my way back to the parenting path 😂

Ditch the crisps, have you tried rice cakes?

That's loads! Not surprised she's rejecting meals. Ours (5 and 2) have something like a bit of cheese and some apple slices or carrots and hummus at 10am ish and maybe an Organix bar or bag of crackers or a banana at 3ish. (Lunch at 12 and tea at 5/530.)

We make healthy banana bread, carrot & ginger muffins

Google home made toddler snacks

I normally hate the competitive underfeeding that appears on threads like this but you are setting her up to fail.
one snack, which she asks for by name and you fetch, am and pm.
No free choice /snack box yet; she’s too little.
as PPs said: tell her things are changing and ride out the tantrums.

@BertieBotts thats definitely my issue is that I guess I’m trying to fill her to keep her going until lunch/dinner rather than give her a little something to give her a little boost until her main meal. We’re in a worse situation than I thought!😂

Don't worry about it, it is common when you have a new baby for the toddler to become really fussy, I know we ended up VERY reliant on "snacks" for DS2 to eat something (anything!) when DS3 came along and we had to rein it in later. DH sees it as more benign than I do and we clash about it a bit but I know he's not really meaning to feed them junk, it's just something easy and that he knows will appeal to DS2. Everyone gets into bad habits about something or other at times.

Mine had a glass of orange squash and 2 rich tea biscuits while watching Playschool and similar in the afternoon, before the concept of healthy snacks and Mumsnet.

Personally I’m not a big fan of all day access to snacks… I would have planned in snack breaks. We typically have three meals and a snack after skool if the kids want one. They don’t always. I’m also happy to tell them to wait if it’s close to tea time.

To me it does seem a lot of snacks per day. I suppose you can always reduce it gradually. If I were you I'd put them all in one box and make it clear that this is the snacks for today, eat them all in one go and there's no more till tomorrow. You might have to put up with a day or two of moaning but she'll soon get the idea if you stick to your guns. And put cupboard locks on!

I liked to use a fairy cake tin for snacks at that age - each section was small enough for just a handful of whatever, and made it interesting. A few raisins, a small bit of cheese, one or two crisps, a slice of cucumber, etc. Add a bit more food for lunch instead. Made it interesting and easy to keep on top of portion control because it forces you to keep things small and also encourages variety.

Like a pp we do 2 snacks per day at set times - mid morning (10-10.30ish) and after my toddler wakes from her nap (3pm). Snacks are always a piece of fruit or a rice cake or oat cake with peanut butter or cream cheese, or in the summer the afternoon one would be a mini milk or a homemade ice lolly. Im sure you’ve got the message on this by now but I just wouldn’t have crisps or cereal bars in. They’re expensive and low in nutrition compared to other options.

At work in my nanny job and in the childminders setting, we have scheduled snack time. We only have snack at 9.30/10am , we give fruit and then a breadstick or a plain biscuit. As we serve tea at 4.30 we don't give afternoon snack. But when I was a nanny I would give a small snack around 3.30/4pm. I can't imagine any small child to be able to eat all of that and meals.

We have one morning snack and one afternoon one for my 4 year old and that's literally it. I just say 'it's snack time' and give him 2 or 3 options or just give him something. Simple and I'm in control. Occasionally he gets cereal if he's been really fussy with his last meal of the day but that's it.

It's quite some time since mine were 3 but we definitely didn't have more than 2 snacks a day and snacks would be one item. e.g. breadsticks in the morning and chopped up grapes in the afternoon. They might just have had one snack though and eaten more items at lunchtime, say a sandwich, a handful or raisins and an apple. Mine had a little table and chairs, so I would have them sitting down with a drink and their snack so they aren't mindlessly eating whilst playing. That also helps set a routine for the day and probably mimics what they did at nursery.

Good to get in to better habits now, as your DD will quickly get used to it. My DDs and I were astounded by how many items parents used to put in packed lunches when at primary school.

I can't trust myself with a snack box, let alone a toddler/preschooler 😆

I only give a small snack to get through to the next meal - it often helps as a "pause" in our morning or afternoon if we're at home so today we've had biscuits at playgroup am and banana pm after we picked up DD1 from school.

Day 1 of cutting down snacks:
She’s asked for “something out of the cupboard” about 19 times since breakfast already 😂 she going to have an apple at 10:00 then I’m going to bring lunch back to 12:30 I think! But so far so good! Less whining than I thought 😂