Toddler wants to eat all afternoon?

[oop]

Please help, I'm a bit stuck!
I have a 16 month old who is entering a bit of a weird fussy stage with food. We did BLW with him and he took to it well, bit slow to start but no concerns and he usually really enjoys his food.
He's always been the type to have "hungry days" where he would happily eat all day and other days where he happily has tiny portions. Think it's just how he's built.

The problem I'm currently having is managing his meals and snacks since going on to one nap a day. He wakes up from his nap super hungry, I give him a snack which he eats e.g. a banana but then he spends the entire afternoon walking up to the fridge/highchair and crying and yelling until he gets some food. Obviously I can refuse to give him something but then he's miserable all afternoon so he does seem to be genuinely hungry. We usually manage to scrape through till teatime with some extra snacks but not loads. He's still acting like he's starving and then he often barely touches his meal at 5pm. So I think the afternoon of grazing is killing his appetite for tea but I don't want to give him tea earlier as he has what we eat with us.

Not sure what to do really but the yelling for food followed by refusal to eat tea is driving me up the wall. He's usually perfectly happy after tea.

His routine:
5-6am: often has a little cup of milk and goes back to sleep.
7.30am: wake-up
8.15am: breakfast (1.5 Weetabix with some fruit). He always eats breakfast.
11.30am: lunch. On a non-hungry day he might effectively have a large snack at this time instead
12 - 2.15pm: nap
2.15pm: substantial snack e.g. banana or 3 mini muffins or similar
2.30-5pm: grouchy hungry baby
5pm: tea e.g. whatever we're having plus some fruit usually. Often only eats fruit.
6.45pm: cup of milk before bed

Is his behaviour the same when out and about? Is he bored? I don't have a snacker. She has three meals a day and her snack is effectively a breast feed. But some days she asks for the boob more often and I do try and distract so she eats her dinner.

After his nap you might get on better giving him a big drink of full fat milk rather than fruit or muffins. At his age, he needs the protein which will satisfy him for longer than fruit/muffins will. Whilst fruit or muffins might be substantial in bulk, a lot of it is sugar. Otherwise his diet looks pretty spot on and balanced.

I’ve just seen that he has lunch at 11.30, between then and 5 is a long time to go Ona banana etc, when he only goes about 3 hours between breakfast and lunch

What about cheese and ham and crackers for a snack when he wakes up. Might keep him fuller for longer.

@Flittingaboutagain he could be bored, we do tend to go out in the morning rather than the afternoon. I try to keep him busy but maybe I need to leave the house (and fridge)

@Whatthediddlyfeck that's a good idea, he does love some milk. I'll try it. It really is a long time to go which is why I think he is genuinely hungry but trying to feed him without ruining tea is hard. We've only had this issue since he started having one longer nap in the middle of the day, I think because lunch is a bit earlier as a result.

I used to split lunch when mine had a midday nap, so half a sandwich, half a portion of whatever else they’re having and then serve the rest once they wake up. If he’s often not eating all of his lunch anyway could this be an option?

@Notjusta I'll try that! Something more substantial.

@Onepotatotwopotatothreepotatofour that's actually such a good idea and as you say, he doesn't always eat his whole lunch so it makes total sense. I think I just have in my head "3 meals a day" so it didn't occur to me to kind of do 4!

I've also done 'split lunch' with both my DDs as they dropped to one nap (currently in that phase with DD2), and it generally works well.

I also found that DD1 could be a bit random in when she was hungry for 'meals', but we just kept offering food until she was full and tried to make what we offered (not necessarily what she ate) roughly balanced, if random, when a snack suddenly became a meal. Having some quick protein options helps – cheese, peanut butter, hard boiled egg, cold meat, hummus, plain yoghurt, etc.

I was also going to suggest a more substantial post lunch snack (more like a second lunch), and a cup of milk. Make sure you have a good amount of protein in the meal eg eggs/peanut butter etc. And skip the fruit and sugary stuff if he's having enough fruit and veg already each day - that won't fill him up.

My DS had an absolutely ravenous phase around that age. I found there was no point trying to stick to set snack times etc, he was genuinely hungry every 2 hours.

It lasted a few months and then calmed down. He’s now 21 months and probably eats slightly less than he did at 16 months.