What snacks do you feed your toddler?

[Mamabear04]

I'm just looking for snack ideas for young kids. We try to keep things quite healthy and limit chocolate and biscuits etc but I'm finding it hard to find healthy sweet snacks for my 3 year old. These are some of the things I offer as snacks;

Chedders
Pom bears
Fruit
Rice cakes
Yoghurt
Graze flap jacks (not all the time)
Occasional chocolate digestive/rich tea/bit of chocolate

I'm wondering if she actually does need more calories/sugar in her diet as she's very active. We eat mainly a vegetarian low fat diet and DD isn't really a fan of cheese although will eat it on pizza bread or Macaroni etc. She eats 3 meals a day so I am happy to give her snacks to top her up. I worry she's not getting enough calories. What do you feed your young kids?

Does she need snacks?

My 2 year old eats really well - 3 meals a day - so I worry I overfeed her by giving her snack’s regularly.

she mainly has fruit if I feel she needs a needs a snack for example if we are out and i know lunch or dinner will be delayed.

breadsticks and humous also good snacks or carrot sticks or pepper with humous.

Mine is a huge fan of bagels, bit of peanut butter, or cream cheese and ham slices, likes dipping them in a small bowl of soup as well. Ds 3 also loves mini pancakes stacked with some strawberries and sliced banana ( he packs away a lot but is super active all day)

She doesn't need sugar for energy, she needs slow release carbs, and fat.

Mine eats tonnes of oatcakes (usually the Nairn's cheese flavour ones, but they also do them with drier fruit and seeds, or lots of other flavours) and cream crackers.

Peanut butter sandwiches would be another idea for energy (sadly mine will only eat jam or marmite 😬)

Kids don’t need sugar they need full fat things. So something like apples and cubes of cheese would be good. Peanut butter on toast, homemade flapjacks (mashed banana and almond butter rather than sugar and syrup!) etc all good.

I don’t think kids need a huge amount of snacks, 3 good balanced meals a day usually does them pretty well. Maybe something if they’re desperately hungry in between. Dd never snacked and at 6 still isn’t bothered by them. Makes life easier not having to cart around bags of junk!

Just meals really.

Do you think she doesn’t eat enough at meal times? If not I guess fruit, peanut butter, oatcakes.

She does eat at meal times but she doesn't like to eat big portions. She's more of a grazer so I offer a small snack mid morning and then she'll have some fruit in the afternoon to get her through to dinner.

It seems carbs is the way forward! Im just a bit worried that if she snacks on carbs she'll be too full to eat her meals. Like I said she won't snack on cheese!

Fruit
Veg sticks with or without a dip (peanut butter/houmous/soft cheese).
Nuts (broken into small pieces obviously)
Breadsticks
Oatcakes plain or with a topping
Dry cereal (shreddies/Cheerios/alphabites)
Yoghurt (sometimes with granola)
Smoothie or milkshake
Small sandwich
A few cocktail sausages/pieces of chicken/ham

My DS doesn't eat lunch at home (he does in nursery!). He fills up with weetabix/porridge with banana in the morning, sips on milk, might have toast as well. Then in the evening he loves his meat and veg type dinner, maybe some kind of pasta with sauce instead if we're lucky.

So during the day he snacks - on fruit, cheese and Greek yoghurt primarily. I pack up the same for him when we go out so he rarely snacks on processed food unless we're on holiday for example. He doesn't like sandwiches or raw veg which makes it a bit more challenging for the time being, but it's doable.

I bake him various homemade pastries, pin wheels or pancakes etc, savoury or fruity, but he's not a huge fan now either. Could be a good alternative for your DC though.

What about hummus, veg sticks, crackers with soft cheese or with peanut butter and blueberries? Falafel? Homemade veggie/fish cakes or fritters?