Toddler wanting more food

[reabies]

My DS is 18m, and generally eats well. I feel like he mostly gets a balanced diet of about the right amount of food.

Recently he's been screaming for more food in the morning and evening, on nursery days. His food intake looks like this on nursery days:

7.15am - cup of milk and a bit of his dad's toast
8.30am - breakfast (at nursery) usually weetabix
10am - snack (usually fruit)
11.30am - lunch
2pm - snack (usually savoury, crackers/breadsticks etc)
4.30pm - dinner
6.15pm - cup of milk or snack at home. E.g. Toast and philly, fruit, baby crisps/biscuits, boiled egg

Last night I made him some toast when we got home, and he literally screamed MORE even though he'd had his dinner at nursery. I was stuck because I didn't want to say no for the sake of it, if he was hungry there's no reason not to give him more food. But, I also am really worried about over-feeding him, especially when I've not had oversight of what he's eaten all day, except whether he had 'none, some or all' which is the info we get from nursery.

At 18m is he still responsive enough to his body that if he's asking for more he genuinely wants more and is hungry? Or is he now at the age where because he knows he can ask for more I need to be more aware of how much he is eating?

On days when he's with us I worry about this less because I know what he's eaten all day and whether another piece of toast or a yoghurt before bed is reasonable. Just to add we always brush teeth between any snacks and bedtime.

My DD is 19 months and she stops eating when she is full. When she was at nursery she would be screaming for food the moment we left even though she had 'dinner' at the nursery 1h before.

My son is 3 and always comes home from nursery and has a 'snack plate'

Usually consists of
Fruit
A yoghurt
Some little chicken bites
A treat (small bag of choc fingers or something)
A cup of milk
Maybe a jelly

Usually eats the lot, sometimes asks for more. He knows when he's had enough, and if he leaves some then I know it's a good thing and he's full!

I don't think nursery portions are huge to be honest and they're on the go all day so I'm not surprised they're hungry!

Picked upDD from after-school care yesterday, where they’re fed and she was finishing eating when I arrived and I had to wait. The minute she appeared at the door: “Have you got a snack?” Got home and she wolfed a bowl of pasta, then later on a bowl of yoghurt. School portions are Lilliputian.

We used to do “platter” quite a lot after nursery, similar to @febbabies2023 – DD was too tired to manage a proper at the table dinner but was hungry, so she’d have a plate of cheese, crackers, grapes, gherkins, apple slices, cucumber sticks, hummus blob, plain pasta twirls, and whatever random odds and sods we had in the fridge that were suddenly made glamorous by virtue of appearing on platter. (Never the platter, just platter. Like Cher or Kylie.)

My DD goes through phases of needing a lot of food (when she's just about to have a growth spurt possibly). I always make sure it's genuine hunger rather than just fancying more of something nice. When she was a toddler I'd do this by saying, if you're hungry you can have a celery stick or an oatcake. If they're actually hungry they'll go for things that aren't favourites.

In the evenings after nursery I did used to find DD would be hungry. I think the evening 'meal' was more like a snack at nursery. She'd come home and have a big bowl of porridge topped with plain yoghurt and banana or something similar that was quick and easy but filling.

Re your list of what he has for his evening snack, every one of them most likely has sugars in it (possibly not the chicken but if you buy it in a supermarket it might have dextrose which is like a sugar-drug) which might be giving him the feeling of being hungry, or just craving more of the sweet stuff.

I'd swap the snacks to be all genuinely savoury plus a piece of fruit. Apart from helping to make him feel full up you're at the stage where you can build habits that are good for his teeth while it's easy to do so as they're fairly flexible at this age!

Growth spurt? My dd wound suddenly be starving all the time and then I'd realise she's grown 2-3 cm in a couple of weeks!

Oops, just realised that the snack list I referred to wasn't yours OP! Sorry!

I would start by giving his own toast rather than some of daddies in the morning.
My daughter is a poor eater generally but has toast and cereal at nursery for breakfast.
In the evenings she mostly has some pasta or some veg alongside our meal. If she is in a poor eating week she has nothing after nursery.
Nursery do lunch with fruit for pudding and her tea is veg puree to hummus with crackers previously with fruit and now with carrot and cucumber batons to help her teeth.

I assume it was in reply to mine. He has a variety of things, that was an example. The jelly is sugar free, the fruit varies, he will sometimes have a cracker / crisp / breadstick type thing. Cucumber, maybe some carrot. Sometimes he just wants fry cereal. He's good at knowing when he's full and when he's not and don't worry he's not loaded up with sugar
He doesn't fight bedtime or anything either so anything I give him isn't causing any problems

My son is a similar age and eats way more than this. He would happily have toast and weetabix for breakfast, or eggs and some fruit, plus all the meals you outlined and wants another meal when he gets home at 5:45. It’s tapered off a bit at 22 months. But your post feels like something I could have written three months ago! What we learned is that he probably is just hungry; at this age they’re not being cheeky or greedy. There’s no such thing. He’s developing in spurts still.
Does your son have sloppy poos? We saw a paediatric gastro doctor who indicated excessive hunger could be a rapidly moving bowel where food is digested too quickly, often caused by an intolerance such as dairy.

French toast would be good for either breakfast or after nursery snack.

I've the opposite issue and wish my 20mo daughter would eat more. She's 9kg and very lean, but super active! A 50p size portion of fish, half a sweet potato wedge, and handful of peas can be considered a successful meal over here and we've been known to only have 120ml milk at 2 tsp cooked porridge for breakfast 😬

@fleur89 that sounds tough as well, it's so hard to know if they're getting enough and making sure it's the right stuff for them. My friend's DS is two weeks younger than mine and she has the same as you, it's a battle to get anything down him, and I can see how stressful it is!

Just in case anyone is still reading, today has been my day off with DS and here's what he's eaten

7.15 cup of milk
7.45 porridge, 40g as per the back of the packet, plus a handful of raspberries and blueberries
8.15 baby bel
8.30 another handful of raspberries, blueberries and strawberries
10am boiled egg
10.45 a few veggie straws
12.15 big portion of Mac and cheese, about 80g Greek yoghurt, some of my pizza crust and a baby bel
4.30 barely touched his fish, herby potatoes and cauli cheese bites. Had a banana and some blueberries. No shouting for more food.
6.15 cup of milk

He seems to have gone big early doors and then had a smaller dinner but he seemed happy and content not like when he came home from nursery the other day, so can only assume he wasn't starving.

Nursery replied to my email about portion sizes saying he sometimes has 3 servings lol so I think he is definitely in a growth spurt. Will be keeping an eye on needing to fork out for next size up in clothes soon!

This is very similar to what my son eats OP. If he’s developing well against his milestones and there are no of issues I don’t think you have anything to worry about. A lot of people have told me it’s preferable better than a picky eater that isn’t getting any nutrition.

I sympathise though. We’ve been to a paediatrician and he said for us it’s likely a dairy allergy (CMPA) because in our case he has very loose nappies all the time. His gut is sending too much water so he poos a lot which in our case is exacerbating hunger. So it might be worth ruling out of food intolerance if your child has other symptoms. If not, I really think you just have a hungry toddler, but who is normal!

A few weeks old now, but just for comparison, at that age, DS1 was having breakfast at home, nursery food as you describe - often having seconds and thirds, full dinner at home, and occasionally a bedtime snack.
He was typically 9th-25th centile. He's now a skinny teenager.
Food was endless! Even now he regularly finishes one meal and asks what's for the next one!

That diet is very carb heavy and low on protein. Obviously give him more food when he asks for it, but he'll ask less if you give him a protein rich breakfast and other meals.

Sorry OP i didn't see update, plenty of protein in most of the day's meals but I'd avoid just Weetabix at breakfast, personally. I would always feed children as much as they ask for, unless it's unhealthy or UPF food.

He is going 13hrs without food and then is given ‘a bit of his dad’s toast’ no wonder he is hungry, it’s like when adults fast to lose weight.

The example day you give shows a huge gap in food intake. He stuffed himself all morning after a late breakfast that obviously didn't fill him up, a carb heavy lunch (no veg/fruit?), then didn't want a very early dinner and then doesn't appear to have anything else again until presumably another late breakfast - no wonder he's hungry all morning.

You need to try and balance out his food intake more evenly across the day. Fill him up at breakfast to stop endless snacking so offer perhaps some thing eggy, or beans or cheese on toast and porridge/yogurt/ cereal and fruit or toast. Then a mid-morning snack, then his main meal at lunch time. Little ones are often to tired for this in the evening.
Evening meal of beans/sandwiches/fish fingers etc with yogurt/fruit and then maybe more porridge etc before bed.