3-4 snacks a day for 1 year old?!

[TheRookieMum]

Currently my 11mo DS eats no snacks. Just 3 meals which he does generally well at + milk feeds. Days after he turns 1, he'll start with a childminder who has asked that as well as providing lunch (fine), we also send him with 3 to 4 snacks each day (three to four?! Is that normal?!). I'm struggling to even think of 3 or 4 snacks he'd eat, nevermind making it varied day to day! Banana... plum... yogurt...?

He doesn't like eggs, hummus, cream cheese or cheese, although we're working on it as I'm determined he just needs more exposure to some of these.

What snacks, and how many a day, do your 1yo's eat please?

Chopped vegetables or fruit, yogurts, dried fruit such as apricots or mango, crackers, rice cakes, mini sausage rolls or mini sausages, crisps, pizza rolls. It doesn’t have to be healthy, it’s a snack, as long as they’re having 3 relatively healthy meals a day, one packet of crisps or an unhealthyish snack a day isn’t going to cause any harm if they won’t eat anything else.

3/4 snacks does feel a lot, mine would have one or two, depending on activity level

Pack of crisps, chocolate bar and bottle of prime, sorted 👌

My youngest is nearly 2 but he started having one snack a day around the 10 or 11 month mark as he really liked his food.

Examples: fresh fruit sometimes with peanut butter on, baby/toddler crisps, little blocks of hard cheeses, Quorn cocktail sausages, Quorn picnic eggs, baby melty snacks that you get in the little packets, rice cakes sometimes with peanut butter on, small amounts of dry cereal like multigrain shapes/rice crispies/Cheerios.

Thanks. Yes, 1-2 snacks was what I was expecting so when she said 3-4, my mind went blank as to what on earth would be quick to prep or no prep x4 per day, 5 days a week! I don't think most 1 yo's eat 4 snacks plus 3 meals a day, do they?!

Agree, they don't have to all be healthy snacks, that's covered by his meals for the most part so crisps, crackers, all fine.

Might wait till his 2nd birthday to introduce a daily can of prime though

Agree, they don't have to all be healthy snacks,
Why ? Why would you happily give a 1 year year old junk?
As a non Brit , it is genuine question. You know it is unhealthy, don't care, give it anyway? What is the reasoning?

I’ll assume you’re smart enough to realise that the post saying pack of crisps, chocolate bar and Prime was a joke so I’ll focus on the suggestions of crackers, crisps and rice cakes.

Compared to other countries a lot of UK snacks have lower salt and sugar and are much more regulated in terms of ingredients and quality, especially the brands designed specifically for children and babies, they are made with vegetables and have no salt or sugar. Even those with a moderate salt or sugar content are given in only small amounts that it’s not really an issue or considered junk. If any salt or sugar content is an issue for a parent, making your own snacks such as the above is easy, you can make crisps by thinly slicing potatoes/any vegetable and oven baking them with fresh herbs and a bit of olive oil, they’re still crisps but I doubt anyone would consider them junk food.
If a child is eating 3 healthy meals a day, full of fruit and vegetables and even snacking on mostly healthy snacks like fruit, a couple of crackers or a handful of crisps is absolutely fine and adds a new taste and texture to their diet.

That seems an awful lot, I'd send in a pot/ small tub of fruit cut up and maybe some cheese/ cracker. Nor sure where they would fit in snacks and meals in a day!

I assume it’s more so they have a choice. If another child is eating rice crackers, or chopped grapes, yours might want similar.

So I would send a pot of chopped fruit, pot with dry snacks like breadsticks/ rice crackers, and then maybe something like yogurt. The dry pot can be reused over several days and just topped up if not all eaten

Its different with childminder than own child. You know if they have eaten breakfast etc, but childcare doesn’t really so they want the option to feed child again if they seem hungry.

My dd is 10.5 months and has 1-2 snacks a day as well as 3 meals. She's an enthusiastic eater and has started cutting down her milk feeds in the day. So I tend to give her a snack after I've given her her mid morning and mid afternoon milk feed. Generally it's something like; breadsticks, cut up fruit, rice cakes, or homemade healthy snacks that I batch cook and then store in the freezer these tend to be carrot and courgette savoury flapjack, spinach and sweetcorn muffins, blueberry and chia seed sheet pancake, banana and oat cookies. There are plenty of recipes online. I tend to cook two at a time which generally makes 24 portions, and then freeze and alternate then throughout the week with other snacks so they last a good while. I also use them for her meals.
She doesn't have anything processed because I figured the less she knows about crisps and biscuits (even the baby ones) the better as it can lead to bad food associations and honestly she's got plenty of time to eat that stuff later on when she older.

I didn't say I don't care... I just mean that each individual snack doesn't have to be the perfect balance of protein, carbohydrates, dairy, nutrients, etc. It's a snack, not a meal and I look across DS's day and week to ensure he's getting a good mix of foods. As a PP said, 1 non-perfectly-healthy snack in a day won't do any harm.

However, giving him standard crisps, chocolate, energy drinks and the likes is definitely a joke. See my OP where I list banana, plum and yogurt as 3 examples of what I might give him.

What do or did you feed your 1yo as snacks please? I'm genuinely interested in your perspective of what constitutes a snack.

This is ideal. Thank you. I think I'll do similar and start offering snacks alongside his daytime milk feeds. He is a good eater, I just hadn't been offering snacks. Batch cooking 24 at a time is genius!

I have similar thoughts about processed foods, though the baby crisps I've seen from Ella's and Organix actually look OK and might help with the volume of cooking we'll have to do around full time jobs and other responsibilities that we each have. Maybe. I'll see how I get on with batch cooking!

Yes, it's the potential waste that has been bothering me too. Thank you, I'll maybe label the pots so she knows to use the fruit and fresh things first.

I was thinking the same thing. I doubt you'll get any responses other than those that are shitty because they know there is no justification for exposing a child to UPFs after just one year of its life. I'm not saying crisps, crackers, vegan sausages, or those snacks designed for very small children are bad as such, but I do wonder why you'd want to give them to a child that doesn't even have any desire or taste for such food.

Just in case it comes up again, yeah, I know the "crisps + Prime" comment was a joke. I think we all knew that.

Kindly, please refer to my OP where I list banana, plum and yogurt.

I shit neither time nor money therefore the majority of snacks will need to be fairly quick to prep SUCH AS A BANANA, PLUM OR YOGURT. But why not add, for variety's sake, the odd baby crisp isn't going to hurt now, is it? In the grand scheme of things?

Goodness, this took a turn I wasn't expecting. I was looking for real life examples of snack ideas for my 1yo! So I ask you because you seem to have missed the point of the thread... What snacks do you or did you feed your 1yo?

Yeah, I read your OP. I wasn't referring to anything in your OP, though, so I'm not sure what the caps are for. And I've not "missed the point of the thread", I was just agreeing with somebody else's point.

I give my 1 year chocolate and crips as a treat every day. In moderation its fine. My mam did the same with all of us and we are healthy and fine.

Old*

Unsalted corn and rice cakes are good. DD2 has them for snacks quite a lot. And then yes fruit like a banana, maybe chop some apple slices (if they're not nut-free then you could spread peanut or almond butter on) with a bit of lemon juice to stop it browning, breadsticks, chopped veg sticks with a little pot of hummus, a squeeze bag of yoghurt or fruit smoothie. Or you could batch cook and freeze some muffins and just take them out on childminder days. It really doesn't take long, Taming Twins site has some good snack recipes that don't take long to make.

But @Cormoran asked why you would give that kind of food to a one-year-old. I don't think "in moderation" really answers that question. Or is your answer "because we were fed that way and we turned out fine"?

But I think there isn't really any answer to the question of why feed a one-year-old baby chocolate and crisps every day as a treat. This is not exactly a criticism, just a realisation that there can't be any logical answer.

This. Day to day, everything should be healthy. Then it allows for treats at parties, with grandparents etc. I’d stick to unprocessed snacks - fruit and veg, breadsticks, cheese cube, cooked chicken. Nothing marketed for babies, all full of rubbish

But that’s not moderation if it’s every day.

He's healthy and happy. He gets healthy snacks too.

Actually it is. Most of his snacks are healthy. It's only 1 or 2 that are unhealthy. But doesn't get loads. Also has 3 healthy meals. Only has milk and water. Still don't allow juice.

@Peony654 my son gets the snacks marketed for babies too. They're are fine in moderation. HV told me that.

But if he has chocolate and crisps every day that's 2 snacks. How many other snacks is he having in a day if 'most' are healthy?

I'm not really precious about food, god knows DD1(4) eats some amount of crap some days, but there's no real need for a baby who doesn't know any different and who can't make unreasonable demands to have it every day. This is basically the only time you can control what they eat, so I guess I don't really understand why you would give those things every day when there's no benefit to it.