The neverending snack request!

[DuckDuckGoose]

My 4.5 year old is driving me crazy with his eating.  I understand that it might just be a growth spurt but between him and my almost 2 year old I am preparing snacks all day long......and feeling really frustrated and resentful. Does anyone else get this way?  I'm usually pretty laid back about food and I shouldn't be getting angry about it but its feels so out of control.

Here's what our day looks like:

When we wake up he gets a bowl of cereal while I make my coffee, then he asks for a bagel and cream cheese. Then a bit later when my husband wakes up I make eggs for everyone. Then he is foraging in the fridge for yogurt. Then he'll get a piece of fruit......a handful of tortilla chips, a granola bar a cheese stick, baby carrots......then at 10am he is asking for lunch!!! I try to explain to him that we are portioning out food to last for a few days. They will literally pounce on me the minute I get home from the grocery store and demand to eat one of everything I have bought!

Lunch is the same everyday. A ham and cheese and lettuce sandwich. It lasts him about a half hour before he is starving again!! In the afternoon he is munching on crackers and asking for more of the same (yogurt, cheese sticks, fruit....)  we make popcorn in the middle of the afternoon and have milk or tea.

And then he doesn't want dinner. It doesn't matter what I make. Pizza, hamburgers, pasta.....he doesn't like it.  Its frustrating.

I guess maybe what I need is some kind of super filling nutrient dense snack that I can give him that will hold him over for longer. I'm frustrated by the merry go round of snacking!!

Any ideas?

[cristeen]

2 suggestions here... He seems to be eating a lot of grains, his protein and fats seem to be pretty light in your description. I would try making different, more filling options available and see if that helps. I know if i start the day w cereal, i'll feel hungry all day, even if i have eggs an hour later.

You might want to consider a snack tin. That way you can portion out the day's snacks once and he can choose when to eat them.

As for more filling snacks, hummus is the first to come to mind, as high in fat and protein and pretty cheap if you make it yourself. Give him a few options of things to dip (carrots, broccoli, pretzels, whatever).

[BetsyS]

This might get me kicked off MDC, but my kids eat a better, more well-rounded diet without frequent snacks. 

We had a couple of weeks about two months ago in which grocery money was really tight, so I didn't buy any snacks.  I made a large-ish breakfast (we're fans of steel cut oatmeal), then I served lunch on the early side (less than 3 hours after breakfast).  After naps, we had a smallish snack.  Popcorn or half an apple or something.  Then supper.

So, they are eating at 8, 11, 3, and 6, with the 3:00 snack being smallish.  They started eating more of their meals.  A larger variety of all the fruits and vegetables I was serving.  They did ask for a few days about snacks, but I was like, sorry, we just don't have any this week or I'd offer the same thing every time (a slice of bread with peanut butter).  When I stopped making the snacks the interesting, varied parts of their diet, they started being more interested in the meals I was making. 

So much so that, when our grocery money was back to normal, I didn't resume buying fancy snacks.  They can always have saltines or bread with peanut butter, we usually have some sort of fruit (apples or bananas usually), but that's it for snacks.  And it totally works for my kids.  go figure.

[laohaire]

Originally Posted by BetsyS 

This might get me kicked off MDC, but my kids eat a better, more well-rounded diet without frequent snacks. 

I have reported your post to the moderator. It's been nice having you, Betsy, but obviously you just can't stay here at MDC anymore given your views on snacks and your efforts toward healthy eating.

OK, I couldn't help myself. Carry on.

[BetsyS]

LOL

[ammiga]

I don't know what kind of cereal and bagels you are starting their day with, but those sound like heavily processed empty calories. Same with some of the other foods you described.

If you are looking for foods that stick, start with a whole grain bread and a nut butter. Or my daughter loves banana slices topped with almond butter and dotted with a raisin.

Prepare a snack drawer that the kids can help themselves to. Fill it with healthy things to eat like nuts and dried fruit. Do one in the fridge too with cheese slices, fresh fruit and veggies, and little containers of hummus for dipping. If you want to cook, my daughter loves a whole wheat tortilla with melted cheese and chopped avocado rolled in.

Personally, I don't care if dd isn't hungry for dinner, as long as it doesn't affect her day. If she doesn't want dinner, she can help herself to the snack drawer later if she gets hungry.

[DuckDuckGoose]

Thank you for the helpful ideas!  I'm not seeing where our choices are "heavily processed" though..... We make our own yogurt, and sometimes the granola bars are boxed sometimes homemade, by cheesestick I mean mozzarella or cheddar string cheese. And I'm not of the opinion that cereal is terrible for you.  Its usually rice chex or plain cheerios.

The bagels are a compromise for me. I don't eat them myself but my husband loves them and its a consistant thing that my son won't turn his nose up at- especially since he'll eat them with cream cheese and lunchmeat and a tomato at lunchtime. I do make homemade honey wheat bread but its not a favorite of his. I do see that his protein is lacking. He's on and off about hummus. Will sometimes eat a boiled egg in addition to his breakfast egg. I could add chicken sausages to our breakfast routine.... And at dinner we always have a protein that is a must to eat. I was reading through the snack tray thread thinking HA! The tray would be gone in 30 minutes around here. We went to a party last night and there was a table full of fruits and veggies set out for fondue and my kids (the only kids there) just about cleared out the table of everything! BetsyS your thoughts were most helpful to me. A part of this post is my feeling guilty for wanting to limit the eating. My son is really skinny so I figure he NEEDS to eat this much to maintain his weight. But honestly how many snacks does a kid need all day long! :) The other thing that struck me is that yes, we do have more fancy snacks around than he is used to. I've been into coupons lately and have been getting more things that he isn's used to like dole fruit cups (in 100% juice) and stoneyfield yogurts. SO maybe sticking to more homemade plain food will spark his interest less. (right now he is hanging off me saying he is hungry......AAAGHH!)

[CoBabyMaker]

A part of this post is my feeling guilty for wanting to limit the eating. My son is really skinny so I figure he NEEDS to eat this much to maintain his weight. But honestly how many snacks does a kid need all day long!

I just started doing this.  She still snacks but just not every second.  I felt like she needed to actually process the food she had already eaten.  At first she was MAD but does better with it now.  I am nursing and on an elim. diet so I get hungry a lot too but good golly!  I strongly feel that much of her eating was habit or boredom.  It means I have to work harder to engage her in an activity.  So our "limiting" looks more like this:

7 ish, wake and eat breakfast

9: 30 ish- snack

11:30 lunch

3ish- (when she wakes from nap) snack

We usually eat  dinner around 5 or 5:30 and she eats bits of what I am cooking as I prep.  If dinner will be later I give her a snack around 4:30.

6;30-snack or more dinner  (DH get's home around then but it varies and I am ravenous if I wait that long.)

7:40ish  bed time snack

She is free to drink as much as she wants and is still eating at least 6 times a day. 

ETA: Most of the time if she is still at the table I will ask if she has had enough or if she wants more.  If it's a meal time and I offer seconds then five minutes later she is asking for more she is offered more dinner.  Sometimes she will eat more dinner and sometimes she will just go play.

Edited by CoBabyMaker - 3/28/11 at 11:15pm

[UrbanSimplicity]

bagels and cereal (even whole grain, with whole milk) are a recipe for disaster for me, personally.  i second the idea to start the day with healthy protein and fats and see if that fills him up better.

As Far As Snacks - once i realized once upon a time people did not snack, much less have 6 small meals/snacks a day I started moving away from providing so many snack options.  out went the crackers and rice cakes, though i do still keep a snack drawer with nuts and dried fruit and some applesauce, fruit, carrot sticks in fridge.  This has inspired me to start a thread about snacks - check it out :)