Healthy snacks for kids

cutestkids

Mine will have crackers with either cheese, butter or cheese spread or a toasted teacake or crumpet, sometimes veg sticks and dip or just some fruit.

Occasionally a packet of crisps and if we are going to be eating dinner later than normal they may have a sandwich

Seakay

I agree that the primary way of keeping control of your food budget is to ban eating without asking and enforce the concept of what is and what is not acceptable behaviour in your house. Basically, if you didn't buy it then you don't have right to it. Give permission for 'help yourself' from a specific list of items if you want to.
When I was at home Mum would give us snacks of her choice if we asked but we were never allowed to just raid the pantry or fridge at our own whim. "If you don't fancy what is offered then you obviously aren't that hungry after all", was the general philosophy.

pigpen

Mine have toast, sandwich or fruit.. DS3 is made to check bloods first (he has diabetes) and sometimes has cereal based on that.

mrcow

If they are all needing to snack before dinner, pehaps they are having their dinner too late? Have you tried having it earlier?

pigpen

mrcow wrote: »

If they are all needing to snack before dinner, pehaps they are having their dinner too late? Have you tried having it earlier?

I tried that.. they all wanted supper instead lol.

BitterAndTwisted

In my mother's house it was toast or fruit and nothing else. There would have been hell to pay if we'd helped ourselves to anything else.

sweetilemon

What about gronola? A handful is quite cheap but filling with fruit, nuts and cereal. Breadsticks are great or even the mini part-bake bagettes/rolls. If they are responcible enough to use a hob popcorn is filling, healthy and cheap.

VJsmum

My DS who is 14 always eats his packed lunch at break time. he will have cereal for breakfast at 7.45 do is hungry when breaktime comes at 11. He plays football at lunch so is truly hungry when he comes in at 3.30. We eat dinner around 7 so he does need to eat something substantial.

He is worse if I am not there, which I'm not on 2 school nights so I can see that the biscuit tin etc is greatly reduced. Usually he will eat a bag of crisps, a cheese and ham toastie and a piece of cake. After that it's fruit. He plays a lot of sport, walks a mile every day and is skinny as a whippet so i'm not too worried. I notice he eats fewer biscuits if I buy plain or cream ones rather than chocolate digestives! I buy one packet a week at most, and last Friday's choc digestives have all gone already :eek: The previous custard creams lasted nearly 3 weeks!

We do eat quite late but that's when his dad gets in, or his sister if she has been caught with school stuff and I think it's more important for us to have a family meal than for him to eat earlier - he'd only be snacking afterwards instead. He knows that if he stopped doing the sport then the snacks would dry up.

maryarm

Thank you all for the replies. They don't just help themselves, but they do tend to try and graze. The eldest are very good at cooking for themselves and their baby brother. It's more a case of trying to think up different ideas to stop us all getting bored lol. Think I will Deffo go back to making flapjacks etc (portioned by me) and pancakes would be an inexpensive fun idea. Unfortunately eating earlier is not an option as we eat together as a family and the dh is army so he ain't exactly 9-5 lol

Spendless

pigpen wrote: »

I tried that.. they all wanted supper instead lol.

Lol, same here.:D From the time my eldest started in afternoon nursery, he came home ravenous from school. Youngest, though she has a much smaller appetite is the same. My friends report the same thing. I'd love to know what the phenomenon is that makes kids come home from school hungry? Since it started in nursery, when he was fed by me before going for a couple of hours, I can't say it's not eating at lunchtime either. My friend has brought her tea-time forward to around 4-4.30 but her and her husband both work in the day-time from home and her husband is more likely to be out working late evening. It's not something we can do and eat as a family with a 5pm finish time from work, plus commute home.

maryarm - what about soup? I've seen that suggested as an after school snack before?