Meals help for 5, 3 and 1 year olds

mummyroysof3

thanks for the input

i do give them snacks, usually things like a piece of fresh fruit/raisins,small yogurts,crackers and spead cheese

for breakfast they have cereal and toast, lunch is sandwich, fruit and a yog and a bag of crisps shared between them. tea could be meat/veg/mash or chicken/sausages with pasta/chips and veg if we are having something i know they wont eat

i just feel like im on a constant round of serve food, eat food, clear up food mess then repeat

would like to make the evening meal abit later maybe 5/5.30 but thinking a snack at 4 would mean they wouldnt eat all their tea then it doesnt solve the waking early wanting to eat problem

would then make it
7.15 breakfast
9.30 small snack
11.30 lunch
2.30 snack for little one before school run
3.50/4 snack
5.15 tea

hubby says they would be eating too often and i will make them fat(they are not btw)

Becles

My daughter is three and we have the same situation with an early lunch. I also have 14 and 12 year old boys.

They have cereal for breakfast around 7am.

I work part time, so my daughter has biscuits mid-morning at my parents house. If she's at home, I prefer her to have nuts, seeds and dried fruit or a cereal bar. The boys take a cereal bar for break time.

Lunch is usually a sandwich plus whatever else she picks - crisps, fruit, fairy cake, flapjack, yoghurt and so on. The boys have similar in a packed lunch.

Nursery provide a piece of fruit, a carton of milk and nibbley things like breadsticks and raisins, so she picks on at those if she's hungry in an afternoon.

Tea is at 5.30pm and is usually a home cooked meal - meat and veg, pasta dish, Indian, Mexican, Chinese etc. We all eat together and my daughter has a decent sized portion.

She goes to bed at 7.30pm, my 12 year old at 8.30pm and my eldest between 9-10pm and none of them feel the need to eat on an evening.

They're all lean and full of energy so it works for us!

Spendless

What about making the snack more substatial when she comes home from nursery and a smaller portion tea? I think you'll find it trial and error till you hit on the times and quantities that suit your children.

when_will_it_end

i dont think there is anything wrong in what you are already doing

i used to chop up all fruit and veg snacks in the morning an put them in food bags it made it easier if i was in the middle of something, i used to take one one of the bags for them after school as well

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

That's still 14 hours without eating.

Does your OH wake up at 5.30am to feed them? If not, then he is hardly in a position to dictate that you leave them to go hungry.


(DDs were fed much more than that and they are slim. Always have been.)

madison-nyc

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

That's still 14 hours without eating.

Does your OH wake up at 5.30am to feed them? If not, then he is hardly in a position to dictate that you leave them to go hungry.


(DDs were fed much more than that and they are slim. Always have been.)

14 hours without food is about right isn't it?! my two sleep for 12 hours and i'm not gonna feed them right before bed , they eat tea at 4:30pm ish and in bed from 6pm til 6am. My 18 month old is offered milk before bed (although he rarely takes more than a few sips these days) but my 3 year old is too full from tea to need anything else to eat on an evening.

rachbc

brekkie 7
dd snack (fruit) at pre school
dd lunch 12 (pack up at preschool or sarnies etc at home), ds 12-12.30 pack up at school)
dd and ds snack after ds school - 3.30 - crumpets, fruit, crackers and ham etc
all of us dinner 6.30-7 depending when I get home/ cook

Spendless

It's not working at the minute for the OP though is it, regardless of whether 14 hours between meals should/shouldn't be enough.

mummyroysof3 wrote: »

Really hoping people will be willing to help me please,

DD who is 3 goes to afternoon nursery so her and DS who is 1 have lunch at 11.30 as we leave the house at 12.15.

this means they are wanting tea at 4.30, so are getting up at 5.30 am hungry, im try to get them to wait till 7am for breakfast or its too long till dinner for them, then they constantly ask for snacks in between argh im going mad

really was hoping if people could give me an idea of what sort of mealtimes you have at your house, and hopefully some ideas of what your children have for meals/snacks as im fed up of them having the same things and need some new ideas...

That's why she needs to juggle her times/quantities around.

shirlgirl2004

My 4 and 6 year olds go about 13/14 hours.
Breakfast at 7am,
Snack at 10
Lunch between 12 & 1
Dinner between 5 & 6pm

If it's along time between lunch and dinner (12 lunch and 6 dinner) then they get another snack. A snack for us is only ever fruit. They have very different appetites though. The 6 year old eats a huge breakfast and almost no lunch whereas the 4 year old eats a very small breakfast , OK lunch and huge dinner. You need to do what works for them.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

madison-nyc wrote: »

14 hours without food is about right isn't it?!

If they aren't waking up with hunger, yes. But as these children are hungry, then no, it isn't.

The children don't know the 'rules' about when they should eat, they just know their tummies are empty.