Children that are allowed to eat/graze constantly?

notanewuser

DD is 2.5. She's never really been that bothered about breakfast. She might have a few spoonfuls of museli, a few bites of fruit bread or a sausage but she's not really into it at all.

She will sometimes have an apple or a pear late morning, then graze on her lunch - usually something light - and has a fruit platter (berries and grapes) in the afternoon. She can easily eat a punnet-worth of berries in a sitting. She will usually eat a good dinner (chicken/salmon/duck/fish with lots of veg and a bit of pasta or potato), followed by organic fromage frais. She has a banana before bed and 250ml of full fat milk before bed.

She's tall and slim and a lovely build and has lots of energy.

I don't think we're meant to eat 3 big meals a day personally.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Neither of mine were big eaters, so much so, they were very, very slim - I actually found that they ate more healthily over the course of the day if they were able to have small bits and pieces, rather than big meals, as they would get full and leave those.

I tried for a very long time to get them to wait for mealtimes, but all that meant was they got past the point of being hungry - the youngest could go for hours without eating a thing if I got the timings wrong - it really was better for them to have several smaller things.

securityguy

Those are insane food bills, though. Two adults, two teenage children, Waitrose and farmers' markets, and the food component of the weekly shop would probably be no more than £100, including cooking seven dinners and two lunches a week and providing packed lunches for two or three the other five days. Add in occasional emergency trips on a Thursday for missing ingredients and it might hit £120. I can't imagine what spending an extra four to five hundred quid a month would look like.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

securityguy wrote: »

Those are insane food bills, though. Two adults, two teenage children, Waitrose and farmers' markets, and the food component of the weekly shop would probably be no more than £100, including cooking seven dinners and two lunches a week and providing packed lunches for two or three the other five days. Add in occasional emergency trips on a Thursday for missing ingredients and it might hit £120. I can't imagine what spending an extra four to five hundred quid a month would look like.

I'm envisaging a huge, American style fridge freezer, plus probably a chest freezer in the garage.

I know my fridge freezer (60 cm, 7 foot tall) at the time of the girls being small, was absolutely crammed to the brim at the beginning of the month.

As it is now, with it just being me here, I've got a tabletop freezer that contains [checks] frozen berries, strawberries, three different types of veg and the last dregs of a bottle of vodka, and fridge that contains milk, carrots, butter, four lemons, five limes beer, cider, wine, lemonade, ginger beer and orange juice. :whistle:.

mrcow

If I allowed my children to eat what they wanted when they wanted it, they'd all be fat (well two of them would be, the other one is just a "picker".

If they are hungry, they will ask permission to eat something. They wouldn't help themselves to anything.

I don't see a problem with this. They get three meals a day and I wouldn't deny them food, but I need to keep tags on what they are having......especially fruit, or we'd always be running out......it doesn't grow on trees you know!

pesky85

I have a 2 and 3 year old, they have 3 meals a day. If they get hungry in between they will have a piece of fruit or a box of raisins, but only one a day I would say. Their meals are good hearty meals so I know they are not hungry in between. If they've had dinner and are complaining of being hungry around bedtime, they are offered bread and butter! You soon know if they're really hungry lol.

Angelicdevil

Growing up we had breakfast, lunch and dinner. No snacks allowed and we weren't allowed to help ourselves to anything from the kitchen cupboards.

I struggled to eat the full portions of breakfast, lunch and dinner and my mum would get very frustrated with me. She thought I had an eating disorder!!!

Since moving out (10 years ago) I found my own routine and became a "grazer".

I still have 3 set meals but I snack on fruit, toast and peanut butter, pitta bread and houmous etc throughout the day, inbetween meals.

I've gained weight and I feel much better for eating constantly. I'm still a skinny rake though!!!

valk_scot

Small children often need a snack between meals, six small meals suit them better than three large ones. Little tummies, fast metabolisms! And primary schoolers often need a snack just after school to keep them going, if the family dinner isn't till 7 or 8pm. And an honorable exception for both kids and adults is if they've been doing some sort of active sport, the reserves often need a bit of a top-up then.

But it should be sensible snacks....an apple or cereal or bread and spread, not endless grazing away on biscuits and crisps. If you're getting most of your daily nutrients and calories from three balanced meals then more than the odd extra snack is just going to make the child (or adult) fat.

My family of four includes one huge rugby playing teenager that also goes to gym five times a week and a sports mad 11 year old, plus two adults. My food bills have been creeping up, just like everyones' but I manage very well on £100 per week and I don't stint on things like fruit and veg and even meat. I would love to have £250 per week to spend on food, the mind boggles as to how much fun I could have with that but I think I'd be struggling to spend it all on a regular basis unless I was buying a lot of unnecessary extras tbh.

My kids have to ask btw if they're going through to the kitchen to get something. I almost always say yes but I like to keep tabs on what they're eating, plus I don't want them doing it mindlessly. As others have said, often it's boredom or thirst or giving into every stray munchie thought that drifts through the brain. Bad habit to get in to!

pesky85

In saying that, if I gave them the option of eating a punnet of berries a day, they would!

Robin_TBW

I don't like the word punnet. Bleurgh.