Snack drama
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Snacks cause so much drama in our house. We make our kids whole food meals 3x/day obviously but snacks are demanded all throughout the day. We attempt to put limits like morning and afternoon snack only and I feel like all I do is say no. I don’t want to cause weird food issues or scarcity mindset but I’m exhausted. I also want my kids to get the bulk of their calories and nutrients from mealtime. My kids are healthy and active and have no medical issues. What’s the best way for me to approach this? I’m so tired of working my ass off to enforce this snack boundary when maybe it’s ok to let them graze?
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100% here in solidarity. One tip I heard is to serve dinner in the afternoon snack time around 4, then let them have a snack at “dinner time.” This is hard for us because I’m also trying to balance having an actual sit down meal with our family, and my husband isn’t home then so it doesn’t always work but I have heard others have success with it for the purpose of getting real food in! Something that works for us occasionally is if I beat them to the punch and set out a snack I want them to eat like fruit or veggies and a dip and say here’s a snack if you want it.
Other than that…I just plainly agree that snacks are drama and I hate them. Best of luck!
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I don't think there's any right or wrong here. I also think it depends on how old your kids are.
Schedules and structure are helpful, but flexibility is important too. Offering more complex snacks can help with concern around nutrition needs being met - if they grab a bag of goldfish you can add salami and cheese and fruit to go with. Sometimes kids thrive with several mini meals throughout the day. I think at the end of the day it's whatever will help simplify and make things easier for you! -
Can totally relate!!! We started a rule that they have to pick something healthy “from the fridge” to have before or with their snack. I find that sometimes the healthy food first gets eaten, and the snack maybe doesn’t even get finished. I feel like they still feel like they “won” because they are getting a snack still.
