Quick and healthy snacks for toddlers
Offering healthy snacks for toddlers can help keep your childs nutrients up and keep them alert for longer periods during the day. Parents of toddlers often wonder if their children are getting enough to eat. Offering healthy snacks for toddlers can help ensure that the answer is yes.
Some kids at this age may seem too busy exploring the world to slow down and eat. Others may be fickle about food or refuse to eat what’s served at mealtime. Toddlers need about 1,000 to 1,200 calories a day, but often don’t eat a lot at one sitting.
That’s where snacks come in!
Healthy, well-timed snacks for toddlers can help balance out an uneven diet, tiding your child over between meals and keeping them from getting so hungry that they become cranky. You also boost the intake of nutrients your toddler needs to be healthy when you serve fruits, veggies, whole grains, protein, and calcium-rich foods.
Most toddlers do well with three meals and two or three snacks a day — perhaps mid-morning, mid-afternoon, and again after dinner, if necessary.
The influence you have on your toddlers eating patterns may never be stronger than it is right now. Toddlers can’t run out to the shops for sweets and chips. They’ll eat what’s given to them and ask for what they know is in the cupboard. Take this opportunity to set the stage right.
Stock up on healthy snacks for toddlers as treats. Choose fresh foods that are high in nutrients (vitamins, minerals, protein, and fiber) and try to avoid prepackaged, processed ones, which tend to be high in sugar, salt, and fat. If your toddler goes to nursery, ask what kind of snacks for toddlers are served there. If you do not approve, sugges a healthier snack menu. If your suggestion is not welcomed thensend in your own snacks for your child, even if it means a bit of extra planning the night before.
Sometimes nutritious snacks for toddlers are more work, but not always. There are plenty of healthy, no-hassle snacks out there. Toddlers should be feeding themselves, so think simple, finger-friendly, bite-size foods like:
low-sugar breakfast cereals fresh fruit thinly sliced or cut into small pieces whole-grain crackers and mini-muffins cheese cut into thin slices or gratted Think small portions, too. Adults tend to overestimate the amount of food kids need to eat, but the recommended serving size for a toddler’s snack is actually quite small: ½ cup (118 ml) dry cereal and ½ cup (118 ml) milk (serve low-fat if your child is over 2 years old) make a fine mid-morning snack, just as a banana and ½ cup (118 ml) milk are great in the mid-afternoon. Not only are small portions less overwhelming for a picky eater, but they also help prevent an avid eater from overdoing it at snack time.
As I have mentioned on near enough every page on this site toddlers need a routine, so try to serve snacks and meals at approximately the same time every day. That way your child will always know what to expect.
Feeling the sensation of being full and then hungry again a few hours later teaches toddlers to respond to internal hunger cues, knowing when to eat and, more important, when to stop is vital to maintaining a healthy weight. If allowed to graze all day without a schedule, toddlers may lose the ability to detect their own hunger and fullness, which can make them more likely to overeat.
Letting toddlers carry around a carton of juice all day can lead to diarrhea in some and contribute to weight gain in others. Juice — even 100% fruit juice — contains about the same amount of calories as fizzy drinks. Juice drinks have excessive amounts of added sugar. Limit your toddler’s juice intake to no more than 4 oz. (120 ml) a day. When your child is thirsty, water and milk are the best choices. If your child is a juice fanatic, offer fruit rather than juice, because whole fruits contain important vitamins and fiber.
Things to Avoid
Most parents have bribed their toddler by promising some tasty treat, but this isn’t a good strategy. Using sweets as a bribe creates the impression that they are more valuable or better than other, more healthy foods — plus toddlers quickly learn to use them as a bargaining tool.
As for sweets, there is really no reason, nutritionally, for young children to have them. You don’t have to deprive your child of birthday cake, though, or other occasional treats. But don’t let these empty-calorie items become part of the regular snack menu.
Make sweets the exception rather than the rule and your child won’t feel entitled to them or too surprised when you say no. If you keep less-nutritious snacks at home, keep them out of view. If they’re out of sight — and reach — your toddler will be less likely to beg you for them.
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