I have a 4 and 2 y/o. My oldest mentioned having a place for her snacks in the kitchen, where she could get them herself. It is an idea I always figured I would do…eventually. I feel confident in my 4 to handle the freedom with some responsibility, but my 2? I seriously doubt it. Food and eating times have been at my discretion ie I decide what to eat and when we are eating it, there is some play sometimes (maybe a choice between two fruits, but not a choice between fruit and yogurt), but overall I have been in charge. I visited a neighbor recently who had a 20 month old. While she was fixing dinner, he walked to the pantry, opened the door, pulled out a bag of oreos, and ate one. The mom laughed and told him dinner would be ready soon. That obviously works for their house, but I don’t let my 4 decide that she wants a snack while I am fixing dinner. But maybe I should? To encourage her decision making? I don’t know?!?!? Right now they eat a morning and afternoon snack, sometimes two afternoon snacks depending on how early lunch was.
So, how have you gone about having snacks your kids can get on their own? How does that work, and what ages?
Also, it’s not in my budget to buy single servings of things, like right now I buy 32 oz containers of yogurt and dish out a serving for afternoon snack, I buy block cheese and cut off slices, I cut up fresh fruit that I bought in 5 lb bags… So I guess I am dividing these things up ahead of time? Anyone else in the same boat, is it more pain than gain?
I am just feeling things out, seeing how I might initiate something like this…Thanks all!
Edit: We have always had a gate on the kitchen door, this is one reason why the kids don’t already have independent access to food…
We have a snack basket. It is a huge basket full of pretty healthy snacks. There is little applesauses, granola bars, peanut butter crackers, nutrigrain bars. Occasionally there will be cookies or chips in there. My kids are a little older....the little two still sometimes ask....the older two are teens, they get their own :) I think it makes it easier on me. When they are hungry and i am busy i can tell them to grab a snack.
I don't think kids can learn to delay gratification at that age. I think it's still a parents job to regulate what they eat. I try to really limit the junk that I buy. If we don't have it in the hosue, it's not an issue. But, there are a few things that my husband loves, oreos, little debbies. And then there's all that Haloween candy. I have a system. I have an upper cabinet. On the bottom level there is granola bars, raisins, saltine crackers, dried apricots, cereal bars, peanut butter, etc. All the stuff I don't mind them having. The next higher shelf I have the worst offenders cheezits, oreos, candy. My kids can't really see what's up there. If we walk over to the cabinet they can see the good shelf. They have to really earn something off the next shelf. It's the same way in the fridge. Lower levels have the fruit, yogurt, string cheese. You have to go to the top of the fridge to see if there are maybe some cupcakes or something. Theres a fruit basket on the table full of apples and bananas. I also negotiate the bad stuff. If they ask for cookies I tell them ok, 2 cookies, but yogurt 1st. Or pickup all your toys and then 1 cupcake. I do the bulk thing too and it works for us. I buy a family size bag of chips and portion into 10 ziploc bags and hide them. That way I can send chips with my husbands sandwhich everyday. I portion the cheezits, dried cereal to snack on, pretzels, etc. I make my own little 100 calorie packs for me and the kids so I know we dont sit down with the whole box of something and mow it down without even realizing it.
We have a fruit bowl on the kitchen table, but the kids still have to ask before they have some. Mostly because I don't want them to eat right before dinner. I don't think I'd ever let them have free reign over other types of snacks aside from fruit and veggies because I just don't think kids need to eat 24/7. If they snack too much, then they don't want to eat nutritious meals. That's how we do it in our house!
i think you're doing fine. i don't spend the extra (unnecessary) $ for individual servings either, and i don't think a 4 year old (at least not mine) needs to have free reign with food. mine is a bottomless pit - i guarantee he'd eat it all at once and then have nothing. and allowing a 20 month old to eat an oreo right before dinner "because he wants it" is ridiculous. i don't know what age it's appropriate b/c i only have a 4 year old, but 4 isn't it. at least not for mine, like i said. it may depend on the child i don't know...
We have a snack shelf, but our kids must ask before getting to it. You could do the same, and single-serving thing like cutup apples or grapes, and baggies of cheez-its or such...
It makes them more self-aware and trains them to be open to ask you for what they would like, also training to sometimes hear no.
Good luck!
We have a snack cart, it has 3 drawers two smaller , one larger . I keep the big packages of stuff in the bottom drawer and the top two have things like fruit snacks , slim jims , etc.
We just started this in the past few months . I also keep the lunch stuff there so it's not cluttering up my pantry. My kids are 6 and 8 and wished I had done it sooner. my pantry is much cleaner.
I have a 4 yr old and a 5 month old. We don't have a specific area just for snacks. We have a fruit bowl on the counter and we have yogurt drinks that my son can get to in the fridge, but most of the snack are kept in the pantry (not in an area just for kids or anything). My son asks for snacks at least once a day and I ask him what he wants (I'll give him some choices of healthy snacks) or he'll get something and ask me if it's ok.
If he had free reign, he's eat all his Halloween candy for breakfast. So at 4 I don't think they need that much freedom.
