Hi Moms,
I'm trying to teach my daughter good eating habits. She's been eating better at dinner, but will say she's full. We leave her plate out so if she says, 10minutes later, she's hungry she can go eat her dinner. Lately she says she's just starving. Anyway, do you feed your kids snacks at night? What kind of healthy suggestions do you have? When I was a kid my parents just fed us a huge bowl of ice cream, or a big bowl of chips/junk food. I don't want to go that route. We usually eat dinner at 5:30, and bedtime is 8:30.
Thanks for all your helpful suggestions.
N.
If it's early enough before bedtime I will make my daughter scrambled eggs or a hard boiled egg. Other options that we do are peanut butter w/ apples or cheese, guacamole and chips, a little bit of tuna salad with cheese. As long as she has some kind of protein she doesn't wake up starving.
Hope this helps!
we usually sit down and have a snack of cheese ( real cheese not spray cheese) and crackers before bed. Like you we eat at 530.
We've also done bread and cheese . Chips and salsa, fruit, little baggy of cereal. piece of bread with peanut butter.
We usually eat dinner around 6 or 6:30, so it's much closer to bedtime. We don't have dessert right after dinner, so we usually give the kids a cookie or something before we brush teeth.
You can always offer her fruit, yogurt, popcorn. It doesn't necessarily have to be healthy, but something that's not going to interfere with her sleep.
It's perfectly normal for her to be hungry before bedtime. By 8:00, it's been 2 hours since dinner. Most kids do need to eat something every couple of hours. That's why preschools and daycare centers have a morning snack and an afternoon snack.
If she says she's hungry, feed her.
Popcorn
Pretzles with cheese
Peanut butter with apple
Fruit of any kind
Cracker, animal or grahm (you can put cheese on them, or peanutbutter)
Rice cakes (taste like popcorn, but they have several kinds).
yogurt
Most foods, in samll amounts. Is fine.. Left over peice of pizza?
Can you save her dinner for her? I've known many kids that didn't like what they were having for dinner so they wouldn't eat - knowing full well that they could eat a 'snack' later which was food that they liked better than their dinner.
We have have the rule - They eat their meal (lunch/dinner), or they don't get a snack. It cuts down on them not eating the meal just b/c they want the snacky food.
We learned when DD was a toddler that she sleeps better at night with a small snack. By that it's a small drink and a handful of fruit or some crackers and cheese or a yogurt. That sort of thing. We rarely eat chips or ice cream and I try to avoid refined sugar before bed/in the evening as I am suspicious that it affects her mood (in a negative way). A warm glass of milk may also help her sleep.
Try having dinner a little later. Maybe she's just not hungry at 5:30 and will eat a larger dinner that will keep her full through the night if you bump it back to 6:30.
Kids need small meals about every 3 hours. It may be they'll eat a few bites or they might eat every bite.
It depends on growth spurts and individual needs.
We do a high protein and high complex carbohydrate at snack time. It takes longer to digest so it lasts longer. BUT it can also cause a lot of gas so if that is an issue you might want to give them something not so high in the complex carb food group.
I buy those pkgs of individual cups of applesauce....cinnamon or regular, and put them in the freezer. It's almost like ice cream for a late night snack...but it's applesauce! :) works good for yogurt or gogurt too
We love popcorn in our house and usually make it every evening.
We always keep quesadilla stuff in the fridge. Small flour tortillas, shredded cheese. Sandwich some cheese between two tortillas and microwave it for 30 seconds or so.
We also keep apples and bananas in a basket.
The rule is that they are there for when you're hungry...but they do have to ask before they have anything because 1. If it's immediately after dinner, they can eat more dinner. And, 2. If it's prior to a meal, they can wait for the meal.
My GD has a snack every night, but she doesn't have a sweet tooth so usually her snacks are something like left overs from dinner, a frozen burrito or corn dog, soup, popcorn, fruit. Every now and then she will ask for cookies or ice cream but that's extremely rare.
Snacks at night,well fruit or popcorn mixed with pretzels..peanuts or just make up a trail mix ,have her help.and then enjoy together while watching a movie or reading a book.
Young kids love to make up snack concoctions.....have fun.
Do veggies no fruit because fruit should be eaten before two in afternoon after five it doesn't digest. So do veggies n make a cute design or a granola bar bowl of healthy cereal. Those r my kids choices.
My older daughter grows SO fast, and she is ALWAYS hungry. The kid eats like a starving lumberjack. Since she always eats a good dinner, if she's still hungry afterward, she can have some fruit from the fruit bowl I keep on the counter. Right now we have tangerines and apples in there, but it changes with the seasons. She can also have salad, carrot sticks, celery... basically any fruit or veggie.
We always have a snack before bed - for us, that means snack at 8, and we go upstairs for bed at 8:30. Snacks my kids likes:
grapes
apple slices
yogurt
cheese stick
mandarin oranges
canned peaches
But, they only get a snack if they ate well at dinner. If they didn't eat well at dinner, I save the dinner plate and it's that or nothing.
we have the same issue. Didn't say how old your daughter was....my 7yo is like this though. we do popcorn, fruit or graham crackers with peanut butter, string cheese. something that is either high protein or high fiber or even both. this is WITH him eating a very full meal at 6:00.
I won't ask him (or our 3yo) to go from 5/6 a night til breakfast the next day.
