Snacks are good. Snacking for babies and small children is usually a must. Their little stomachs aren’t big enough to hold enough food to enable them to make it to the next big meal. More often than not, it is recommended that snack time be around two hours before the next meal. If a substanial snack occurs closer to meal time, children’s appetites might not be in the mood to cooperate.
Too many snacks are bad. When I started blogging back in 2008, I was giving my young children three snacks a day: mid-morning, afternoon, and bedtime. I’ve since cut our snacks down to two a day. As my kids get older they need less and I’m not sure they ever needed a bedtime snack on a routine basis.
Children’s stomachs are small. They are the size of their fists. Keep snack portions small.
How you manage snacks is personal. Many experts strongly recommend keeping your family’s eating on a tight schedule and not providing handouts in between. Personally, I don’t have the backbone to deny my kids a few nuts, a glass of milk, or a dried apricot when they are having a hunger-induced break down close to dinner time. However, we run into this problem less and less as they get older.
