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Snacks for Tiny Tummies
Healthy Foods for Toddlers By Kelly Burgess
We should all be able to eat like toddlers a bite here, maybe two bites there before we dash off to play, dance, tumble and explore this big, fascinating world. Toddlers, unlike adults, don't buy into that whole "three meals a day, two snacks" that becomes our norm as we grow older.
Penny Warner, author of Healthy Treats and Super Snacks for Kids (McGraw-Hill, 1994), says toddlers really just eat snacks all day. But shesuggests we change our cultural mindset and think of these as mini-meals, which should be fairly well-rounded and healthy, rather than as "snacks," which often have a junk food connotation in our culture.
"We're so trained to eat three square [meals],and this is not the style that toddlers embrace," says Warner. "It's almost impossible for a toddler to sit at a family meal and finish everything on his or her plate. The parent who expects that is merely setting the stage for ongoing food battles."
"Toddlers have very small stomachs, and they fill up very quickly," says Warner. "This is why they need to eat more frequent meals. It's even OK for them to have a snack an hour before dinner, because by the time dinner rolls around they'll have used up all those calories and be ready for another small amount of food."
Of course, it can be difficult to make toddlers stop what they're doing to eat. Sometimes it's necessary to lure them to the snack table to head off any hunger-induced crankiness. Warner suggests making it fun.
One solution she has is to fix finger foods that toddlers can take back and forth with them from a small table to their play area. Or try naming their foods after something they can relate to, such as Pooh Bear Pretzels. Most important, be with your child. If they're still in a highchair, put it close to you so you can interact. If not, sit with them and either enjoy the snack with them or engage them in conversation to keep them there.