Snacking

My 4 year old DGS is constantly hungry. He says. Walks in the door and straight to the cupboard with an "I'm hungry". He's not of course and I don't give in to him. He just knows where the biscuits are kept.

His mum has discovered that a lot of the time he's really thirsty but confuses the two. He's got a lot better since she started giving him a drink instead. But he does love food!

Yes they even call a break in the day 'snacktime'. Mums seem to always have something in their handbags to plug the gap especially if its yelling!

When I have DGC's at weekend we stick to the schoolday timetable. Breakfast 8ish. Snack 10.00. Lunch 12.30. Snack 3.30. Tea 5ish. Supper 7ish. I have never been a grazer and don't encourage it. DD has no choice as digestive problems dictate 'little and often'.
As a non-grazer I am happily trying out the 16:8 way of eating - no great sacrifice involved as I never have mid/ late evening suppers.

I don't think it's just children either - eating between meals seems to be a much bigger thing now than I remember

Only from what I have observed when out and about with my own gc but also from my children's children and their friends. I don't claim to know the habiits of every mother of course but when I'm on the bus or at the park or in various other public places sometimes it seems like there are rice cakes and crisps and biscuits and raisins and all sorts of others. Of course I don't think that everyone is doing this but from what my children have said it's very normal to arm yoursleves with snacks on a day out whereas it's not something we had bothered years ago

How do you know what the eating habits of those "many cases" are, pattypan? I'm asking politely. I don't think I know anyone else's eating habits outside of my immediate family.

There seems to be a belief that children flag if they go more than an hour or so without eating. One of my DGC is very thin and at times does not eat much, so I can understand that his parents feel a need to top him up at times, but with others, especially if they are overweight, I can see no need for constant snacks.

I have found this snacking tends to fade once school age is reached. They do not eat between breakfast and lunch, Do have biscuit or bread or dried fruit when they get home from school but then nothing except an evening meal before bedtime.

hello baggs yes I do understand this but from what I have seen in many cases it's snacks on top of the three square meals. There is nothing wrong with little and often but surely with three full size meals there should not be a constant need to graze in between as well

I snack and I'm standing up for snacking. Large meals, i.e. anything more than one small portioned course, make me uncomfortable. So I eat about six times a day.

Why can't it be accepted that some people are grazers? Think about when we were hunter-gatherers—the gatherers probably snacked all the while they were gathering, necessarily at least until bags and other containers were invented to carry provisions that were not to be eaten as soon as they were found.

Yes I've noticed this pattypan. As soon as my first GC was weaned around 9 years ago, his mother never took him anywhere without a snack box filled with fingers of sandwiches, a mini box of raisins, and various other 'baby' snacks. It certainly made me notice other mums when I was out and about and yes, this did seem to be what many of them did.
On the other hand, my daughter will often take a packed lunch for her little one when she goes out and anyone seeing her passing a sandwich or a banana to her on the bus could be forgiven for thinking she was 'snacking', when in fact it would be her midday meal. So maybe this is what many other mums are doing too.