Snacks For Babies

We are all different and it isn’t a case of one diet suits all.
Quite right. Older DD finds five smaller meals a day is what suits her, she is also very slim.

Calendargirl

Just been reading that the government wants to cut down on sugar and salt consumption, and snacks for babies under one.

I never offered ‘snacks’ to any of my children, babies or older.

As they got older, they were served three meals a day, and were ready for them, as they hadn’t ’spoilt their dinner/tea’ by ‘snacking’.

However, when we visited DD when she had her first baby, (she lived in Australia) we were astonished to be told that ‘snacks’ were what she was told to offer him, in between his meals. How odd, we thought, but perhaps they do it differently over there.

Maybe not, it seems.

Not so much of an obesity issue when my children were growing up back then though.

I don't prefer the government to meddle.

I used to enjoy a Farley's rusk myself!
I heard the news story today too and what shocked me was the idea of salty, sugary snacks for babies under a year old. For goodness sake. That can't be right.

It was advisory not a ban on making and marketing these unhealthy products.

No, salty, sugary snacks for babies under a year old
is definitely not right!

NotSpaghetti

No, salty, sugary snacks for babies under a year old
is definitely not right!

We feed children homemade food, little sugar and or salt, however I don't believe it's down to the government to dictate.

Not a dictate Norah but a clamping down on marketing or cutting down on salt and sugar in the snacks seems sensible.
Young susceptible new parents shouldn't be thinking that their little ones need these things.

I don't prefer the government to meddle.

Norah 👏

Sometimes meddling causes further problems eg the sugar tax forcing people to consume aspartame and other such rubbish.

Calendargirl

It seems that the snacks consist of fruit, crackers, veg bites, raisins…. at least the ones we on GN are talking about.

Wonder whose children are eating crisps, biscuits, chocolate bars, sweets….?

😄 or who will admit that shock horror, they gave their kids a glass of milk and a digestive biscuit.
Well I did and still do for the GC.

😁
Or lemonade (full fat!)

Oreo Mine had milk and a plain biscuit, too (and the same with the GC). Nothing wrong with that at all.

Our two youngest DGSs are given a snack mid morning , usually fruit, plain biscuit or a piece of toast. They eat breakfast around 6.30 am and it’s a long time till lunch for busy , lively boys. Maybe the same in the afternoon.
Horror of horror sometimes they are allowed a cake or icecream in the afternoon. ( especially if they are with Nana) !

When my children started school they saw the others eating at playtime and one day my daughter took another child’s crisps. Her teacher asked me to provide her with her own despite me saying that she certainly wouldn’t eat lunch afterwards.
I had faddy kids with tiny appetites so never gave snacks.

Children have small tummies and in order to get the calories into them to help them grow, healthy snacks do this. It is a bit like rearing puppies where they start on lots of small meals before gradually reducing to two as adult dogs.

No snacks in my childhood or for my children. Often see little ones sitting in supermarket trolleys eating a bag of crisps. Probably not as they are hungry but so adult won't need to speak to them. I notice too BBC has a programme on radio to help with getting your child ready for school! Considereibg most will have attended nursery, had a preschool session what else do they need. Helicopter parenting is still alive.

When I was a child we rarely had cheese as part of a meal as my dad didn't eat it. If for any reason dad wasn't having dinner mum would always make a homemade cheese and onion pie which would be served with bked beans. To make up for this deficiency in our diet we were encouraged to eat a chunk of chees as a snack when we got home from school if we were hungry. That was pretty much the only snack we had.
My own kids had 3 meals and didn't get snacks in between unless we were on a day out when they might get a treat such as ice cream. My grandchildren have lots of snacks, though most are fairly healthy ones - lots of fruit. I guess things change!
I used to share the school run with a neighbour. At the time she didn't drive, so I aways did wet days as she walked them to school. On the way home she stopped at the shop and bought snacks. I remember her commenting that my daughter would say no to crisps as she'd had a packet in her lunchbox and 'was only allowed one packet a day'! Needless to say my son always accepted! I don't think her kids liked me taking them as I didn't ever visit the shop so there was no treat. Once she passed her test we stopped sharing the school run altogether.

My DH and I went for short break to London recently and were often close to families with children. I actually noticed how many were talking to their children about having snacks, so much so that mentioned it to my DH. My DC are now in their 30’s and I didn’t routinely give snacks and neither did my Mum.

Reading this thread has reminded me of when I was a tot at nursery! I clearly remember we children queuing up outside Miss Floyd’s kitchen door for our Elevenses and being given a drink and a handful of raisins/sultanas or grape nuts or a biscuit, depending on which day of the week it was. I also remember bunny hop races in her garden! 🐰🐰🐰 Happy days! 🌞

I was born in the sixties and l remember having "elevenses" if we were at home. This consisted of warm or cold milk hot chocolate with one or two biscuits - usually plain. Mum would have a coffee. We had three good meals a day but, before we went to bed, we would have what we called supper - Ovaltine, Bournvita or Horlicks with a couple of digestive biscuits. We would also have fruit at different times. At school, we had the little bottles of milk until the end of the infants and a lot of children would have sweets, crisps or biscuits as a playground snack. I was very occasionally allowed to have an apple. I think that the big difference is that we all played outside a lot, walked to school and many of our school playtimes involved running or skipping games - my favourite being Chinese Skipping with elastic. Hardly any child was truly overweight in the seventies, although l was a short, slightly chubby child. I certainly wasn't overweight or obese, though.

I think this is long overdue. Baby and toddler food is very heavily marketed, with an emphasis on supposedly being "natural" and "healthy". I think it is fine to have these ready made products - most parents are rushed off their feet these days - but standards should be especially high for infants. Parents are being misled.

The follow-on milks are expensive and totally unnecessary but, again, marketing tells parents that these products will make a child stronger and fitter.

I saw a programme some time ago which said snacks between meals were commercially unheard of until, I think, the 50's. Then it was realised there was a sales opportunity being missed - and they were marketed as between meals snacks - a little treat to brighten up a humdrum day. It probably started with Milky Way (the sweet that won't spoil your appetite, and Kit Kat - "have a break, have a Kit Kat".

Sometimes I think mass advertising is a curse.

Plus Mars bars ‘a Mars a day helps you work, rest and play’.

My kids had snacks back in the 80s and 90s,but they were fruit, bread and butter and the odd biscuit or packet of crisps.

As babies they never had them because they don't need them.

Grammaretto

Not a dictate Norah but a clamping down on marketing or cutting down on salt and sugar in the snacks seems sensible.
Young susceptible new parents shouldn't be thinking that their little ones need these things.

Young parents have internet, they well understand nutrition.

We live in a snacking culture. The eating habits of all my grandchilden leave a lot to be desired but I've given up because I know nothing about nutrition, apparently, or parenting in this day and age.

My children were not given snacks either- but they think it's ok to feed their own children constant rubbish.

Snacking is not bad, there is no virtue in eating three meals a day rather than three smaller meals and several snacks, provided you eat healthy food. Eating rubbish at any time is bad. Maybe a really simple message would be best?

Young parents have internet, they well understand nutrition