Before last week, snack time in our home went something like this:
Me: "Do you want this?"
JD: "no"
Me: "Do you want this?"
JD: "mmmmmm no"
Me: "Do you want this?"
JD: "No!
Me: "Do you want this?"
JD: "NO NO NO"
Me: Fine, have another squeezy pouch.
Not fun.
Also, I am infamous for letting produce go bad. I have the best intentions in the produce department of serving snacks filled with fresh fruit and veggies, but at snack time, I just don't have time to wash & cut things. We were in a snack rut.
So I found this idea on Pinterest, and put it all together last week. I am taking the time when I get back from the store to wash and package things in snack size bags/containers, and putting them in larger tupperware bins. When JD is hungry (or Hubby and I want a late-night snack), healthy options are ready to go. It makes packing for the day easier, and anything that makes things more toddler-friendly is a-okay in my book.
When first putting them together, I couldn't believe how many snack options we already had spread between various cabinets, pantry, and fridge.
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| The refrigerator box contains washed & cut carrots, celery, berries, and tomatoes, yogurt, cheese sticks, and apple butter & peanut butter for dipping crackers or toast. |
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| The counter box has raisons, applesauce, dried fruit, cereal bars, squeezy pouch things, puffs, and a couple kinds of crackers. |
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| I put the counter station next to the fruit bowl as a reminder to always offer fruit first. |
Another motivation for keeping it up: I spent a fortune on those huge tupperware containers, so I will use them!
Disclaimer: I have had to enforce the "This is Snack Food, Not a Meal" rule after I realized Hubby had been feeding JD breakfast from the snack stations. This isn't a huge deal since there are some good breakfast options in there, except it depletes my stations before my day starts, and the kid needs to eat all that cereal, oatmeal, waffles, and eggs I bought!
What do you serve at snack time?
We have snacks once a day - mid-afternoon after naps. We usually do a slice of cheese with 4 saltine crackers, or apple slices, or a banana each, or whatever fruit we have, sometimes we add pepperonis to the cheese and crackers. Occasionally we have peanut butter and crackers. And often they eat raisins. I don't let them have a lot for snack because I want them to eat supper.
ReplyDeletewhat a great idea!! and parker LOVES those squeezy pouches too.
ReplyDeleteThis is an awesome idea--even for grown ups! I'm really bad at wasting produce, too. :(
ReplyDeleteI saw this on pinterest too and thought it was a great idea! Good for you for actually taking the initiative to replicate it (I seriously lack motivation). Kale is way more into "grazing" these days than sitting down for a meal, so this would probably really work for us.
ReplyDeleteHi my name is Latoya from thescottscrib and I found your blog through SITS:) I try to feed me daughter dried cereal, goldfish, fresh strawberries, tomatoes, celery and blueberries (some of her favorites) for snack time. I try to introduce new things every now and then but 1 year olds are truly picky. Thanks for sharing some of your snack ideas, I hadn't though about carrots but she just might eat them:)
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