Toddlers and snacking
This page belongs to collection of short articles and videos in plain language, called Little people + food. The Possums approach aims to make introducing solids and toddler foods a lot easier than you might hear!
It’s ok that your toddler may not want to sit down with food for more than a few minutes, because toddlers naturally like to move on quickly to the next sensory adventure!
Toddlers are sensitive to feeling pressured to eat or pressured to stay sitting in a highchair. Accidentally putting your toddler under pressure to eat or stay in the highchair can actually backfire and cause eating problems. Over time, with encouragement but without being pressured, your toddler will learn to fit in to family rhythms because it’s a fun and satisfying way to be together. You don’t need to rush this.
Grazing is normal for toddlers. What matters is that you give them good quality options with lots of fresh fruit or vegie snacks (not sticky dried fruits, for example!) between mealtimes.
You can encourage your little one to wait a little while for mealtimes rather than letting them fill up on snacks beforehand, so that they are hungry enough to be interested in the main meal. You might also create family or day-care times for breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner. But this kind of schedule doesn’t suit a lot of families.
The problem is that we get too controlling about snack and mealtimes, we might find our toddler starts to develop anxious and negative associations with food. It’s best to be relaxed about food, and mostly focus on enjoyment and having wholesome food choices available, rather than feeling under pressure for our toddler to stay in a high chair and eat a certain amount at mealtimes.
Even if your toddler doesn’t seem to like some foods at first, keep offering them in a relaxed way. Experimenting is an important part of your toddler’s relationship with food.
Needless to say, have plenty of water available too!
Acknowledgements
I'm grateful to Professor Sophie Havighurst, Ros June, and Caroline Ma at Mindful, The University of Melbourne, for their feedback on the articles and videos in Little people + food (brief & simple). They helped me keep the language plain and the concepts as accessible as possible.
