What do you do for snacks?

My babies are almost 1 so I'll be using this board more often now.... I've gotten in the routine of giving them graham crackers and easy stuff (non-healthy) like that for snacks because it's just, well, easy. But I am wondering what others do for snacks? They're eating all the food we eat at meal times, so they can pretty well eat anything if it is soft enough or small enough. Any suggestions for healthy snacks?

 

We mostly eat carbs for snacks -- muffins, crackers, goldfish... I do make bran muffins and pumpkin bread and stuff like that, so it's not just carbs, but it's primarily carbs. It's just much easier to prepare, and snacks tend to be eaten very fast (like 3 minutes), so it hardly seems worth spending a lot of time on.

 

My girls have the goldfish, crackers, etc., but I also cut up fruit. I just cut up a few strawberries, raspberries, or a banana....they love their fruit.

 

mine eat a lot of fruit, cheese and crackers for snacks. Fruit, I do bannanas, strawberrys, grapes (a big favorite), blueberries etc. I also like the gerber graduate cheese crackers (they are yummy) and cut up cheese. Sometimes if I have pasta in the fridge, they get that too. I am not real strict on it - they get what ever I come across in the pantry

 

Some combo of a fruit, carb, and protein. Examples:

cheese, strawberries, graham cracker
turkey bologna, mandarin oranges, goldfish crackers
cheese, grapes, cracker

I always give Grace milk with her snacks as well. I give Lily milk with her morning snack and 1/2 juice 1/2 water with her afternoon snack (she loves juice, Grace doesn't).

 

We do pretty much the same as above but yogurt sometimes as well.

This is messy, but mine love graham crackers with Polaner Allfruit spread on and broken into bite-size pieces.

I give a water sippy with snacks since they do so well with milk at every meal.

 

Whole grain cheerios were a favorite, and there are some rice cake type things we always gave them at that age called Baby Mum-Mums (can't remember the brand name). Those are good for fibre. We did a lot of berries and cut up fruit (bananas, apple, grapes--all cut up small; also canned peaches in their own juice and pears are good as well). I also grated cheddar cheese on the smallest size to make little "cheese worms" for them. Our grocery store also had mini muffins and they still love their carrot muffins. Lots of good ideas on this thread!

 

Welch's Fruit Snacks (or as they are known in my house "squishies")

Keebler Bug Bites (thin, flat graham crackers in the shape of bugs)

Cheese

yogurt (yoplait makes some thick, stick-to-the-spoon kind)

cinnamon-raisen bread

bananas, grapes, canned mandarin oranges, apples

apple sauce

 

We do crackers, cheese, cereal, cereal bars. Mine really like the Club cracker sticks.

 

Maybe I'm lazy, but for snacks I like stuff that I can give them & don't have to feed them. So we do a lot of:

bananas

cut up avacado

noodles

low sodium crackers

mandarin oranges, or any orange segments

cheerios

peas

frozen yogurt popsicles (I make them myself, but they are messy!)

cut up sandwich meat

 

We often do snacks "on the run"... outside, in the stroller, in the car, etc. So, I usually prepare a bag (those snack-sized ziplocs) of a trail mix sort of thing... raisins, whole grain cheerios, graham crackers, rice cakes... anything on hand that I can toss in the bag. I've been trying less processed/more natural snacks lately and have found some great things at Whole Foods and Trader Joes. My kids have gotten into soy crisps and veggie chips lately.

Also, someone on here mentioned that they give their kids bagels and that keeps them busy for awhile if they are snacking while shopping. I tried that and it went over really well. I got some whole grain cinnamon raisin bagels from a local bakery and my kids loved picking them apart and eating them.

If we are home, I try to do fruit and/or yogurt as a snack since they get a lot of carbs during other snack times. Cheese is hit-or-miss at our house... but I try to offer it regularly.