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Around the time my son turned 2, I realized that I was struggling with staying on track eating healthy. I wondered what had changed and then it hit me, it was the snacks.
I was so excited that my baby was now eating “real” food so I was stocking our pantry for our budding toddler. I thought if it’s not doughnuts or cookies then were are good. Since then my definition of healthy has changed to real food that is minimally processed and low in sugar and natural foods.
This is how my journey began of not only encouraging healthy snacking for my kids but also for myself and getting out of the sugary snack food rut.
I’m Hungry
As my kids get older the one thing I hear all the time is, “Mom, I’m hungry!” Like ALL the time! I hear this even if they just ate dinner. Snacking all day is definitely not a habit I want to encourage or include in my budget.
There are some exceptions like growth spurts and what not but more often then not, “I’m hungry!” really means “I’m bored!”
So here are some of my tips and tricks to getting my kids to eat healthy snacks.
12 Tips and Tricks to Healthy Snacking for Your Kids
- Substitute cookies and unhealthy crackers with cut up fresh fruit and vegetables.
- Read the labels on your juice drinks. We like Ocean Spray® Organic 100% Juice because it’s natural and healthy and it has no sugar added.
- Set a scheduled time for snacks. This really helped us because whenever my kids got bored guess what they wanted to do? Yes, they wanted a snack.
- Drink water.
- Balanced food options at meal time. My kids love eating cereal for breakfast and if it was up to them we would have cereal every day. One day I noticed that when they did eat the high in sugar cereal they were complaining about being hungry 45 minutes later.
- Have other healthy & protein packed food options readily available. Things like sliced turkey meat, pepperoni, peanuts, chick peas (they are great baked).
- Have your child pack healthy snacks to school. This gets them thinking about snacks in a healthy way outside of your home.
- Don’t bring lots of processed and high in sugar food home. It’s as simple as not buying it, leave it on the shelf. If it’s around your house it will get eaten.
- Make it homemade. You want fries, muffins make them homemade instead of buying them.
- Have snacks in snack size baggies. Having the snacks available in little baggies will give your kids easy access to the healthy snacks.
- Turn your kids into “kid chefs” by getting them to help prepare the snacks.
- Sneak in the fruits and veggies into smoothies! My favorite combination is a handful of spinach and berries.
I made this great list of healthy snacks for you to print off and put on your fridge so when your kids come home from school and stand at the fridge for 15 minutes and declare there’s nothing to eat you can just point them to the list.
Healthy Snack Ideas for Kids FREE printable!
Get Your FREE 25 Healthy Snack Ideas for Kids printable
Click on this link Healthy Snack Ideas for Kids to get your FREE printable. You click on the link then you can immediately print it off or download it and save it to print in the future.
You can find Ocean Spray® Organic 100% Juice in the drinks/juice aisle at your local Redner’s food store in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. I used a $2.00 off coupon for greater savings. They have a variety of flavors like cranberry, cranberry apple, and my favorite cranberry blueberry. I personally love that Ocean Spray® 100% Juice Organic Cranberry contains no added sugar, preservatives, or artificial flavors, just goodness in every sip. It’s fresh from the farm! You can find them on Facebook and Twitter!
