Snack Question--What Do You Usually Serve?

[SilverSabre25]

I get so tired of planning out 15 meals and 10 snacks a week. Meals I'm mostly okay with, but it's the darn snacks that keep getting me the most annoyed. I feel like I get stuck in ruts of the same types of things (crackery thing and a fruit or veggie, for example) snack after snack, day after day. I need new ideas. Morning snacks in particular throw me through a loop for some reason because I have a harder time coming up with things that feel like appropriate "morning snack" foods, iykwim. I serve Breakfast, AM snack, lunch, PM snack.

[AfterSchoolMom]

Do your snacks have to include certain food groups? What ages do you have?

[SilverSabre25]

My snacks don't HAVE to include anything in particular as I'm not on the food program, but I do try to keep those guidelines in mind when planning. I tend to give water to drink with snack, and prefer to keep in that way, and we avoid juice and sweets most of the time (I'm okay with once a week or so).

I have 14 months through 3 years. No major allergies.

[AnythingsPossible]

What is your time span between breakfast and lunch? I don't offer a morning snack, because it seems if they have a morning snack, they don't eat a good lunch. The only times we do morning snack is when everyone has already eaten breakfast before they get here...very rare occasion!
For morning snack, I think crackers and such work best. They don't need a lot, maybe half a banana, cut up and apple for them. I realize those are the things you are getting tired of, but for mornings, I think they are the best option.
My afternoon snacks are fairly easy as well, and I try to mix them up between quick and easy, and more involved. We have a sweet snack once a week, home made cookies or bars of some kind. My last three weeks of snacks;
Butterscotch cookie and Milk, HM Potato Skins and Cheese, Milk and Granola Bar, Banana and Cinnamon Tortilla, Grape Juice and Muffin, Fun Cereal and Milk, Crackers and Cheese, Smores Bars and Milk, Parmesean Toasts wth Sauce, Soft Pretzel Bites wth Cheese Sauce, Grapes and Cheese Cubes, Apples and yogurt dip, Pretzel Mix up wth Juice, Veggie Sticks with Cottage Cheese, Half Hot Dog wth Fries (we had very light lunch and brkfast this day)

[Lianne]

I don't serve breakfast and I no longer do a morning snack, either. I found that even just serving a small portion of fruit caused the kids to not eat lunch. Most of my kids arrive between 8am and 9am and have just eaten breakfast. They can last til 11:30 when we have lunch. So, I just plan lunches and an afternoon snack each day plus my own dinner. Leftover lunch often becomes my dinner or vice versa. My kids hate interrupting their playtime to sit at the kitchen table for snack so I usually just leave a couple bowls out on our preschool table for them to help themselves. We usually do a grain/carb and a fruit/veg for snack. I use dry cereals a lot because I figure they're probably a bit healthier than crackers. I might put out Chex or Cheerios or Corn Bran, Fish crackers or generic animal crackers, rice cakes, pretzels, popcorn (depending on ages). For fruit, I put out what I have on hand that's not messy - peeled clementines, grapes, blueberries, apples, etc. Sometimes I just put a veggie tray out with some dip. On Fridays I put out whatever produce needs to be used up before the weekend so it's often a mismash of fruits and veggies. The kids' favorite snack is sliced apples and cheese. Sometimes I'll add some crackers but they especially like it if I add pickles/olives and keilbasa. I use segmented vegetable serving trays a lot, they're very handy.

[SilverSabre25]

Mealtimes:
Breakfast 8
snack 10:30
lunch 12:30
snack 3:30

Everyone seems to eat lunch just fine even with having had snack 2 hours previous. I don't do much, but usually try to hit two different food groups to encourage the pickier ones to eat a bigger variety. Part of me wishes I could skip breakfast and AM snack, but with the times that my dcks get here and when my own DD gets up and eats, I know I couldn't manage it. I also don't trust even my late arrivals to have eaten before they get here...

I'm really just looking for more ideas since I feel like I'm in such a rut.

[laundrymom]

I do an 830 snack and an 1130 lunch. Then a 230 snack.

[AnythingsPossible]

Here are 27 snack ideas from my food program workbook.
Milk and Ritz, Cheese and Toasted Bread, Yogurt and Strawberries, Salami/bologna and Triscuit, Apple Juice and Fig Newtons, Eggs and Cantaloupe, Nuggets and Carrot Sticks, Banana and Cinnamon Tortilla, Applesauce and Nilla Wafers, Bread Sticks and Sauce, Apples and PB, Carrot/Celery and Wheat thins, Veg Soup and Crackers, Apple Juice and Granola Bar, biscuit and sausage, english muffin and cheese, hard boiled egg and honeydew, oranges and banana bars, zucchini bread and milk, pineapple and cottage cheese, french fries and hot dogs, pears and cinnamon rolls, milk and brownies, milk and cinnamon toast, bagel and strawberries.
If your interested, I will post more later.

[SoldiersAngels]

Those are great snack ideas!!

[tenderhearts]

My dck love apples with peanut butter, a frozen gogurt & milk , or apples with peanut butter, raisins & milk, or banana and graham crackers and milk, string cheese is a nother favorite served with a fruit and milk.

[ammama]

I don't do breakfast, only morning snack at 9:30 and lunch at 11:30. Morning snack is almost always a hot cereal (oatmeal, red river cereal, cream of wheat, millet, rice pudding etc) with fruit cooked into it, or on the side. The kids like knowing what is coming. I don't think they get bored of it, I don't get any complaints, and it is something nice and warming, especially in the winter

[boysx5]

I do one snack a day here is my list I have one child with a peanut allergry so we do peanut free here

Ritz crackers
Fruit snacks
Nilla wafers
goldfish
pretzels
jello
applesauce
fruit ****tail
fruit roll ups
brownies only if I make them
saltine crackers
graham crackers

[E Daycare]

I make a lot of my own home made snacks and get a lot of my ideas from www.weelicious.com.

Currently Im serving this week:

Home made applesauce with Cinnamon
Home made graham crackers
Yogurt parfait made with vanilla yogurt, chopped up cherries and chopped up kiwi
Lean turkey and wheat crackers
Dried fruit
cottage cheese with mixed fruit
Rice cakes
Strawberries, cantaloupe, pears, avocados, green/red and yellow peppers and cherries.

I always keep on hand:

100 calorie packs of cheese, cheese crackers and cookies
Animal crackers
Whole grain gold fish crackers
Gerber crunchies puffs
Gerber yogurt melts
Gerber fruit snacks
Gerber breakfast bars
Mum Mums

I try to feed the kids as healthy and homemade as possible (since Im already doing so for myself) as to keep the sugar at bay but sometimes the kids are picky so I keep the other snacks on hand for fussy days. Weelicious is awesome!

[WImom]

Never heard of Weelicious. Love the site. Thanks for posting it.

I will be trying some new receipes this week from there. I feel like my kids and dc kids eat too many crackers.

[AfterSchoolMom]

Frozen yogurt tubes
Mini bagels with PB/butter/honey/jelly/apple butter/cream cheese/whatever
cut up bananas, apples, or melon
trail mix
goldfish crackers
muffins
carrots or celery with dip
Apples with yogurt dip
granola bars
yogurt with fruit and granola
waffles
toast
animal crackers with yogurt dip
mini PB and J - use a cookie cutter to make bite sized pieces - 2 sandwiches can serve several this way (really any sandwich would work)
turkey pepperoni
cheese cubes
string cheese
graham crackers
mini pizzas (made with english muffins)


That's all I've got for now. Hope this helps!