Within our Special on Infant Feeding in Babies and more we want to make special reference to one of the most important meals of the day: The snack
The snack has a very important role in the correct feeding of children, who, especially, should make five meals a day and distribute in them the intake of balanced nutrients.
The babies snack
It is usually advised that the babies The fruit is given at snack time. It is a good habit, but not indispensable and more with the little ones, who still need a food on demand and that we must combine it with the breast or artificial milk that we give them.
If at any time you feel like eating something, we can offer you a banana, some apple or pear slices, or an orange that you can reheat in when you stop having problems with solid food.
If we decide to give them the fruit in the snack It is also not necessary to opt for the typical porridge of several fruits daily. I prefer not to mask flavors and give them, as soon as we introduce them over and over, give them only one on each occasion. Vitamins are the same there.
What we should avoid, especially if they breastfeed and are under one year old, is to exchange a shot for a solid meal and offer them the dessert tit. The breast is given on demand, favoring the free access of the child so that he can take it whenever he wants, whether due to hunger, thirst or emotional need, which makes him feel good and keeps the milk production adequate to the demand.
If we do not offer the chest for a snack, we deprive you of an intake that does not compensate for lack of hunger, we lose the stimulus to the chest and we are changing a caloric and concentrated food for another that, although necessary, is not the basis of your diet . Therefore, snack of course, but not in exchange for tit.
With the bottle the amount of milk is usually better controlled, but as some children eat more than others and require more milk, it would also have to continue prioritizing the shots of milk over complementary feeding, always depending on how the child evolves and its appetite.
Children's snack: fruit
In the afternoon they will need a supply of energy and liquids that allow them to arrive at dinner time, have a good blood sugar level and be active to continue playing or learning.
Yes the children they stay to eat at school, at the time of programming, we must take into account the school menu, just as if they eat at home we will do it, but with special attention to whether they eat enough at school or food, rather, it is Unattractive to them in the dining room.
A great snack would be, in principle, varied fruit. Of the different fruits, the banana is very helpful because you can also eat quietly while you play or walk.
However, finding that half hour to have a quiet snack, chatting about the day or telling stories, is a moment of rest and communication that, being longer, allows you to eat more slowly.
A good snack would be a banana with strawberries, an apple with nuts, a pear and a tangerine, hazelnuts and a custard apple, an orange and a peach ... looking for the combination of a refreshing fruit with many vitamins and fiber with another that has greater concentration of natural fats or sugars.
I am the snack I have always given my son. Moreover, at meals he does not eat dessert fruit, nor does he like it, does not feel like it or feels good, so the fruit we eat it in the middle of the morning and in the afternoon snack, and in the main meals we include raw vegetables in salad or gazpachos Many times we make two snacks, one of fruit and another with pancakes or cookies with milk, if the food has been very early as usually happens.
But that already depends on each family, the important thing is that the diet is balanced throughout the day and that if one day we skip something, we compensate the next, and distribute the intakes doing a healthy snack in the afternoon.
In the next article we offer you some ideas about healthy snacks with dairy, protein and sweets.
