The Importance of Meal & Snack Time Structure for Kids

Scheduling regular times for eating opportunities (meals and snacks) for your little one (usually after about 14-16 months of age) can make a world of difference when feeding your child.

.Parents play a fundamental role in setting up the environment at children’s mealtimes which influence their early interactions, learning and experiences with food. Creating a positive mealtime environment goes a long way to setting children up with a good foundation of eating patterns, intuitive eating skills and a positive relationship with food, which sets them up to thrive both physically and mentally throughout childhood and into adulthood! Positive mealtimes, and therefore children’s eating patterns and behaviours cannot be optimised without a regular structure to their eating times.

The Benefits of Having a Meal & Snack Time Structure
There has been a lot of research on children benefiting from routine. Routines create predictability and help children to feel secure in their day. Having a feeding schedule builds upon this daily structure. If children know what to expect when it comes to eating and when to expect meals and snacks it can be really helpful for keeping them relaxed about food and improve their eating behaviour.

One of the important roles of the parent or carer when it comes to feeding their child/ren, is deciding WHEN children eat. Without structured eating times and when food is freely available between meals, children can learn to disconnect from feelings of true hunger and fullness and start saying ‘I'm hungry’ and want to eat when they are feeling bored, overwhelmed, when watching TV or doing homework. Eating can become associated with feelings and activities instead of hunger and enjoyment.

A lack of structure with eating opportunities can also lead to children coming to the table with an appetite level not conducive for eating well. For children to be most willing to try new foods, or eat the amount that is right for them and build intuitive eating skills (ie eat when they're hungry and stop when they're full), they need to turn-up to the meal or snack with a healthy appetite. But without structure, they will often come to the table without much appetite at all as a result of snacking at the wrong times between meals. Parents can also lose track of the time since kids have last eaten and run the risk of them becoming too hungry or ‘h-angry'! This increases the likelihood they will misbehave, be contrary, complain or whine about the food, have a meltdown as they will be less in control of their emotions. This almost never results in eating well and developing positive eating patterns. When too hungry, they are unlikely to try new foods, they may not eat at all (stress can diminish appetite) or they may overeat as they will be unable to easily notice and stop when they're feeling full.

Structure with eating helps children to learn how to effectively manage their hunger and self-regulate intake, develop self-control and avoid the dangers of mindless eating or eating on the absence of hunger. They will feel more secure about food, and no longer associate food with other activities. A healthy appetite will support their willingness to try new foods. Regular and consistent eating times will help prevent kids becoming too hungry and the associated negative behaviour and poor eating.
 
So, knowing the importance of setting a meal and snack time structure for your little one’s eating times you can now set a schedule for your family!


What to Consider
There are several important considerations to make when setting the times for your little-one’s eating times, the most important being your child/ren’s age. While babies and toddlers typically need to eat every 2-3 hours (5-6 times per day – 3 meals and 2-3 snacks), older kids do well with 3-4 hour gaps between meals and snacks (4-5 times per day- 3 meals and 2 snacks).

In order for consistency, it is also important to consider the eating times of school, kindergarten or childcare if your child attends. As the eating times at school etc is regular and not modifiable,  it is recommended to continue with these times on the days your child is home also.

An example :
For a 7 year old attending school where eating times are 1100 & 1330, the home meal schedule could be:

Breakfast-730am
(for younger children, you may add in a snack around 930)
Snack-1100
Lunch-1330
Snack-1600
Dinner 1815.

Every child is very different, and there is no hard and fast rule for exactly how many eating occasions your child should have. So it's important to evaluate your own child and see what works best for you and for them. Consistency is key though.

There are other important considerations to make, all of which I cover and guide my clients through making as part of my Nourishing Children – 1:1 Coaching Package (along with many other things to take the stress and worry out of feeding kids).
If you feel that individualised support will help you optimise your feeding-style and therefore improve your child/ren's eating, get in touch.

How to get started
There are other important considerations to make, all of which I cover and guide my clients through making as part of my Nourishing Children – 1:1 Coaching Package.
If you feel that individualised support will help you optimise your feeding-style and therefore improve your child/ren's eating, get in touch.

To get started with setting up structure for your family, you can download my ‘Family Meal & Snack Time Structure’ template for you to fill in and begin seeing the benefits of a consistent meal time schedule and know you are taking an important step for supporting the optimal development of eating behaviours and patterns for your child/ren.

After setting your family’s meal and snack time structure, it is important to let your child know that there will be some changes and that there will not be any eating in between set meal and snack times from now on.
Having a solid mealtime structure is a powerful strategy for improving eating behaviour, but sometimes it means you have to say no to food requests. You could have your family’s mealtime structure up somewhere within their sight such as on the fridge or in the pantry so that when they ask for food between meals, you can gently remind them when the next eating occasion will be, and show them your structured mealtimes up on the fridge. My '3-Step Response to Food Requests' is a responsive way to remind your children of the set mealtimes. Following these steps will help to maintain consistency and keep your feeding-style in-line with the most optimal Diplomatic feeding-style.


Good luck with setting and being consistent with meal and snack times for your family.

Be sure to let us know how you go with this in my new private Facebook group 'Nourishing Children" where you will be supported and inspired by other parents on the same feeding journey and get other tips and tricks from myself to help make feeding your little-ones a bit less stressful.

Alysha