# how much does your 5 year old child eat?



## moodymaximus (Nov 13, 2007)

i've been trying a food diary, and i'm frankly horrified at how little she eats. btw, any ideas on how to wean her off the milk? she LOVES milk...

breakfast--4-5 spoons of some kind of grain cereal (oatmeal, rice) and a cup of milk.

snack--a slice of apple; some raisins, a couple of nuts, a glass or more of milk

lunch--a peanut butter sandwich, a slice of apple

dinner--several home made baked fries, a slice of chicke breast. 2-3 broccollis.

snacks--raisins, a slice of cheese, milk, milk, milk.

----
she often skips breakfast or another meal as she says she is not hungry. on some days she eats even less. and drinks more milk. the same with her 3 year old brother.

i started out, since she was a baby, with offerring, but never insisting she eats anything. i really like this philosophy. i do often tell her that she doesn't have to eat, if she isn't hungry, and she should eat when she's hungry. but now i find myself telling her more and more to really think whether he wants to eat or not, and hinting that maybe she should finish. i'm not happy with this, but on the other hand i feel she isn't eating.

but maybe i'm just imagining that she should be eating more. i remember never being hungry as a child, and remember seeing every dinner time as torture.

ETA: they both eat more when DH feeds them at dinner--he doesn't force them, but he'd actively feed them, and make it fun. i never feed them. i put food in front of them.


----------



## stayinghome (Jul 4, 2002)

Well, the first thing that pops to mind is how is her weight? Energy level? If she's doing well physically then i would trust that she is eating what she needs. My six year old eats practically nothing for days, then has a day or two when she eats the house down.


----------



## Peony (Nov 27, 2003)

DD1 eats a lot, and she is a very thin little thing, only 33lbs. The child snacks ALL DAY long, it's 10:30am here, she woke up at 7am, she is also sick so she isn't eating like she normally does. But she ate 2 eggs for breakfast, and 3/4 piece of toast for a snack. And as I type she is in getting herself another snack.

It is just different children, she has friends her age that greatly outweigh her, but they don't eat a fraction of what she does. I also do not insist that she eats something. She does love milk but I limit it to one glass a day or else she would be drinking it all day long.


----------



## momoftworedheads (Mar 6, 2003)

My son eat a lot! He is 42" tall and weighs 48 lbs. He is the heaviest of my 3 kids. He can eat a lot though, and I do not mean junk.

Here is a basic day for him:

Breakfast - bowl of cereal (3/4/cup of cereal) with 2% milk,
1 slice of whole grain toast and 1/2 cup of juice

Lunch- varies but his favorite is soup and crackers and carrot sticks with a cup of milk. He also eats 2 afternoon snacks (fruit cup, or cut up fruit, soft pretzels, pita chips and dip, etc)

Dinner- he can eat as much as my DH sometimes. He eats a 4 oz piece of meat (mostly we eat chicken), salad, veggies and a drink.

Snack-cut up veggies or popsicles, sometimes a bowl of ice cream.

He runs and plays all the time and he is really active.

Take care,
Jen


----------



## velochic (May 13, 2002)

Dd is almost 6, and she also doesn't eat as much as I think she should. She goes to school all day. She refuses to eat breakfast, but has a healthy snack at 9:30 that she eats all of every day (a fruit and cheese, for example). Then at lunch at 11:30, she rarely eats much of anything at all. She might eat a cucumber, drink her milk, and take two bites of her ww bagel. Then at 3:00 she is hungry and will eat much of what is left of her lunch (usually a fruit, a protein, a veggie, and a starch) as we drive home from school. We get home at 4:00 and she grazes until dinner (around 6:30 - 7:00), at which time she is usually full from grazing and doesn't want much of dinner. She *might* eat a snack before bed at 9:00, sometimes. She eats very healthfully, and is not picky, but she just doesn't seem to eat much. She is just shy of 4 feet tall and 45lbs., has great energy, but sometimes she gets dark circles under her eyes (she's not a good sleeper, either). She loves milk and we let her drink about 3 servings of milk a day, else it's water. Every kid is different, but every mother still worries.


----------



## ~Megan~ (Nov 7, 2002)

dd eats significantly more than that. However, if your dd is eating what she wants, growing according to her own patterns, and appears to be developing well otherwise I'd just let it go and monitor her.


----------



## happyhippiemama (Apr 1, 2004)

4.5yoDD also drinks a ton of milk. She used to drink even more, but we've been cutting it down gradually for the past few months (her constipation got better too, bonus!!). She was just filling up with milk allllll day long, and didn't eat much at all.

She still doesn't eat a lot, and most of it is snacking, which drives DP crazy, but she's growing fine and doesn't complain about being hungry, so I'm assuming that she's fine.

Breakfast: one waffle, half a banana, glass of milk

Snack: dry cold cereal in a bowl that she grabs on the fly

Lunch: half a bowl of macaroni and cheese, or a hot dog and ketchup, or a sliced apple and a piece of string cheese. and a glass of diluted juice or milk.

Snack: at daycare. varies every day. not pleased with common snacks there (pop-tart, grahams, etc).

After-school snack: a banana, or a couple of clementines, or some leftover macaroni, or...

Dinner: a half-bowl of casserole, a couple bites of veg, a glass of milk

Before bed Snack: fruit and/or yogurt and/or smoothie


----------



## moodymaximus (Nov 13, 2007)

she's 46 inches tall, about 42-45lb. she's never been overly energetic, but she is pretty active. she also sleeps very little and can fight off sleep for a long time, if she knows daddy is coming home, for example.

if she wasn't complaining about nausea and tummy aches, see my other post. but i'm still not sure whether they are REAL, or it is her way of saying she doesn't want to eat or to eat a particular food. i feel awful that i can't figure this out....

like if i give her oatmeal, she would say she is nauseated and her tummy hurts, and she wouldn't eat it. today i blended the same oatmeal with nuts and flax seed, and she said it was the best breakfast ever and she didn't have any nausea or aches....


----------



## moodymaximus (Nov 13, 2007)

how do you limit milk?

we don't drink juices, so it is either milk or water for them. sometimes they'd drink herbal tea with honey. they don't like rice milk at all. nor soya. we tried different brands of soya. there's one they do like, actually, but i'd rather they had a lot of cow's milk, than a lot of soya milk. am i wrong on this?

in the last days, DS has been drinking up to 6 cups of milk per day and refusing other food. but he's fighting a virus, so i hope this is temporary.


----------



## happyhippiemama (Apr 1, 2004)

Limiting milk was TOUGH. She's still probably drinking too much, actually. I think the biggest thing was just pouring her milk into gradually smaller glasses, so she's getting less milk per serving.

DP tends to pour her HUGE glasses of milk, and then wonder why she's not eating!!


----------



## lexbeach (Mar 6, 2002)

I think kids generally know how much to eat. I make sure that there is at least one thing at every meal that my kids like (because they're a little picky), and then I don't worry about. One of my twins eats way more that the other, but they're growing at the same rate (though the twin who eats less is smaller--he's always been smaller).

If I were you I'd try to transition your kids to goat's milk instead of cow's milk. It is more compatible with humans.

And, FYI, my twins (five in Feb) are both 43 inches tall, one weighs 37 pounds, and the other weighs 40 pounds.

Lex


----------



## moodymaximus (Nov 13, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *happyhippiemama* 
Limiting milk was TOUGH. She's still probably drinking too much, actually. I think the biggest thing was just pouring her milk into gradually smaller glasses, so she's getting less milk per serving.

DP tends to pour her HUGE glasses of milk, and then wonder why she's not eating!!









we are on small servings already--tea cups. but we sweaten a bit with maple syrup. the other day our maple syrup ran out, and they drank less of milk. but then DH got us more!


----------



## cdahlgrd (Sep 4, 2002)

I would just tell her that she can have 3 or 4 cups of milk each day. When that is done, she will get something else. She might be angry for a few days, but if you hold tight, she will come to accept it.

Too much milk isn't a good thing, just like too much juice or candy.

If she says she is nauseaus, I would listen to her. It may not be real, but it is good to listen to your kids. If she complains about a tummy ache, I would have her drink tummy mint tea and toast and not any milk for awhile (till afternoon?).


----------



## jillmamma (Apr 11, 2005)

As far as limiting milk, what my parents used to do is only let us have some to drink at mealtimes, then we could have one refill, and if we were still thirsty after that, we had water. Between meals was water, and maybe one cup of juice a day. I bet if you do something like that, and keep offering healthy foods at mealtimes and snacks available between meals, she will do just fine. My 5 year old is the opposite...he won't even touch cow's milk. He is a picky eater too, but eats a pretty good amount of the foods he likes. He just drinks water all the time.


----------

