how many snacks a day?

[newmom11]

i have a 14 month old son who has always been on a one snack a day routine.  it was always an afternoon snack after he woke up from his nap, but i've noticed that he seems to be getting hungrier more frequently.  he can sign eat, so sometimes when he's fussy, i've noticed that he will sign eat, so i feed him a snack and it seems to cure his fussiness, so i legitimately think he is hungry.  even in the mornings now, it seems that he wants to eat breakfast right after he's done with his milk where as before he would drink his milk, play for about an hour and then eat breakfast.  i realize that at this age, they are more distracted when they eat, so they may not be consuming as much as before at each meal, but i was curious about how many snacks a day is appropriate? i am not one to want him to snack all day, is two snacks a day (an am and a pm snack) too many? right now, his schedule is as follows:

7am - sippy of milk
7:30/7:45 - breakfast
10:00 - snack -although this is the first week i've actually started routinely giving him a snack, before he never seemed to need one
12 - lunch
3:30 - sippy of milk
4 - snack
6:30 - dinner
7:45 - bottle of milk before bed

i was just wondering how many snacks most of you feed your toddlers?  and how do you decide how much of a snack to give them?  any good snack ideas?  i try to do only one carb snack a day. 

[lilmonkey]

Two snacks sounds ok to me.  If your lo is hungry and I don't see any harm in feeding him.  If you are concern about the snacks affecting his meals, then you might want to space out the snacks so that he will be hungry to eat a proper meal.  In our household, if the children are hungry, I give them a snack.  Our snacks consist of veggies, fruits, yogurt smoothies, whole wheat crackers, cheese, even some luncheon meats.  Our current favorite is a banana wrapped in a tortilla with jam.

HTH

[speechie]

I do an AM/PM snack with my 13 mo DS- He's voracious, never refuses meals and definitely gets crabby about 2 hours after meals- so, I think 2 healthy snacks are OK too.
We do raisins, fruit, whole wheat toast, yogurt, cheese, veggies, Kix/cheerios/chex...

[15milner]

2 snacks a day here too.  He has breakfast at 8am, around 30mins after I fed him (after all he last ate at 5.30pm, so going until 7.30 the following day is a LONG time, I certainly don't go 14hours between dinner and breakfast!)

A snack around 10.  Usually some milk and a little fruit.
Lunch 11.45
sleep
snack at 3.30ish when we get back from collecting big brother from school, either milk/bf and a lowsugar biscuit like a richtea / dried fruit /
tea 5.45

[Antoinesmom]

We have two snacks here too for a long time.

For the size of the snacks it of course increased with age a little bit, I have to keep an eye day to day. Some days (mostly during growth spurs) he'll eat a big snack and big meals (toddler size meals of course) and most days I need to give a smaller snack or the main meal is affected.

marty

[Mama2boys]

We did 2 snacks as well at that age, and ahve move dto 1 snack only after about 18 months...