If you allow your kid to snack between meals, which is usually unavoidable, ensure that the snacks are healthy, tasty, and nutritious. Snacks should be tailored to the child’s age and ability to chew food. Here are several healthy and nutritious snack ideas for babies and toddlers.
Fruit and Vegetables
For a baby who is just learning to eat on its own, you can give a piece of banana, soft, ripe peach, or apricot to its hand. When the baby already chews well, cut an apple, a pear, or even a melon or strawberry into pieces. Such healthy snacks for children contain a lot of water, thanks to which they hydrate the body. For babies who are just getting to know new flavors, fruit or fruit and vegetable mousses are a good snack. They can be easily prepared at home or bought ready-made in handy packaging. Raw vegetables are too hard for infants. Therefore, vegetable snacks, e.g., cauliflower, broccoli, or carrot, should be cooked semi-hard and then divided into pieces. Older babies can handle raw, small pieces of vegetables. As a snack for a baby who is already biting harder pieces, choose various vegetables cut into sticks and slices, e.g., kohlrabi, pepper, and cucumber.
For a baby who is just learning to eat on its own, you can give a piece of banana, soft, ripe peach, or apricot to its hand. When the baby already chews well, cut an apple, a pear, or even a melon or strawberry into pieces.
If your little one doesn’t like veggies, you can encourage him to eat carrots, peppers, and broccoli by serving them in an unusual way. Just cut them into thin sticks and serve with a dip, for example, the one based on Greek yogurt with herbs.
Homemade Cereal Bars
Made from the best organic baby cereal, nuts, and dried fruits, they are a great alternative to sweet bars from the store. These are nutritious, wholesome, healthy snacks for kids, after which the toddler will have the strength to continue walking and playing in the fresh air.
We especially recommend oatmeal bars, which may work as a snack or a second breakfast. Just combine oatmeal with nuts, seeds, and dried fruit, add a little honey or maple syrup, and bake the whole thing in the oven. After it has cooled, cut it into small portions.
Crispy Snacks
Six-month-old infants can put corn chips in their mouths, and slightly older ones bite them. The corn crisps are easy to digest and satisfy hunger for some time. Children can reach not only for corn crisps but also wafers made with rice, corn, and the addition of other cereals. The advantage of such a snack for a baby or toddler is that you can take it with you for a walk or a trip because it does not spoil in high temperatures.
Yogurt and Cottage Cheese
Yogurts are very convenient and healthy snacks for babies, provided they are unsweetened. The healthiest choice is natural yogurt and natural cheese. You can add whole or mixed pieces of fruit to them, making them sweeter. Thanks to this, you can avoid unnecessary and unhealthy dyes, preservatives, and sweeteners. Infants must not be given ready-made flavored yogurts and cheese.
You can also check the offer of Organic’s Best shop to choose the baby formula for your little one. These products can be given to infants and toddlers.
A Mix of Nuts
Almonds, cashews, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts, and walnuts are delicious and healthy. They are a great source of unsaturated fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals. If you have an older kid, be sure to serve him nuts as a snack as often as possible. The ingredients contained in them have a great effect on the work of the brain and facilitate learning and remembering.
Six-month-old infants can put corn chips in their mouths, and slightly older ones bite them. The corn crisps are easy to digest and satisfy hunger for some time.
Hummus
Hummus is a chickpea paste from the Middle East. Its specific taste may appeal to your child (especially if he likes sesame). Aside from chickpeas, hummus includes lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, and tahini paste. Serve the dip with pita bread or fresh vegetables (carrots, peppers, cucumbers, celery) cut into sticks.
Pizza Muffins
Do you have a little pizza lover at home? Bake pizza muffins that are great as a lunch or picnic snack. Add dried oregano, paprika, salt, pepper, and toppings (fried mushrooms, ham, onion, cheese, etc.) to the muffin batter. Small pizza-flavored cupcakes can be taken anywhere instead of with sandwiches.
