Snack ideas for 12 - 18 month olds

I need some fresh ideas for snacks for my 2 little ones - I'm getting tired of the same things over and over and I bet they are too! What do your littlest people enjoy for snacks (and lunches too)??

I have a 13 month old and a 16 month old. They enjoy cheese cut into cubes, soda crackers (with or without peanut butter on top), buttered graham crackers, toasted raisen bread cut into strips, also any kid of toast for that matter. any fruits (although my little ones arent really into fruit a whole lot) cut into little pieces, obviously yogurt and applesauce, but i dont have teh time to hand feed them both everyday LOL. Also they like the Laughing Cow cream cheese things. Cooked pasta that I have left over makes a good snack too.

Honestly, I keep all meals (snacks and lunches) healthy and simple...

Snacks: yogurt with fruit, cheerios with cheese or fruit, crackers with fruit etc (always give different fruit so it's different everyday for a few weeks)

Lunches: whole wheat bread, pasta or rice. Tuna, meat balls, chicken, peanut butter, beans or hummus etc. Sweet potato, peas, carrots, green beans etc And fruit, blueberries, strawberries, melon, pineapple, mango etc

I know it sounds extremely simple and plain to us, but for the little ones I find as long as each of the food groups is different as often as possible, then they get enough variety to satisfy them.

What do you usually give them?

Like KingstonMom, mostly any kind of finger foods :)

They get applesauce, cheese, yogurt, Breton crackers, pears, peaches, bananas, fruit cups. Those are the usual snacks for the little ones around here! Just looking for some new ideas!

I usually do fruit, yogurt or organic applesauce or sliced cucumbers, and then serve it with the following -->

• Teddy grahams,
• ritz with laughing cow spread on them,
• animal crackers,
• organic oatmeal cookies,
• organic cereal bars (President's Choice brand)
• Organic Abc vanilla crackers (sold at walmart, Zehrs or Superstore) made by Earth's Best. Great way to do snack time and talk about what letters they have
• honey graham squares
• Cheese cubed up
• Fruit muffins
• Banana bread (kids love it)
• goldfish crackers (they have coloured ones now too so great to talk about colours and they have no artificial colours), they also have pretzel goldfish now and whole grain

There are lots of ways you can get creative with presentation....

ie. for christmas make a 'candy cane' for the kids by layering strawberry and banana slices into the shape of a candy cane

Use kiwi pieces to make leaves on a palm tree that has a trunk made out of cheese or a bread stick or banana half...

When I think that the snacks are starting to look the same every day I surprise them and bake fresh muffins or banana bread during snack.

Morning snacks are very often like small breakfasts. peice of bagel with fruit. Apples and a graham cracker. Cheerios and strawberries. Some mornings I'll make pancakes. Yogurt, Apples sause etc. I let my 15 and 19 month olds go at it with a full front bib on and a spoon. They think it's a hoot when they get all covered in yogurt.

We feed these kids 5 days a week, 2 snacks a day. That's 10 snacks a week! I don't think kids get bored as quickly as we do.

I don't think they actually get bored very easy with foods, but I do think it's important to introduce them to a variety of foods so they learn to like many things (if you start them young they will eat anything...really... anything!). I serve many different fruits as the main part of snacks, but also tomatoes, avacado and cucumber if they have enough teeth (cut of really small). Then there is yogurt, applesauce, different kinds of cereals, muesli pitas, muffins, crackers, rice cakes, hummus with pita, hmmm...can't remember what else but I think those are the main things. I serve the same snack to everyone pretty much with a few exceptions like raw apples which I don't give to the little ones. I just serve softer foods to everyone...it works fine.

How about yoghurt covered raisins, cranraisins, bagels/English muffins with cream cheese, muffins, nutrigrain bars dry cereal or boiled eggs. I serve fruit with lunch and aft snack so if I don't give fruit at am snack then I'm not overly concerned.

To save time when I give pancakes as a snack, I make a huge batch and let them cool. Once cooled I place them between wax paper then place in a large ziploc bag and into the freezer they go. Then rather than standing and cooking pancakes at snack time I just pull out the number of pancakes I need from the freezer and pop them in the toaster. Very quick way of doing it while being able to control the ingredients that go into making them.

I freeze my muffins and banana bread in slices also so I never have to wait an extended period of time for them to defrost as they are in individual portions. I serve these sometimes with fruit and sometimes without. I generally pack my baked goods full of fruit and veggies and that way snack time doesnt take a long time or involve a lot of clean up but the kids are still getting lots of healthy goodness.

I think the snacks and lunches look the same here too but it is because they are made the same in that it there is a limit to what is in each catagory. For instance mine love pasta so while the shape might be different there are still noodles on the plate. The fruit well cut up pears and apples are both white, add in some cubes of mozzerella cheese and while a nutritious snack plate it sure looks boring but the bright pink and orange plates help. Same with crackers. Possible to serve cheese and crackers every day but using a different kind of cracker makes it a different meal. It is more the limits we have based on palette in that kids like things simple compared to adults who experiment with various spices and sauces and combos. Chicken is still chicken but we make it different each time for us. If parents would serve more of those meals to kids it would be a big help. On the other hand serving bare noodles and cubes of meat is so much easier to clean up that serving spagetti. I leave those kinds of meals for the parents to serve so they can follow supper with bathtime.