A sample meal and snack schedule for toddlers

Let’s be honest - if your toddler is NOT asking for snacks all day long, are they really even a toddler?!

Jokes aside, it can be difficult to know how much and how often to feed your toddler every day.

How much should they be eating? How often should they eat? What if they don’t eat anything at a meal and then ask for a snack 10 minutes later?

As a pediatric occupational therapist and mom of two, I have experience working with hundreds of children (as well as my own two!) and their families on all things feeding - determining the best feeding schedule, navigating picky eating, what to do when a child refuses to eat, etc.

Here is a recommended meal and snack schedule for toddlers (ages 1-4):

*Note: This sample schedule is geared to healthy, typically-developing children with no known feeding-related medical or developmental diagnoses. Always check with your child’s medical provider before making any changes to their feeding regimen.

8:00-8:30am Breakfast

*Optional 10:30am Morning Snack

12:00-12:30pm Lunch

3:00-3:30pm Afternoon Snack

5:30-6:00pm Dinner

Definition of a “meal” and a “snack”:

Meal” - Food served at a generally set time of day (ie. breakfast, lunch, or dinner), ideally at the table, and with 2-3 food options/items on the plate.

“Snack” - Food served in between meals, at a generally set time of day (ie. afternoon). Can be served at the table or in another place in your home. Can be 1-2 food options/items served at once.

If your child is used to snacking all day long, shifting to set meal and snack times may take some getting used to, but it is SO important. Why? Having a meal and snack schedule is so beneficial for both your child AND for you.

Here is why it is important to follow a set meal and snack schedule with your toddler:

1. Following a set meal/snack schedule helps you structure your toddler’s overall daily routine using feeding times as the base. You can then structure other parts of the day around these eating times. Without a set feeding schedule, your toddler’s day will feel chaotic and they will most likely ask for food all day long - which gets exhausting! - and you will have a difficult time doing anything else aside from eating.

2. Following a set meal/snack schedule helps your toddler learn the true feeling of hunger and fullness. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I believe it’s okay (and actually a good thing) for children to feel the sensation of hunger and not have it “fixed” immediately. This is actually how we teach them to tune into their bodies as adults. Hunger is not a “bad” sensation. If they never learn to feel hunger (because of constant snacking), they actually lose this intuitive skill. A toddler can and SHOULD have periods of 2-3 hours in between food consumption. The human body (including children) was not designed to be constantly eating all day. In fact, constant snacking contributes to poor digestion (the body will never get into that important “rest and digest” state if it’s constantly processing new food) AND, more importantly, leads to decreased consumption at mealtimes. 

3. Following a set meal/snack schedule helps your toddler establish a healthy relationship with food (something we all want!) because they learn to tune in to true hunger cues more easily. While you do not live inside of your child’s body and therefore can never truly know if they are hungry or full, constant snacking leads to their body actually never feeling truly hungry or full. They’re in a less than ideal half-full/half-hungry middle-ground state.

4. Following a set meal/snack schedule helps your toddler eat better at meals. They actually have a chance to build up enough hunger before a mealtime. The number one reason that a child doesn’t eat “well” at meals is simply because they are not hungry because they have been snacking too frequently!

5. Following a set meal/snack schedule helps prepare your toddler for a school/daycare day (if applicable). At all childcare programs, meals and food are offered on a schedule. Children are not allowed to snack all day and if that is their norm at home, it becomes more difficult to thrive within the school setting.

As a reminder- there will always be exceptions! Having a set meal/snack time is a boundary you should be holding the MAJORITY of the time (on an average, run-of-the-mill day), but it doesn’t have to be 100% of the time. There will be days where the meal/snack schedule will go out the window. Travel days, special occasions, or illness are times when it is totally okay to get off-course. Remember, the beauty of establishing routines around food/mealtimes is that you simply jump right back in afterwards!