Is your child a grazer?

Yeah, my kids seem to always be hungry, especially the little ones. The older ones I tell them no, make them wait until mealtime, otherwise I'd be out of food! But the little ones usually help themselves to whatever happens to be in reach (I leave a lot of stuff on top of the chest freezer due to lack of cupboard space). They seem to spend all afternoon snacking non-stop. Makes me wonder where they put it all!

Your daughter is probably putting out a lot of extra calories in play and so her body is compensating by causing her to be hungry more frequently. My daughter goes through similar phases where she is hungry all the time and then I'm just so thankful that she's agreeing to eat real food and not just fast food. When she gets really hungry and can't seem to get full no matter what she eats, I serve pasta noodle based meals and find that she doesn't get hungry for at least three hours before she needs food again. The pasta provides the carb energy that her body needs and she never complains about being hungry. There are 101 creative ways to prepare noodles including mac and cheese.

Mine do most of the day. But they don't just sit infront of the tv constantly eating or anything. But everytime I turn around they have a piece of string cheese, iced tea... something. Wich is ok I know they need to eat and they are growing but YEASH! It's not good for me to be around them snacking cause then I want to nibble too!

Yup. Although all my kids tend to snack throughout the day, my middle daughter shares my metabolism (or at least what I used to have) and my appetite. We can eat a meal but an hour later she's hungry again. It is said that eating several small meals/snacks throughout the day is better than eating 3 large meals a day. Perhaps that's why I never used to gain weight as a kid and teen. My friends in high school used to joke that every single time they saw me in the hallway I had food (junk food usually) in my hand. My daughter is the same way...eat eat eat, but not gain a thing!

Oh yeah, since it has gotten warm outside it is both my two children and my nieces that have wanted to do this. Of course, it doesn't really work out for them because I don't keep a lot of junk in my house at all. I keep lunch food and breakfast food in the house and some healthy snacks in the house, but whatever it is that they are wanting to munch on, it is typically never something that I have available in the house.