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What Age Do Your Kids REALLY Begin Eating You out of house and home?


Gil
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115 members have voted

  1. 1. What age did your kid begin REALLY eating?

    • 2-4
      5
    • 5-7
      5
    • 8-10
      14
    • 11-13
      63
    • 14-16
      13
    • 17-19
      1
    • my kids don't eat much at all.
      14


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For my son, 14-16. It is staggering how much he grew and changed in those years, and he can put away some food. My DD never did eat unusually much. My youngest doesn't eat especially much.

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Well FWIW, my older kid is not in sports and he tries to move as little as possible.  It doesn't work.

 

:laugh:

Of course he doesn't have the energy for sports or physical activity--you're clearly not feeding him enough, duh.

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Since about age 5, my older kids have been going through months-long phases of eating huge amounts of food, but they seem to drop back to more moderate eating habits eventually. My oldest (who is almost 12) has been in his current (insatiable) phase since the summer, so this may be the beginning of the end. 

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When my DS was 18 months old a typical breakfast was: scrambled eggs, full slice of toast, a tangerine, a slice of cheese, a banana, and a cup of milk. We never experienced "toddlers live on air" or "go through picky phases" like people claimed. His appetite keeps increasing, so I probably won't notice a sudden leap--he's slowly easing me in!

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2 boys both on the petite side.  Eldest is about to be 16 and his eating (and growth) took off 12-13ish. Younger boy just turned 11 and I'm still not seeing it. Older boy eats more than he did when was younger (obviously) but less than during those big growth years. Now he eats sort of a normal serving.

 

FWIW, both boys never ate a whole lot, but when my older boy started to grow it was truly amazing to see. We kept shoveling hummus and hard boiled eggs and greek yogurt down him, and he kept growing, lol.  However, I saw many of his female friends of the same age eat a whole lot more than my boys do. My boys are ballet dancers so they spend a lot of time with girls, and those petite ballet dancing girls eat like horses!

 

So, it's not just a boy thing. Both boys and girls eat more when they are going through a growth spurt.

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Since 2yo. My kids were always first and last at the snack table at Mommy and Me classes. Our pastor's wife told me recently that even when my kids were little, they were always counted as adults when an event involved food! â˜ºï¸ They mostly eat healthy though. Well...except for all the baked goods they make and eat almost daily!

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I always wonder how some people get away with having a whole crew of small eaters. It doesn't seem fair.

 

We go out to eat on special occasions perhaps a couple times a year and invariably we get comments on how much my boys put down. They scrape their plates clean and have done so since they were about 6 even when ordering adult meals at restaurants. Then they would fight over my left overs. By 6 they would have bouts of eating more than an adult working male but then it would drop back down to a more reasonable amount but my current 16 year old is impossible to feed. He will eat 2-3 times as much as my husband and I for dinner. Bike to TKD and back and eat another large dinner. The only way he can sleep through the night is to have a protein heavy snack right before bed. He eats a bowl of peanut butter with nuts, seeds, honey, raisons or whatever to get him through the night. If he forgets he wakes at three in the morning hungry again. Then he will be rattling around the kitchen making breakfast sandwiches. I don't know how people with peanut allergies survive the teen years. Carbs are digested in the blink of an eye and meat is way too expensive to fill up on.

 

It seems like those of us with these ridiculous metabolism(always hungry, ridiculously thin, and weak and shaky if we don't eat) wouldn't have survived to pass on the genes in earlier times.

 

My daughter takes after my husband though and has to carefully watch how much she eats. Wish things were a little more even around here.

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I don't even like to think about this.  My kids eat about twice as much as any other kid I know with one exception (the crazy athletic kid next door).  We go through so much food, and it's not junk food, just regular, meat, veggies, and fruit.  SO. MUCH. FOOD.  Sigh.  Not even in the double digits yet for age...  

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My kids are 19 and 15. We never experience the thing where the teenagers are like locusts with the groceries. Their appetites increased very gradually through the years, and they're just not big eaters, so we never were shocks by a huge increase all at once. When they were little, I generally cooked four serving meals. Now it's bumped up to 6 servings and we still get leftovers half the time.

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For those of you whose kids are eating alot--do the kids also cook?

He can...but I LOVE to make food for him and feed him. â¤ï¸

 

I do it with his friends too...even the bird-like nibblers...they *know* I'm going to make sure they eat plenty! :) " Here Friend, have some more...have some anyway...how about this? I know you'll eat that...". They just laugh at me and indulge me. Good boys. :)

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It started for us around age 11 or so. I have 4 teenage boys that all swim about 20 hours a week. The amount of food we go through is staggering. When they get home from afternoon practice, they will each eat an entire package of something: like a full box of cereal, or 10 taquitos, or a full box of goldfish crackers, or a six-pack of yogurt, or 3 packages of microwave popcorn. Then an hour and a half later, they will eat 2-3 servings of whatever I make for dinner. I always double the recipe of what I make and we rarely have leftovers.

 

I try really hard to cook healthy homemade meals daily, but also buy a lot of what most people would consider "junk" because they just need the calories and something filling. No chips, candy, or soda, but taquitos, pizza bites, crackers, pretzels, etc.

 

I don't know how we would do it without a huge weekly Costco run.

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Brotherman has always been a good eater, and I started moaning about how much he ate when he was in the 8-9 range, but it upticked again recently. He's 12 now. Babyman is 3 and eats an astonishing amount of food already, to the point that other people comment on it. I live in fear of the grocery bills that will doubtless accompany his adolescent growth spurts.  :huh:

 

Both eat a good variety of foods, and they are both a healthy weight. Babyman in particular is extremely active. He is just a ball of energy.

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It started for us around age 11 or so. I have 4 teenage boys that all swim about 20 hours a week. The amount of food we go through is staggering. When they get home from afternoon practice, they will each eat an entire package of something: like a full box of cereal, or 10 taquitos, or a full box of goldfish crackers, or a six-pack of yogurt, or 3 packages of microwave popcorn. Then an hour and a half later, they will eat 2-3 servings of whatever I make for dinner. I always double the recipe of what I make and we rarely have leftovers.

 

I try really hard to cook healthy homemade meals daily, but also buy a lot of what most people would consider "junk" because they just need the calories and something filling. No chips, candy, or soda, but taquitos, pizza bites, crackers, pretzels, etc.

 

I don't know how we would do it without a huge weekly Costco run.

I don't think I could ever afford to put my kids on the swim team simply because the grocery bill would be staggering.

 

 

To the question of do my children know how to cook, yes. The oldest knows how to make anything from angel food cake to squid pad Thai and homemade lasagna. One year he was required to make dinner once a week for home ec. They know how to make fewer and fewer things on down the line to my youngest. The youngest is eight and can make French toast, quesadillas, bean burritos, sandwiches- the simplest stuff.

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My 3 boys and my DD can put food down. They have been able to eat more than me since they were 5yo. DS 4 and DS 9 are my biggest eaters. My DD is 11 and always hungry. Her appetite has definitely increased lately. I am scared for when my boys (9, 7, 4yo) are teens because I already spend a fortune on food. And yep, theyre skinny! 

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For those of you whose kids are eating alot--do the kids also cook?

No. Mine does not cook yet, he is 8. He eats around 6 meals in a day. Out of them, 3 are snack type meals. He can get those 3 meals by himself if I help him make a list of what to eat at each of them - I try to guide him to eat a variety and not the same thing. For e.g. fruit and yoghurt for 10 AM snack, cheese and crackers and dry fruit before sports practice, chocolate milk and banana and nutrition bar after sports etc.

 

The cooked meals are always cooked by me.

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Mine so far hae been quite varied. Oldest started eating a LOT around 8 years old. My second son is now 10 and still eats far less than oldest did at 8. Third son is 8 and I swear he's trying to starve himself, he seems to never eat at all! So I guess it depends on the individual child, but on average either 8-10 or 11-13 or so.

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He can...but I LOVE to make food for him and feed him. â¤ï¸

 

I do it with his friends too...even the bird-like nibblers...they *know* I'm going to make sure they eat plenty! :) " Here Friend, have some more...have some anyway...how about this? I know you'll eat that...". They just laugh at me and indulge me. Good boys. :)

 

Mine cooks his own food often because he is so picky I basically told him he had to deal with it himself.  So he's been doing so for years.  Most of it is basic, but he can manage most things no problem.

 

No. Mine does not cook yet, he is 8. He eats around 6 meals in a day. Out of them, 3 are snack type meals. He can get those 3 meals by himself if I help him make a list of what to eat at each of them - I try to guide him to eat a variety and not the same thing. For e.g. fruit and yoghurt for 10 AM snack, cheese and crackers and dry fruit before sports practice, chocolate milk and banana and nutrition bar after sports etc.

 

The cooked meals are always cooked by me.

I am wondering if the boys doing more of the cooking is what's allowing/causing them to eat so much more? Or is it that they now have greater access to the food so they are able to eat as much as they feel they need.

 

The boys cook about 4x a week. (They each have 2 days but when one cooks, the other usually helps) and the amount that they are eating has steadily risen since they've been doing more and more of the food prep.

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When my DS was 18 months old a typical breakfast was: scrambled eggs, full slice of toast, a tangerine, a slice of cheese, a banana, and a cup of milk. We never experienced "toddlers live on air" or "go through picky phases" like people claimed. His appetite keeps increasing, so I probably won't notice a sudden leap--he's slowly easing me in!

This, right here.

 

My little boys loves to eat also. He has NO problem downing the exact type of breakfast you described. He also eats like a Hobbit. 1st and 2nd breakfast, elevensies, noon snack, post noon-snack snack, brunch, lunch....

 

 

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I am wondering if the boys doing more of the cooking is what's allowing/causing them to eat so much more? Or is it that they now have greater access to the food so they are able to eat as much as they feel they need.

 

The boys cook about 4x a week. (They each have 2 days but when one cooks, the other usually helps) and the amount that they are eating has steadily risen since they've been doing more and more of the food prep.

 

Nah.  Just speaking for our situation. 

 

Although I will say that he wastes a lot.  If he bakes something, half of whatever was in the bowl doesn't end up in the pan.  He never scrapes out all of whatever in the pot. There is always so much in there that could have been eaten.  That drives me crazy, but it seems like he can't help it.  He's kinda clumsy for lack of a better way of describing it. 

 

So there is definitely food waste going on.

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I am wondering if the boys doing more of the cooking is what's allowing/causing them to eat so much more? Or is it that they now have greater access to the food so they are able to eat as much as they feel they need.

 

The boys cook about 4x a week. (They each have 2 days but when one cooks, the other usually helps) and the amount that they are eating has steadily risen since they've been doing more and more of the food prep.

Perhaps for your boys. Might make sense.

 

Mine eats a ton because he's a growing, active 13 yo who really really needs a ton of calories. He doesn't eat just because there's access or because he's bored or whatever...its just the age, in our house.

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I was 10 when I got the nickname The Buzzard. :laugh: Helpfully, I had siblings in the picky toddler stage well into my teens, so there were leftovers around for me.

 

DS has always been a decent eater--we definitely enjoyed restaurants that let kids eat free up to age 3 or 4!--but he's 8 and nowhere near the eat-you-out-of-house-and-home level most of the time.

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