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Hunger tantrums and hunger meltdowns are absolutely a thing with toddlers! You might call it hangry (the combination of “hungry” and “angry”) and I bet you’ve experienced this with your toddler at some point. If not, it’s coming for you so you get the bonus of being prepared!
But you’ve probably even felt it yourself. When you’re so hungry that you start snapping at everyone and you just NEED to get something in your body. So I’m going to talk about the quickest way to bring them out of that hangry state and how to prevent if from happening in the first place.
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This is Feeding Toddlers Made Easy, the Mama Knows Nutrition podcast. I’m your host Kacie Barnes, Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, Master of Clinical Nutrition, mom of a new first grader and a 3 year old- she may actually be 4 by the time you hear this! Feeding Toddlers Made Easy solves your nutrition and food questions that you send in to me, go to mamaknowsnutrition.com/podcast to submit your question and that’s where you’ll find show notes from all of the episodes, too. Please take a second to hit subscribe so I’m always here when you need me!
Let’s hear from Leslie:
Hi Kacie, this is Leslie. I wanted to ask you for advice about my child who gets hangry. She’s three and half and she isn’t exactly picky, but we’ve gotten into a bad habit of grazing and her preference is pure fruit. So I have a hard time getting fats into her in order to get her to be full.
Unfortunately this has resulted in a lot of hanger induced tantrums where I can’t get any food into her system to pull her through it. I’ve tried a lot of your suggestions on how to get fats into her, and I want to implement your meal schedule, but I’m worried about her getting hangry and uncontrollable tantrums in the transition. Any advice would be great. Thank you.
Feeling hungry can turn up the dial on any negative feelings, not just anger, but stress and frustration, too.
There may also be a drop in blood sugar. If your child hasn’t eaten in a few hours, the level of glucose, what we call blood sugar, decreases in the blood. When this happens, it triggers hormones to raise and rebalance your blood sugar. These hormones include cortisol and adrenaline. Cortisol is the stress hormone. The release of cortisol can cause temporary feelings of aggression.
When kids experience low blood sugar it can be harder to control impulses and self-regulate.
The other hormone I mentioned, adrenaline, is that fight-or-flight hormone. So when your child is VERY hungry, it can stimulate that fight or flight response and they can be in kind of a panic mode.
It’s very hard for them to self-regulate when they get too hungry. So your child is not really having a behavior problem that needs to be addressed in that moment, it becomes a physiological problem. You need to get them some food.
I got a question on instagram saying, “Can hanger cause hyperactivity…4 yo gets crazy when hungry or tired!” And that goes back to that whole dysregulated thing. They do tend to get wacky when they are too hungry or very tired because they just can’t keep it together anymore.
The best solution for hanger is prevention. That’s why I am always talking about having a good meal and snack schedule for toddlers and young kids because access to food every few hours helps their body get what it needs to prevent them from becoming too hungry.
But it still happens sometimes- you have a day you’re out of routine, or they start off the day already having a hard time and you can barely get breakfast in them and it gets worse from there. or you end up being out longer than planned so lunch gets delayed an hour or two. These things happen.
Now Leslie mentioned fat in her message. She’s realizing that she needs to get her more calories and more satisfaction than fruit alone can provide.
While fat does absolutely help with calorie boosting, it’s not quite as satisfying or long-lasting as protein.
We want to ensure a steady stream of protein throughout the day in meals and snacks to help prevent hanger, too. I’m not saying to go overboard on protein, but you do want to make sure it’s there. So let me give you some examples.
Proteins to include at breakfast:
If they’re hangry in the morning, one mom DMed me on instagram and said that her little one won’t eat dinner, dinner is right before bed, and then is hangry in the morning. Make sure you’re offering a safe food at dinner, that’s a food they regularly eat and like, and make sure there’s not a snack too close to dinnertime. Otherwise just plan on having breakfast ready right when they wake up and bring them right to the table.
Snacks can be harder to get in protein sometimes, depending on your kid’s preferences. I would like to see at least 3-4g of protein in their snack if you tend to have the hangry issue.
Instagram question: Quick easy food to give them so the hanger doesn’t escalate…sometimes you just can’t keep a good schedule when you’re out and about.
Totally relate. So I’m going to share some snacks that are more like at-home snacks, and then I’m going to give you ideas for when you need to grab something to bring out with you.
Some ideas for you:
For even more healthy toddler-friendly grab and go snack ideas, get the Healthy Toddler Snack Guide!
Lunch and dinner are usually a little easier because we often tend to think about including a protein, but if they are picky, don’t eat much meat or don’t eat any meat, it can still be a challenge to get them to have something besides carbs. Remember you can always use a cup of milk as a protein source if you need to at a meal, whether that’s cow’s milk, breastmilk in a cup, goat’s milk, soy milk, or pea milk, those will all be good sources of protein.
And if you notice that they are coming to dinner hangry? You can either move dinner earlier, if that’s possible for your schedule, or set out some veggies with dip – or if they’re young just pop them in the high chair with some shredded carrots, thin cucumbers, or honestly just some cheerios works too if you need to throw something down because that happens.
Some kids will wait too long to eat and ignore their hunger because they would rather be doing something else, like playing. So for them you really wanna focus your energy on the transition to meal or snack time, and I have a free download about getting them to sit at the table longer that has tips on making that transition.
Leslie talked about her daughter’s preference for fruit. Grazing can be a challenge with that because if they have eaten within the past 1-2 hours, their body doesn’t have a chance to build up much of an appetite. So they want something, but they don’t ever get the feeling of like, I wanna eat a whole pizza! Or even like, yes that grilled cheese with spinach would really hit the spot right now.
If they are wanting fruit all the time I would offer it less frequently. They may be unhappy about that but if it’s not an option they are going to have to eat something else. And I would work towards getting on less of a grazing schedule and more of a structured meal/snack schedule to help regulate appetite.
Another way you can still consider the fruit preference while also getting in more calories, protein, AND fat, actually a couple ways:
I’m going to do another episode where I talk about the transition away from grazing if you’re stuck in the all day grazing pattern and don’t know how to get out of it. In the meantime, check out this post: All Day Toddler Snacking
Thank you for hanging out with me today, I am so proud of you and all the hard parenting work that you are doing for your little one. You are amazing and I hope you know that!
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Toddler Meal and Snack Schedule
How to get your Toddler to Try New Foods – “safe foods”
Recipe: 5-ingredient no bake nut butter bars
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