Just curious how you all deal with meals vs snacks. My 3 year old is generally a good eater, but she is a grazer, and I really can't fault her because I am too (I typically eat 3 small meals and 2-3 snacks per day). We eat relatively healthy food so snacks are things like fruit, veggies, and nuts, but lately, DD wants "snacks" all the time, including right after meals (or basically instead of meals).

DH and I both have family members with serious eating disorders and neither of us want to force her to finish meals or cause her to have a negative relationship with food. So we have been pretty relaxed and DH in particular will usually give her a snack if she wants it (especially if it is a healthy one) because he feels it is better to do that than to cause her to have food anxiety. On the other hand, I feel like she plays us because she will eat like 2 bites of dinner, say she is done, and then want a "snack" 5 minutes later. If we say no, she will go to bed crying and telling us she is hungry, but she will not eat more dinner. She also uses the "I'm hungry" card to delay bedtime, so it's getting harder to know what is really going.

I can't figure out how to balance this. So far, I have tried asking her to at least try everything at dinner before deciding she is done (this works most of the time, but she will just take one tiny bite of each thing). Anyone have other strategies?