We should all be able to eat like toddlers – a bite here, maybe two bites there – before we dash off to play, dance, tumble and explore this big, fascinating world. Toddlers, unlike adults, don't buy into that whole "three meals a day, two snacks" that becomes our norm as we grow older.

Penny Warner, author of Healthy Treats and Super Snacks for Kids (McGraw-Hill, 1994), says toddlers really just eat snacks all day. But she suggests we change our cultural mindset and think of these as mini-meals, which should be fairly well-rounded and healthy, rather than as "snacks," which often have a junk food connotation in our culture.

"We're so trained to eat three square [meals], and this is not the style that toddlers embrace," says Warner. "It's almost impossible for a toddler to sit at a family meal and finish everything on his or her plate. The parent who expects that is merely setting the stage for ongoing food battles."

Parents often fret over how much a toddler eats, worrying that those two bites of cheese sandwich and sip of milk simply isn't enough food to support life. Warner has one word for those parents: Relax!

"Toddlers have very small stomachs, and they fill up very quickly," says Warner. "This is why they need to eat more frequent meals. It's even OK for them to have a snack an hour before dinner, because by the time dinner rolls around they'll have used up all those calories and be ready for another small amount of food."

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