Healthy Snacks for Kids I Buy Off Amazon

Healthy snacks for kids to buy off Amazon, options for toddlers, preschoolers, and big kids! Healthy Amazon wins for Moms!   

Hi, friends, and Happy Friday! I know I’ve shared some of these items in my Friday Favorites, but I wanted to have a place to share a dedicated list of my go-to snacks for kids, as well as some pre-packaged snack tips.  Keep in mind that this is just my list; everyone has a different idea of health, and that isn’t exactly wrong.  I try to go by “clean,” understandable basic ingredients and not too much sugar as my general guidelines.   Nothing too strict, but I also like to try to steer toward more nutrient-dense options when possible.

That being said, I’m not sure if I mentioned that I canceled the renewal of my Thrive Market subscription.  I tend to be a loyalist and often hang on longer than I should. I kind of suspected I could get lower prices on Amazon than on Thrive Market, but one day, I price compared a couple of items – Lara bars, and I can’t remember what else, but I was paying way more on Thrive Market than Amazon.  I immediately canceled.  So now, snacks come from Costco and Amazon; I tend to go to places where I can get bulk snacks because I have three kids, and I can’t afford one box at a time.  haha, Amazon is definitely one of those!  Hopefully, this gives you some ideas! Happy Friday or coffee blah blah blah wine day!

Justins Single Serve Packs

Justin’s Single Serve Packs are by far my favorite choice as a mom.  Sure, it has some added sugar, but watching my kid eat nut butter as a snack and be happy about it is a win for me.  I also often buy the chocolate version too.  

Annies – Snacks

I love the variety pack because each one of my kids likes something different.  

KIND – Granola Bars

The kids love these granola bars, and I love that they have less sugar than regular granola bars.  There is still sugar in them, around 5 grams per bar.  But, at least it’s less than your average granola bar, which is 7-9 grams.  

Made Good Granola Balls

Another solid granola option is these Made Good Granola balls I first discovered at Costco.  My kids don’t like the ones with fruit in them, though, so I’ve been ordering them from Amazon.  

Larabars

Larabars are solid options as far as no added sugar and fillingness, but I’ve recently been buying the minis as my kids would often eat half a Larabar, then the dog would get the rest, or I would find it smushed somewhere.  

Archer Mini Jerky Sticks

These Archer Mini Jerky Sticks are a Costco snack that we occasionally get off Amazon when I’m too lazy to fight the Costco parking lot.  KK eats them under supervision, but the dietitian, in my opinion, says that this is probably most appropriate for kids five and above.  I never send jerky with KK to school unless they are cut length to minimize the choking risk.  

I’ve also tried these jerky sticks before, but my kids didn’t love them.  

Pure Organic Bars

Literally the exact same as above.  I often get these Pure Organic Bars at Costco but occasionally get them off Amazon.  Also, it is round and springy, so it is technically a choking hazard; although I’ve been attacked in mom’s groups for saying that before, so many disagree.  But I think it’s a risk again due to its shape and rubberyness, so my recommendation is to supervise and not send this one to school with younger kids.  

Bear Real Fruit Rolls

These Bear Real Fruit Rolls were at Costco ONE time, and it was a year before I found them there again.  I’ve ordered these throughout the year because the kids LOVE them.  They come with these little cards with an animal on them.  The kids love the cards, I have a love hate relationship with them. I find them all over the place, in the car, in my bags, etc.  

RX Bars

I haven’t bought these RX bars in a while, but when I used to eat RX bars, KJ loved to eat them, too.  I got kind of sick of them, so I stopped buying them.  They do have kind of bigger pieces of nuts in them, a little bigger than Lara bars, so they are probably best for kids five years old and older.  

Perfect Bars

I usually make the kids split a full perfect bar or buy these minis, and I rarely actually give them to them because they are so expensive.  But if we run out of time for breakfast in the morning and I want them to eat something on the go that’s filling, it’s these or Larabars as my go-to.  I also put them in my oldest child’s lunch a lot last year because although he eats burgers, steak, and lobster, he won’t eat peanut butter and jelly or lunch meat.   While these are expensive, they are really filling options.   

Healthy Snacks My Kids Don’t Like, But I Would Buy If They Did:  

• Edamame Snackers
• Bare Snacks  – I actually put some of these in my cart to try!  
• That’s It, Mini Fruit Bars
• Simple Mills Honey Thins – these are a little high in sugar relative to the number of things in a serving, 7 grams per 12 crackers, similar to a Quaker oats granola bar.   However, unlike those bars, they have lots of healthy fat in them, so they are more filling.  
• Bobos bars, oat bites, and PBJs.  My husband and I love these, but the kids won’t eat them.  My niece and nephew do, though.  They are higher in sugar but typically have a decent amount of healthy fat as well, making them a filling option.  

Struggling with Snacks? Snacktime Rules

There have been several times when snack time and snack consumption, particularly of pre-packaged goods like the ones above, got out of hand in my house.  Each time, the fix was different.  Here is what I will say: If you are relying a lot on pre-packaged snacks for your family, it’s working for you.  Then great!  If you’re feeling overwhelmed by it, I’ve included some tips, but I will say that reliance on snacks has ebbed and flowed. 

We relied on them a lot in our transitional summer between Arizona and Texas.  I relied on them when pregnant because, ya know, pregnancy is hard.  Embrace them when needed.  We clearly had a huge reliance on them this summer because my kindergartener’s main complaint when starting school this year was that he couldn’t snack all day.  So there is that.  It happens, and school kind of bailed us out this year, but over the years, I’ve had several different fixes for snack obsessions.  Here are some tips:  

Chose Carefully What I Limit

For my first child, applesauce was an obsession because I would limit him to two packets a day.  It became a HUGE thing, so for the next kids, I didn’t limit applesauce (by that time, my older child didn’t like it anymore) because, ultimately, it’s applesauce.  No one is currently obsessed with applesauce in the way he was when there was a limit on it.  What’s that saying oppression breeds obsession.  My two younger ones do not have the obsession with it that my oldest did, although I have noticed they will gear more toward applesauce packets when they don’t feel good.  That doesn’t mean all snacks are free reign. It just means I pick my battles.  

Snack Time Cut-Offs

Another issue I’ve run into is kids eating snacks all day, every day.  Sometimes, they skip lunch in preference to waiting for a snack.  So I instituted snack time cut-offs, no snacks after 930AM and none after 4 PM so that they were actually hungry for dinner.  Since the kids get to pick what they want for lunch, they must eat their lunch before they can have another snack.  So sometimes that means wrapping up lunch and offering it later.  

Snack Type Rules

For a while, I would buy several types of bars like Lara bars, kind bars, Trader Joe’s bars, etc.  They would want to eat bars all day, every day.  For a while, we had a one-bar-a-day rule, so you had to pick one and only one that day.  

Limit What I Buy Carefully

If there is ever a snack or a treat that the kids become downright obsessed with.  I mean, whining temper tantrums to have more than a couple a day, I just stop buying it.  It’s often something more on the sugary side; let’s be honest, it’s never fresh fruit or veggies.  Recently that was pokey sticks from Costco.   So I just don’t buy it.  I don’t buy fruit snacks at my house, like the gummy kind, for this reason.  

I just give it to them as much as they want till it’s gone, then I don’t buy it.  Also, recently, the kids just kept avoiding their dinners, even with the rules listed above.  Limiting snacks, etc.  So recently, I told them I’m not buying any more snacks until dinners go better, and they are now magically eating better.  Or at least the oldest one is.  My middle child thinks bread and cheese are the only food groups in life. I’ve also just stopped buying pre-packaged anything for a while to get them to go toward options like fruit and vegetables; when they were better at eating those things, I bought the snacks again.  

Avoiding Car Snacks

I recently stopped carrying a “snack bag.”  I had a bag full of snacks that I was taking everywhere to keep the baby appeased, and then the boys would want to eat it so that I would bring them some, too.  NJ is actually very uninterested in snacks while on the go for a toddler, which meant it was mainly the boys eating a ton of snacks.  Not only was their trash literally everywhere, but their constant demands for me to open a snack were driving me nuts while on the go.  I started making sure the baby, who is more of a toddler now anyway, was fed before we went anywhere and stopped bringing the snack bag.  I’d bring 1-3 applesauce, and that’s it.  Now, I’m not constantly picking up trash while we are out or filling snack demands.  I figure the boys are old enough to eat at home, and as long as the baby is fed, they can wait.  

Hopefully that helps!  What rules do you guys have, or how do you handle pre-packaged snacks?