Two snacks can be the plan
Many toddlers need food between meals. Two planned snacks, made of foods they already eat, keep dinner from becoming a rescue.
Write the snacks down
Write them down the way you write meals. A plan is calmer than grazing from the cupboard all afternoon.
Mid-morning and mid-afternoon is a common shape. Your house can use different clocks. The point is that the snacks are planned.
What those snacks are
Fruit, a familiar bread if wheat is fine, leftovers, or yogurt if milk is fine. Two foods you already buy.
The new food does not have to appear at both snacks. One calm exposure at a meal is enough for a day.
Grazing
An open cupboard all afternoon makes dinner a maybe. A named snack, then a stop, gives dinner a chance.
You can be kind and still have a stop. The next food has a time.
A sentence you can say
“Snack is the apple. Dinner is later.”