The Children's Rights Alliance has said it is deeply concerned about the level of food poverty that it says has seeped into every community in Ireland.
Chief Executive Tanya Ward said there is no justification for young children going without something so vital to their health and well-being as nutritious food.
"Jennifer", who has two children, keeps her dressing gown on over her clothes in her home in order to keep warm.
"I find it very difficult to heat the house and to buy good food. There were times where I would not buy a bag of coal to heat the house because simply the money isn't there with the other bills that are coming in. It's got so expensive.
"I mean, every week the prices are going up. I wear my dressing gown all the time in the house because it's a way of keeping warm.
"I have a small duvet on my sofa with a hot water bottle that means that I don't have to light the fire so early in the day. It's a very, very stressful situation to be living in," she told RTÉ's This Week programme.
Jennifer said she's had to reach out to services in her area.
"I am involved with some services who've been helping me. I just had a bit of a blip of my life. I've been linking in with them and they've been extremely helpful helping me budget and stuff like that.
"I received a voucher for €100 that is going to mean that my food expenses are going to be considerably reduced and I'm going to have no more money to spend on fuel over Christmas which is great," Jennifer said.
The hot school meals programmes running in schools and community settings are also a lifeline for thousands of families impacted by food poverty, but some doors will close for the Christmas period.
Ms Ward said: "For those families that don't have a school to send their child to get fed over the Christmas it's very difficult.
"Traditionally you would have heard the story that it's people that have addiction issues that would have to get support with food over the Christmas period. It might be people who've newly arrived in the country.
"But increasingly what we're hearing it's working families, families who've been hit with electricity bill that they can't cope with or they're making these awful decisions about if they put food on the table or do they pay the heating bill?"
Ms Ward said their food provision scheme is oversubscribed again this year.
She said: "We launched a food poverty scheme last Christmas. We were out the door with applications. We launched it again this year. We were surprised, to be honest, with 46 applications looking for help to support over 3,000 families.
"We just simply don't have enough resources to meet the need. It has been really difficult for us to work out how even to allocate those funds because all those families and all those children are so deserving."
She said the system needs to be put in place that ensures children do not go hungry.
"The Government needs to step in in the holiday period. They need to follow up what they've done in the primary schools and the secondary schools with hot school meals to make sure that there are children and young people that aren't missing out during Christmas , Easter and the summer months," Ms Ward added.
The Daughters of Charity, Child and Family Service has six early years centres across Dublin.
Head of Operations Geraldine O’Hara said it provides breakfast, hot meal and snacks throughout the day.
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She said: "It’s five days a week so I suppose we would have concerns when we're closed over the Christmas period that these children won't have those regular meals and could go hungry.
"The fund that we're going to get this year from the Childrens’ Rights Alliance will really go a long way to help that.
"We're going to give families hampers and food vouchers so we can address that need. So that should keep them going hopefully over the Christmas period.
"It's not just families, maybe on low incomes, but it's the working poor as well. So, people that are working everyday but also struggling to meet their family's needs, pay the bills, do the weekly shop and everything."
Frances Haworth from Meath’s Women's Refuge and Support Services said they are giving food vouchers to 67 women this Christmas, meaning 106 children in the area will benefit.
She said: "We do see a lot of the families that come to us who are struggling with the cost of living and many of them would have been experiencing financial abuse as well, so they might not have access to funds.
"It's very challenging and we would refer some of the women that that come to us to, to food banks in the Meath area."
