Giving my 3 year old a cup of tea every weekend..

When I was little children regularly drank tea - it was no biggie at all. I used to until I discovered coffee when I was four :).

I don’t like tea (I know, I know, I practically take my coffee intravenously though) but my brother, now 25yo, loved tea when he was really little.

My mum would make him a little kiddie mug of milky, unsweetened tea and he would have that with breakfast most mornings. He’s not an addict now and he has all of his teeth

As TheKeatingFive & SilverTimpani have both pointed out, people don’t have the same horrors over the caffeine in chocolate. Mass panic over sugar and fat perhaps, but not the caffeine…

Caffeine is not actually evil; but the amount your DD’s likely to be getting in what’s presumably milk that’s been briefly introduced to a teabag will be minuscule. Even for a mini-human.

I’m on the older side (past middle age) and my mum used to give myself milky tea as toddlers and would put it in a bottle. Apparently we loved it, although I suspect it was because she added sugar. Seems as we became older kids we grew out of it until we started drinking tea as teens.

None of us have ever had issues with our teeth, all have great teeth (as in no cavities), and I’m the only one overweight and that happened as an adult so I can’t imagine it was the tea! Seriously I wouldn’t blink over it.

My mum used to make us special white tea which we had in those fashionable seventies smoked pyrex mugs. Of course in hindsight it was just milk, sugar and water. All my elderly relatives still used lose leaf tea and I hated the lea leafs- I still don't drain a cup

My 4 year old likes to ask for a cup of tea. I put boiling water in a cup and then dunk my used tea bag in it for a few seconds. Top it up with cold milk until it's just warm and she's happy. I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

I buy unsweetened oat milk as the normal one contains sugar. I wish one of mine would drink tea, DH doesn’t so I am a lone tea drinker in my house!

It's totally fine. Tea is really healthy and the tiny amount of caffeine will do no harm.

I've drank coffee since before I can remember, what's it meant to have done to me?!?

I give my son some milky tea now and then with decaff teabags.
Can’t see the harm, my niece used to love drinking it out of her dinky tea playset at a similar age

Wouldn’t hesitate

My sister was furious when she found out from her daughter,aged 3, that Nan had given her tea with sugar in it. My niece is now 11 and doesn't have hot drinks. She also has an aversion to making me a cup of tea. She was a Brownie ffs

I honestly think this is fine. Once a week as a treat won’t turn into a bad habit and there’s no harm in a weak tea. Plenty of people give 3 year olds chocolate once a week or more and people don’t think it’s an issue (I don’t either, to be clear). A cup of weak tea is definitely no worse than that.

Just make sure she's getting enough iron, especially if you are veggie or vegan. Tea (even decaf) inhibits iron absorption. Other than that I wouldn't worry. It's a very tiny amount of caffeine too, so I wouldn't worry about that. I might be biased though, because I hate roibos (redbush) tea!

Tea stains the teeth

It’s absolutely fine. I never hear anyone worrying about the caffeine in chocolate.

@Woolver23 - well, aside from the caffeine,which would depend on how long the tea is brewed for, which is not great for kids, tea stops the absorption of iron so if drunk with a meal it could leave the child short of iron.

Of course a weekly milky tea would be fine, though.

Here most people give tea to the kids. Green tea, oolong, barley tea, whatever.
There are even bottles of tea for giving to babies from 3 months or so in hot weather.
Tea is good for teeth, apparently.
It’s usually without milk. I don’t know about oat milk but can’t see the harm.
It’s not like it’s a Fruit Shoot

You cannot seriously imagine this is acceptable, to give a child tea.
WITH MILK.
Ugh, such barbarians, the British.

Mine had sips of regular tea from my cup, but their favourite thing was being given an entire small teapot of redbush tea for themselves - they liked pouring it out and adding milk and (occasionally) sugar - the tea making ritual is lovely isn't it!

Note: they wee'd like racehorses afterwards. Stay near a loo for a couple of hours if you do this!

Some of my favourite memories of DS are when he was 3 and we used to walk home from dropping his big sister at school on a morning. We'd sit at the kitchen table with a cup of tea each and a slice of toast. He had his in an espresso cup, it was the perfect size for his little hands!

What's so bad about tea? Toddlers are told to drink milk and water - so if you mix the two and have it with a bit of tea flavouring I don't see what the issue is? A tiny bit of caffeine I suppose but you could always get decaffeinated teabags if you were worried about that. I think it's rather cute. Much better for her than a FruitShoot, lemonade or sugary hot chocolate.

*her age

A cup of tea won't do anything, especially if it's mainly milky no sugar. Surely the caffeine actually ingested would be minimal.

I used to have it all the time from 12/18 months and I have fantastic teeth (anecdotal I know).

I've been drinking tea since I was her late. And a lot more than one cup per week lol.probaby a couple per day at that age. Cant say I ever had any issues with sleep or hyperactiveness.

Just make it weak cups and she can probably have a few per week with no repercussions.