Stepdaughter eating too much fruit

hahahaa im crap at maths but even I sat here thinking "it bloody isnt" 😂

@Katey83 Ignore the posters painting you as an evil stepmom. How you and your husband organise your financial life is up to you.

Better fruit than junk and as an ED survivor -- which began in childhood/teens I would say tread extremely carefully, especially in the context of the change re the resident parent.

OK, sorry, my bad.

If I wasn’t happy and committed to the relationship

But you also need to be happy with and committed to your DSD. If you get together with a man with kids you're not just committing to him, you're also committing to his kids, not just financially but emotionally. If you love her, things will fall into place.

To me, family dynamics are irrelevant here (although obviously I am sad to hear that they are problematic). I would really challenge the concept that ANY member of the family has unlimited access to food stores to simply eat what they fancy at any time. I think that prepares them very poorly for real life. (And in this I include ALL members of the family except the person who actually budgets for, and buys, the food, who presumably has a handle on the food shopping and plan for the week. I'd be equally irritated if it was DH/DP helping themselves without any notification or consultation, since I might have been planning something for that food.

Of course this is slightly OTT - there should be some snackage provided. But I do think that family negotiations - about what is snackage and what isn't - need to happen in all families. Even in very wealthy ones it is not healthy to reinforce any notion that the fridge is simply a self-refilling magic machine.

That’s true, I used my phone calculator for the fruit but used the figure from my laptop calculator in error for the post

dad’s emotional state

What's going on with him? Sounds like you've got a very complex family situation on various levels. I wonder if you thought through what you were getting yourself into when you took up with him if he's got issues, he's lost his job, his ex is not contributing to her DD financially and possibly in other ways too....but the answer certainly isn't taking your stresses on your DSD. I have to say you chose to take on this family and however hard it is you need to deal with it.

and that last month should say £35 a week!

@Marmite27

Not quite sure how you got to £16,425 !

£5 x 365 = £1825

Which is still more than one months salary for some people.

£1825 a year
£152 a month
£35 a month

You haven't done anything wrong. Some people on here just love to stick the boot in!

For those saying £5 a day on fruit is nothing, have you totalled it up over a year?

It’s £16,425 on fruit, along for one person. It’s not sustainable in anyone’s budget.

OP, I have a bottomless pit of a 7 year old too. They get fruit at school for snack, they’re allowed maximum 2 more pieces at home because it is bad for their teeth. Carrots and mini cucumbers are also encouraged.

During lockdown we put snack boxes into place as eating from bored was a thing, they make a reappearance once in a while.

My children ask before they get a snack, for many different reasons, if we’re going out and they may get messy, how long until a meal time, if they’ve already had enough that day, if the proposed snack is for a meal, a myriad of reasons, and none of them make me mean!

We had an incident recently where a massive tub of salted pretzels was finished off without asking. We had a sensible discussion about portion sizes, a balanced diet and making sure everyone in our family can have a fair share.

Free reign within clear boundaries sorted this for us. I have an ADHD girl who likes the sensory input of eating, plus the dopamine rush of yes/no argument behaviour, sneaking sugary food in her room and generally turning it into a Thing.

I got to the end of my tether with it and I repurposed a play kitchen as a real kitchen, put breakfast cereal and snacks in it, plus a little box in the fridge.

The kids (4 and 6) are told that I'll top the snacks up as and when about once a week, so not to smash through it otherwise they'll run out. One of their friends came over and did eat a lot of the food (their mum was over too), and it really upset my two that there was nothing left, so it was a good lesson learned. I topped it back up the next day once we'd spoken about it.

It's worked brilliantly, totally taken away the power of snacks and is teaching them moderation.

In their kitchen they have:

Fruit bowl of apple, banana and oranges
Breakfast biscuits
A portioned tub of raisins (that I remake daily)
Fruit rollers
Pepperamis
A couple of low sugar cereal choices.

In the fridge box they have:

Babybels
Cheese dunkers
Carrot/cucumber/pepper sticks
Yogurt pouches

They have complete carte blanche over it all, but I've realised that if they don't think they should have something that they tend to ask me if they can take something. So in that case we talk it through. I tell them that it's from their kitchen so they can choose to eat it without my permission, but the fact that they are asking me suggests that they don't think it's such a good idea- what's their inside voice telling them? Is it because they can see dinner being made?

It's worked like effin magic!

Agree with this. This would seriously piss me off too. She needs to ask before taking food.

My DD has fruit for breakfast everyday. She will have a bowl of blueberries, about 10 grapes and one or two satsumas. She is extremely active and a slender little thing (only 4).And then after school / dinner she will have something like watermelon or an apple (along with yoghurt most days). I feel like that is quite a lot of fruit. The amount you mention seems like a massive amount.

@PurpleWisteria1 7pm is fine for slightly older kids - I would say 11 onward (but it depends on the child), but for smalls they need regular input and if you think lunch at 12.30, 6.5hrs with no snacks is too long - even with a snack its no wonder they don't feel like eating and straight to bed. Cooking twice is the norm with small children, time consuming but children are.

Do you give her cuddles and kisses, read stories, talk to her etc? My experience is that children tend to self-comfort through overeating to compensate for lack of affection in her life. It sounds worrying that your main concern in the situ is the cost of what she is eating.

Can you tackle it differently with your dp and say it’s not healthy for her to just have fruit at the expense of meals rather than discuss the financial side. And mention the accidents as that can’t be very nice for DSD. Fruit has a lot of sugar/carbs but not the fat and protein a growing child needs.

maybe create a daily DSD snack box containing stuff she can have and more variety. Include carrot sticks, some fruit, cheese, breadsticks etc. just a more balanced selection.

you could also just buy cheaper or less nice fruit for a bit eg apples, bananas, satsumas rather than soft fruit and berries. Save the nice fruit for a treat pudding that you buy and all have so you all get a share?

We eat at 7pm since lockdown so we can all eat together. Works much better than 5:30 when I was finding I was cooking again at 8pm when the kids were in bed. Works fine.

1. Dad needs to find some better paying or longer hrs work to fill your financial gap.
2. We are fine money wise and I absolutely DO NOT buy all that fruit and certainly not those types. Berries are lower in sugar so OK - but portion them out and be clear with her what she is allowed, store the rest at the top of a tall fridge.
3. I would give her a snack after school that is more varied than just fruit, but then no open access to fruit until after dinner, or maybe a slice of melon as a starter just before dinner to be served, I can remember loving that as a child.
4. look at what time you are serving dinner - anything after 5.30 for a child is too late really unless you live in the Med

I realise this means in the short term you may not have all the fruit you want available but I would just stop buying "hot house" fruit and stick to local stuff, apples, pears etc They are a less intense sugar hit. Maybe introduce eating apple and cheese together.

The fruit is a red herring. She’s comfort eating at that level of consumption. Like you say if it wasn’t fruit it would be something else. If it wasn’t comfort eating it would be something else most likely. More support needed and more time spent with her. How is she even getting into the fridge and helping herself that many times? Is she making her own breakfast?

Establish a routine for eating, so meal times and snack times and make a sensible decision about what a snack looks like eg a couple of oatcakes and a piece of fruit after school, or a piece of toast and a handful of berries mid morning. Eating outside of this is discouraged or it's a raw carrot or stick of celery if need be. Set a limit on maximum amount of fruit a day, maybe three pieces a day.

Have you talked to DSD about nutrition? There are lots of books out there that explain how it all works and why we need the right balance of things. You could try gently talking about how things that are high in sugar make us have a bit of a rush and that might be nice for her if she's feeling sad, you know it's hard to adjust to the move, but sad feelings can be dealt with through a cuddle, drawing a picture, cosying up with a book etc instead of sweet things.

In the grand scheme of things, a traumatised stepchild eating slightly too much fruit is really not the worst case scenario! With a new baby it must be hard for you as well.

I would say it sounds like you buy quite a lot of exotic fruit, no judgment for that but you might find you would have changed your habits over time anyway as your baby grows up - I don't know many families where a bowl of grapes or peaches on full show wouldn't be immediately found by little hands.

In our house (6 and 3yo) we have apples, satsumas, bananas and maybe pears that are visible to kids and they can have after meals or with snacks. More exotic things like mango, pineapple, grapes etc are more of a treat and tend to be kept for parties or served up as pudding after a meal every now and again. I wouldn't just leave them out and expect the kids to show self control.

You're doing a really good thing providing a home for DSD at the same time as adapting to having a baby, I hope it goes well for you.

Stop resenting her and start helping her. She came as a bundle deal with her Dad.

Surely her dad should be at the forefront of helping his daughter. As is and he doesn't seem to be worried about finances and wants an easy life he isn't. Why is it OPs responsibility to just put up with it? Also seems the parameters have changed, its very different having a step child and having them with you half the time to moving in full time with zero support from their other parent.

Your right I miss read that. Apologies to the OP.