Stepdaughter eating too much fruit

@Babycakes6

well it is an unnecessary amount of fruit for a child isn’t it ? Or a grown adult for that matter

The point is she's usually the breadwinner and now she's on MAT leave, money is tight.

And apples may be cheap but berries etc are not.

It always amuses me when people come along with their outrage, trying to claim moral superiority whilst actually advertising their complete inability to empathise with people that don't have endless money spare.

Millions of people do have to set some restrictions on how much of a weekly budget of food it is reasonable to eat in a day, and acting like that is somehow cruel to a child and you cannot believe how evil the person is just shows you to be enormously out of touch with the reality of most people's lives.

Also, how is the OP a breadwinner if on the maternity leave for the second time within a year ( a 5 months old baby and she is pregnant again?)
She wants a little girl to contribute for the fruit?
It’s her father’s house, how can a 7 year contribute for bills and fruit, what on Earth?

“Dsd’s mother does not contribute towards her expenses while she is living here (indefinitely for now).

At the moment, we are on a tight budget due to my mat leave - and one thing driving me crazy is dsd eating all our fruit

I’ve spoken to my dh about this and he says she is a growing child and at least fruit is good for her - fair enough I buy fruit partly for her to eat, but the amount seems greedy to me, and beyond what is necessary for a healthy child”

@Babycakes6

READ OP’S POSTS

@Babycakes6 you can filter by the ops posts. You shouldn't be accusing her of being a bad guy if you can't be bothered to read it properly.

Having fruit as part of the diet is healthy but it is still full of sugars so a child should not be left to plough through the fruit bowl unattended. Children need a healthy balance of protein, fats and vegetables as well. Check out NHS guidelines and send these to your husband in a non confrontational way.

I would say all children are greedy guts if you give them a chance. We buy frozen berries, mango etc which are great to add to breakfasts, yogurts or to make smoothies for pudding and work out more cost effective.

My child has one piece of fruit in the morning, some frozen berries on cereal. (Sometimes mornings are a banana and clementine). Usually one piece of fruit straight from school and a savoury snack. Or if I give them two pieces of fruit their pudding after dinner is something like greek yogurt and honey not more fruit. I tend to cut up carrots, tomato’s or cucumber before dinner. (My child has a huge appetite- if they do not their whole dinner I explain that the following day snacks will have to be limited as they are obviously eating too much snack food).

You are in a very difficult position. It is right to expect financial support for the upbringing of your child, but it seems like this isn’t easy. Can your partner get more hours working, especially whilst you are on maternity leave? If the mother isn’t contributing financially either and his child is school age it may be more fair he picks up more hours to help support his child? Alternatively will he be the stay at home parent once your back at work? I hope you aren’t doing all of the baby child care, paying all of the major bills and doing all of the housework, as that seems to be a very cushty set up for him and unsustainable for you in the long run. You’ll feel taken advantage of.

Regarding the fruit would have a conversation with your partner and explain that unlimited fruit isn’t recommended and that a well balanced diet is, especially if main meals are being wasted. If he still disagrees, I would buy fruit less frequently and pick up some alternatives like vegetables, dried fruit and nuts, cheese. Personally I try not to have too much snacky food in the house at any one point as it can either get gulped down too quickly or wasted and does need to be managed. For example if I buy grapes, or strawberries my husband and child will finish off in one sitting when I’m not looking. I have to have the conversation about making sure there is enough for everyone not just ploughing through it!!

It sounds to me like you are a loving, caring stepmother and you're doing a fantastic job under stressful circumstances. Your dsd is lucky to have you.

Kudos to you Katey83 for sorting the wheat from the chaff.

I thought of you this morning when I put my (Spanish) blueberries and raspberries on my yoghurt and left the rest out on the side for the teens to polish off.

Handy hint for any future posts (if you dare 😉) is steer clear of AIBU unless you are in the mood for a fight. Generally speaking, parenting and step parenting will be more supportive. Not always though as this is MN after all and warts and all.

Good luck. This too shall pass. They’ll be 9 and 2 and things will have changed. The leg work you and your DP put in now will help later although there are always trip ups around the corner for all of us.

Nobody has all the answers. Except on AIBU 😂

Some people just love to tare strips off over pp. When they have likely never been in your situation before.

Absolutely OP. I’m not a stepparent admittedly but I can imagine it’s bloody well so much harder having to create boundaries and undo certain ingrained behaviours when she has been parented in a different way for over 7 years! I agree - and I mean this supportively not in a patronising way: it’s not like you’ve experience of parenting this tricky age yet, made all the more trickier by this little girl having upheaval in her life. While sleep deprived and also simply exhausted by becoming a new parent and all the mental energy that already requires when you’re very much learning how to care for a newborn/young infant on the job. I found the weight of that responsibility alone overwhelming when I became a mother.

But it’s great to hear you’re making some progress. Good luck.

I'm glad she liked her snack plate
That's great

By the sounds of it, the OP pretty much solely provides a safe and comfortable home for her DSD since she is living with her father, who doesn’t contribute much financially, and her biological mother does not pay a penny in maintenance. The OP also pays for her to receive therapy and, through her clearly half decent (step-)parenting, has managed to undo not so effective parenting arguably given that her DSD was binging on sweets when she moved in with them. And also by the sounds of it, the girl’s father is ineffective in having boundaries with his DD so the OP is fighting this battle too.

Women simply cannot win. If she “minded her own business” and posted about not giving a damn about her DSD binging on sweets and fruit to the point she was soiling herself, some would say she’s neglectful and “How can you not parent properly to prevent your DSD embarrassing herself/needing painful dental treatment which costs the tax payer money?”

A call for help seems a bit ott over some fruit eating. It’s not like she’s doing drugs. Yes fruit is expensive but could be worse things to indulge in. I’m glad the snack plate idea worked. She’s anything but ‘greedy’ she evidently just needs some boundaries putting in place

Reading is your friend @Babycakes6

If the OP's DH left her, he'd have to find a full-time job, a place, to live, and the budget for his DD to eat £7 worth of fruit in 24 hours.

I think the OP is quite the opposite of evil. Fruit isn't magic. If the little girl is eating it to the point if soiling herself then something is wrong.

Ffs. Welcomes child, pays for them near entirely, cares for them, but has some limits on how much food is reasonable to eat in one go = evil. You can't make this nonsensical hyperbole up.

@Babycakes6

have you even read the thread?!

I don’t think you are being unreasonable, I would have a little ‘snack pack’ after school ready for her in a bowl or ziplock bag and explain this is her snack and there won’t be anything else until dinner. My boys love this, I try and put something new in there to try and not just fruit!

Ahaha, are you a step mother? You have a fierce imagination, lucky. Actually it was based on wanting to stop a child eating fruit.

That’s exactly what it is, isn’t it? They’re living their unhealthy hatred for their ex’s new partner through any thread written by a stepmother…

What did you base her ‘being a dick’ upon, if you were so swayed by her actual post? The fact that she was a stepmother?