Not to give desert…

YANBU. Your husband was wrong not to back you up when he had made the decision in the first place. He’s giving mixed messages and it’s not fair on you or your step daughter.

I think your attitude to food is fine. It’s clear you’re making an effort and trying to do right by her and her health, which is more than her biological parents seem to be doing! It’s ok if you don’t always get it right, it’s clear you have her best interests at heart. She’s at an awkward age too where she’s growing up but she’s still young enough to need firm boundaries. If she’s able to eat junk non stop with her mum then it must be confusing for her. Clearly that’s not your fault but your husband needs to help establish boundaries in your home and not undermine you.

Ah OP almost identical circumstances and issues with my step child. Mum provides him with a horrendous diet, McDonald's, pot noodles, kebabs, Domino's nothing remotely balanced. Lives with us half the week so we end up trying to encourage healthy choices. Things that have worked for us-

Hidden veg dishes in things like chilli, pastas etc. I tend to mix the chilli in with the rice so that the bit he would go to first (the white rice) is already mixed together so he's less likely to eat around the other stuff.

Roast dinners, step son also loves his potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and gravy. So when it's plated I put the bare minimum potatoes and YPs on everyone's plates, when he asks straight away for more of either we tell him yes there's more once you have eaten your veg I'll go and get you more if you want.

Fruit, he's so picky with eating fruit so I always make sure that we have things he likes (melon, red grapes) in, he also seems to really like things that are specifically for him so I bought pink lady apples and showed him the little pink fleshy bit under the skin and said the four there were for him and he enjoyed that.

Plates, I give him less than I would give his younger sibling, big heaps of food he gets overwhelmed, I use a slightly smaller white plate and space things out so he can see what he has.

We've stopped making a big battle of it, well I have, I try to be more jokey about it with him and we "trick his dad" in surprising him by eating the good stuff. He and my husband lock horns a bit about it still and we don't get very far, like yesterday became a bit of a "well I'll sit at the table all day if I have to I am not eating any vegetables" then my husband left the room for something and I asked if anyone wanted the last piece of fish, step son straight away said he did so I suggested he ate some veg first, he'd finished the veg before my husband came back in.

These are just things that work with my step child, he isn't remotely overweight so that factors in to him refusing healthier food and asking for big quantities of highly processed foods. He's also quite immature in some areas so despite being the same age as your step daughter things like the above work.

Also, I wouldn't have given any of my children cake and ice cream if they'd left the bulk of a meal either. We don't need clear plates here but you also have limits as a parent in terms of empowering your child to eat until they're full and not overeat and then them just being children and wanting the sugary stuff.

Struggling to find the post that said after serving family style and allowing help yourself and eat what you like, serve pudding then make an entirely different meal such as noodles, on request. But it’s clear you’re one of those OPs.

No one said put unlimited crisps and cake on the table and cross your fingers and hope she might eat some cauliflower rice!

Serve largely healthy food. This could include a small portion of nachos, or a small slice of cake. Don't punish her if she doesn't eat exactly what you want (by giving everyone except her a slice of cake) but that's not the same as making a whole other meal. Obviously.

Your OP was worded unkindly (especially to those of use who grew up with unkind step parents, who often used food as a power trip). It very much sounded like the disgusting, fat step daughter, who gorges until the food "comes out of her ears" was sat in her room crying whilst the rest of the family gleefully ate her favourite cake and ice cream.

I have 2 kids. One can be trusted. He will eat what's in front of him, if he says he doesn't like it, then he doesn't like it. He can always be offered pudding because he'll similarly skip that if he doesn't fancy it.

The other one I have to be strict with, he will absolutely skip eating dinner and fill up on pudding given half a chance. He decides on a whim if he'll eat something that we both know he likes, and flat refuse to try something if he's decided he won't like it (even if he eats the exact same thing in another form - eg. chips vs. roast potatoes)

As a result, we have rules now around food, which first child doesn't need, but doesn't mind, and second rails against, but it's that or massive food waste and filling up on junk.

Poor OP is obviously exasperated at her DSD doing what we all (including OP) know that virtually all kids will do, if given the free choice. But she obviously can't win ('win' here meaning to help her DSD), as she will be criticised whether she takes charge and stands up to be the adult OR whether she lets her DSD do whatever she likes.

Even if OP plans carefully and allows for the whole meal (100%) to consist of 85% main meal (which she knows that her DSD likes) + 15% dessert (which she also knows that her DSD likes), we all know what most kids will do in the real world. Even if she has room for the whole meal - consisting of both carefully-planned courses - she's still going to focus on her favourite part and impatiently overlook her less favourite (but still liked) part, in order to get to her favourite part first.

Given her immature age and concomitant childish logic, it's surely not beyond (adult) people's (mature) expectations to know all along that DSD will reckon that, if she initially claims to be full up in order to skip straight to the dessert, she might then get away with later spilling the (to an adult unsurprising) beans that she still isn't in fact hungry, in the clear hope that she might end up being offered another portion of dessert.

The majority doesn't always mean right. Have you not seen the British publics' voting track record? 😂

Kinda close though

We give up Gertie - who does have cake or similar in all the time?

Not the OP, as she's stated more than once that this is a Sunday thing.

@Mumof3premies your 'attempts' tonight sound pretty disingenuous and most likely designed only to prove yourself right. I'm sure even you realise changes won't be made in one meal. But it's clear you have no desire for things to actually change, it's more important to be right.

That’s so many millions of miles from what anyone said!

No one said “give her cake if that’s not on the menu for tonight”. They said let her have the pudding the family is having.

No one said let her come back for noodles if she still isn’t full. That’s ridiculous.

Putting everything on the table is a good idea and if you’d stuck to that and the planned pudding, not gone massively off piste and given cake and noodles, it would soon start working.

You said everything I wanted to say. I don't understand why people/schools etc persist with this bizarre 'dessert is a reward for eating vegetables' thing.

If you honestly thought that was the advice people were giving, then maybe reread the thread. If you were conducting some kind of weird experiment in an attempt to prove a point, then I think that's an odd thing to do and you've proved the sum total of nothing. You can hardly expect a child who has been living in two houses with entirely different rules (and a mother who sounds downright neglectful and borderline sociopathic) to immediately display perfect healthy eating habits. But give her a chance to develop them by offering healthy meals, allowing her some autonomy, and not making the table a battleground of rewards and punishments. It won't happen overnight but it can happen.

I think it's fair enough to give her the cake, since you promised she could have it today. But in the future if everyone else is having fruit and yoghurt, then she could have that too. The point isn't that you allow her all the sugar she wants. But sugar shouldn't be seen as evil or as a reward for forcing herself to eat vegetables she doesn't want.

Surely if dinner + dessert = sufficient food for the meal, then really, what does it matter how much she eats of each element - as long as its clear there isn't anything else afterwards.

By telling her she HAS to eat all of A before she can have B, you're teaching her to over-eat beyond satiation to get to the bit she likes most. That isn't healthy in the slightest, it teaches kids to ignore the feelings of fullness, and that desserts are more desirable than anything else.

If eating half her dinner and all her dessert is WORSE for her than eating ALL her dinner + dessert ... theres a problem there that is related to the quantities and items you're serving, so alter that.

Try making dessert NOT conditional on eating all of whatever, but ensure there is no other option (assuming you're serving food she actually likes, I don't think leaving kids to go hungry to force them to eat things they hate is useful or fair) - see if things don't change dramatically after a few weeks of that (initially, do expect her to test this out of course! No behaviour change has instant results!).

OP: posts on AIBU
Also OP: I am not BU, I am right and everyone saying different is wrong and I don't actually want to change anything or get advice

😂😂😂

You don't treat children the same as you treat children with disordered eating and say that's being modern or whatever. That's like saying some dc with autism are given screens to help them even in schools, so let your NT dc have screen time all the time because hey that's what we all do now! Let them self regulate!

Op you did not do as suggested what you did was sabotage the evening for your own benefit.

Posters who have disagreed with you suggested your evening go as follows

Let the child serve themselves

Allow the planned dessert as it is part of the healthy balanced meal
(Here you changed the dessert on offer which no one has advised)

If still hungry re offer the uneaten dinner.
(And here you have into a child demands which isn't what people suggested)