To be shocked by this government dietary advice for babies and children?

Could you have got up a bit earlier or prepped the night before?

We do chia pudding, overnight oats, porridge with seeds and nut butters, homemade beans on toast, avocado on toast etc before leaving for school at 7.45am.

It's so important for kids to have proper nutrition before school.

I'm shocked that so few people realise who this advice is for and what has to be considered when its written.

It's not for people who have the money, time, knowledge and capabilities to provide salmon, eggs and bagels for breakfast (to quote one poster above). The stuff they recommend has to be cheap and it has to be for sale in the local SPAR or whatever which will be the only shop many people can get to. So ground almonds just isn't possible! It has to be something children will almost certainly eat, or the response will be "Well I wasted £5 on that meal which was my whole food budget for the day, no one ate it, and so I won't do it again."

Also, all the people who are suggesting bran flakes without reading that high fibre is not recommended for small children... This is guidelines for early feeding not all children of all ages.

Cartons of juice are shelf-stable. If don't want to buy fruit that risks going off, this is one way that kids will get some of a five a day. It's not as ideal as an orange; it's better than no fruit at all.

There are very few kids who end up in this situation under medical advice compared to the extent of the problem.

I've had the same from the food angle. My eldest is 14 and was an utter horror show when it came to food - properly phobic about a lot of things, food of any kind was massively stressful, would starve himself rather than eat an unsafe food. For a couple of years there were about five foods he would eat and the dietician was very clear that calories were the priority for a long time. The rejoicing when he tried a fucking chip was ridiculous.

It's taken a huge amount of work to get to a point where he has a more or less decent diet, under medical supervision. The kind of diet set out in the OP would have been a pipe dream for us for years and years.

But general health advice should be aimed at the majority, not the rare outliers like you and my son.

The majority of kids don't need sweeteners to accept milk and water from the outset, any more than they need a diet that is based around bread, yoghurt and peas.

(I happily feed both my kids the dreaded cereal, processed food more than I probably should, and sweet drinks on occasion. At school DS1 consists entirely on sugary junk. But where parents can, setting their kids up with good habits when they're little can save a lot of problems down the road - I've never got over the number of kids who were in hospital to have multiple teeth out under GA when we were in for a different surgery.)

At no point did i write anything about cereal and banana

Though I take the point of the posters pointing out that this advice is aimed at people doing far greater harm than a bowl of rice krispies.

Because sadly there is a huge element of apathy. Why would you take the time to cook eggs or whip up porridge when you can hand your toddler a cereal bar instead? It's cheaper, doesn't need any gas/electric, preparation or cleaning up afterwards. Many say "well we were brought up like this and it didn't do us any harm".

I really wish we could move away from sugar as the bogey man. Our bodies actively need and sugar. There is nothing wrong with orange juice.

As usual society has taken something and ran to an extreme. Abuse of refined sugar has turned into people freaking out about naturally occuring sugar in fruit that works in conjunction with other nutrients.

I did absolutely everything by the book - no juice, only home made veg purees during weaning, very little sugar. Ate healthily myself - never mentioned diet or anything negative about food

DD had an amazing diet up until about 3 - then just started refusing more and more foods.

Only now at 21 do I see signs that she's slowly improving.

Sometimes these things aren't under our control.

Cornflakes/rice crispies/juice might very well be sensible compromises.

Why do British parents need advice that will appeal to them while parents in my country can get proper advice? Its like the uk government treats its populace like children who can't be expected to understand things or follow advice unless its easy and appealing.

Firstly nutritional advice changes frequently over the years so all these poster confidently posting that they know what is 'right' because they've watched a few tik tok videos are deluded. For example the focus last year was protein, this year it has moved to fibre intake

Secondly all public advice is deliberately a balance between perfection and achievability. 5 portions of fruit and veg and 10,000 steps are both numbers artificially created to encourage those who otherwise might eat none and not move at all. There is no scientific evidence that this is the 'best' amount.

Most babies and children love scrambled egg. Very quick and easy to do in the microwave. You can add a little yoghurt to the egg, and add some spinach, beans or other vegetables (pureed or mashed for baby) to make a tasty scrambled egg mix-up, with a good balance of protein, fat, and fibre.

Juice is fine in small amounts 😊 my friend waters it down so there's less sugar but a little bit is good because it's natural sugar not the fake kind

Yes if it was advice dished out by the government

Well I've read page 1 of this thread and now have a much better understanding of why the health of this nation is so fucking dismal.

Can't even be bothered to explain why the OP is completely right.

And for the tossers banging on about 'not everyone can afford', own brand weetabix or bran flakes have far more nutrition than rice Krispies or cornflakes and are the same price.

No not everything you eat has to be perfect nutritionally (it certainly isn't in this house) but breakfast for kids should be!!

We're fucked!

This has possibly been mentioned already - I’m afraid I haven’t RTFT - but for those saying a carton of juice is fine for children to have with breakfast, as teeth get brushed afterwards, they need to swill their mouths with water before brushing to neutralise the acid. I’ve always remembered the horrific imagery from dental advice, that brushing your teeth straight after consuming anything acidic has the same effect on tooth enamel as paint stripper has on paint! Maybe it’s overstating it, but that’s always stayed with me!

The suggested weekly menu includes one portion of rice krispies a week. The outrage at that suggestion is hilarious.

Do these people show the same concern over ham, bacon, sausages and other processed meats which are known carcinogens?

I’m one of those adults who doesn’t drink plain water and I’ve never paid the sugar tax. Mainly drink coffee and herbal teas these days; sugar-free squash when it’s too hot for those.

I apparently refused plain water and cows milk from the moment it was offered. Wasn’t a big fan of formula either (my mother couldn’t breastfeed) to the extent I was weaned early on medical advice. What were my parents meant to do other than find something I would drink - leave their small baby to dehydrate?

Not in my experience, kids who have restricted diets tend to go mad on fizzy drinks, sugary and fatty food once they are teenagers and can buy it themselves.

My dd had a friend that At 8yo, would constantly be asking for food when on a play date at our house. The first time I told her to help herself as my dd was allowed to, and she totally gorged on anything sweet that we had in the cupboards. It later transpired that she wasn’t allowed to eat anything unhealthy at home. She apparently also would try to take things from other kids lunch boxes and hide them in her bag for later. She’s now a very overweight adult.

The juice is recommended to be ‘well diluted’, so I see nothing wrong with that. But it just seems an awful lot of food. And not a lot of protein.

I didn’t say it was better, I said it was fine and perfectly realistic.

Kids need protein, healthy fats and slow release carbs, as do the rest of us. Obesity aside, sending them to school on high GI rice crispies and juice is a recipe for sugar crashes, poor attention spans and poor behaviour. It’s incredibly patronising to low income families to think they would not benefit from this education. To be honest, all families need better education. The guidance should at least show what an optimal diet would look like even if it gives accommodations for time/cash poor mornings and ways to offset the impact of sugar. Just because sugar isn’t added doesn’t mean it’s not sugar and we know much about the effects of this so that information ought to be passed on.

well come on then, give us some ideas. What do your children eat for breakfast if not cereal or toast?

A lot of these will be parents of little babies. I think I thought mine would eat a perfect diet forever at that age too, and remember really stressing about weaning etc., and being quite judgemental of anyone doing it 'wrong'. They're now primary aged and this morning one ate a bowl of cereal (boo me!) and the other ate a bowl of porridge (yay me!)... with a spoonful of nutella (boo me!). One had apple juice and the other had sweetened tea for their drink (shame on me all round!). They're both a healthy weight and eat a balanced diet overall. The dentist is very complementary about both their teeth.

I think this advice is probably for children like my neighbour.
She is 12 and probably around 4 stone overweight.
The mum is also very overweight and has told me, because she works Mon-Fri
she doesn’t have time to cook, her daughter has a takeaway 5 nights a week, kebabs, McDonald’s, KFC.
If she followed this advice and her daughter was being offered, fruit juice, cornflakes and Irish Stew instead she probably would be much healthier.
Most of us don’t need a list to know what to feed our children, you only need to look around to know that lots of people do.
Diluted Juice and Cornflakes aren’t the worst either, and is probably more likely to be a diet that can be stuck to.

I was told to give my toddler 1/2 apple juice 1/2 water as it was a good way to hydrate , especially as my wee one suffers with constipation. I found giving it a couple of times a week with lunch has really helped.