I've lost all perspective on breakfast. Please advise!

[KindergartenKop]

I'm in an ongoing battle with my kids over breakfast. I want them to have plain porridge, they want toast with jam, chocolate spread and pancakes on. We usually compromise somewhere in the middle. They also take ages to make any choices for breakfast, thus making me late for meetings etc etc.

So new plan is that I tell them the breakfasts available in the week and they choose which day it happens in advance. So in a week they have to have...

2 x cereal (not fun ones) or porridge with small amount of raisins or half a banana and peanut butter.

2 x plain yogurt with frozen fruit.

1 x treat breakfast (pancakes or croissant and jam etc)

1 x fruit smoothie and a chunk of cheese/babybel.

1 x egg on toast

Also fresh fruit if they want it.

Is this crazy? Is this too much sugar? I've lost all perspective! They are 6 and 8. I'm a bit concerned they need to keep dairy consumption up, they don't drink milk at all.

Smoothies are a quick way if getting milk/oat milk into kids. My son loves 'monster juice' which is a frozen banana, spinach, milk and some oats and flax seed.

I don't have food issues. I have not wanting to argue with my kids while also giving them a balanced diet issues.

What I could be is a control freak regarding meal planning.....but I'm not funny about calorie control/portions etc etc. I just want to be a good mum and feed them properly. It's not like they're getting any other aspects of a good life at the moment...

My house:
Would you like some breakfast ?

Toast jam, honey, marmite or even ham!
Bagel same as above
Cereal

Nothing else it's not a bloomin cafe!

I have 2 DCs age 4 and 2. Weekdays are cereals (granola/Weetabix/shreddies/rice crispies) which are in an accessible cupboard and they get ready in their bowls by themselves. Or porridge which I always offer and they often have, made with milk and mashed banana and cinnamon in to sweeten it. After cereals/porridge I will offer toast/toasted fruit loaf which they will usually have with butter/Marmite.

Saturdays are something cooked, either bacon sandwich/boiled eggs/whole fry up...

Sundays are pastry and grapefruit. Mine love spreading jam on a croissant!

Agree with PP for you to decide what they have and make it available to them, if you want to limit something make it for the weekend/holiday/special occasion.

I think you're giving them too much choice OP!
I don't think giving them the illusion of choice is helpful. Simplify everything.

If they are reluctant to eat dairy at breakfast time, will they eat it elsewhere in the day? Cheese snack, yoghurt at lunch etc?

I offer cereals (2 boring types available) and they often ask for toast as well. Fruit if they want it.

It’s an achievement if I can get mine to eat toast and jam.

Only stock things you want them to eat and let them get their own breakfast.

@KindergartenKop

No juice!

My issue with free choice of toast is that they'll always choose that over cereal and I want them to have the milk with the cereal. Cereals are dull: weetabix, cornflakes or branflakes. They love cereal on the odd occasion when we have something sugary!

So just give them toast and a glass of milk!

@KindergartenKop

I see it as making life less complicated because they know what they're getting and there's no attempt at negotiation. Ds2 is picky about food and prone to tantrums and I want to avoid that at 8am. But also I want to make sure he has a good breakfast because he's not keen on eating all the other food I make!

Good point about them not needing milk- I told you I've lost perspective!

I think you're just going to shift the arguments/negotiation around in time a bit. They'll be a long and tedious discussion around assigning the days (and do they both have to agree?) and then there'll still be whinging on the days that have been assigned for the less favoured breakfasts. It's a lot of extra hassle and complication for not much gain.

I'm honestly confused about why this so hard. It's just breakfast.

Mine are the same age they have either cereal (I only buy healthy cereal), toast/ bagel, porridge and whatever fruit they want. They mostly sort this themselves. If DH has time he'll make them eggs.

DD(8) loves pancakes, so makes them sometimes at the weekend. Or those croissants you have to roll out and and cook.

Youngest has allergies so we can't have nuts and he's never had milk but this doesn't appear to have affected him.

I think the main thing is you are the parent. DD would have pancakes and maple syrup everyday if it was up to her, but knows better than to try and out tantrum me in the morning

Too much choice. I always had either toast or cereal for breakfast as a child. Did me no harm. A tiny bit of jam or honey won't lead to a lifetime of sugar addiction.

Another one for thinking you're giving them too much choice. It's actually quite stressful having too much choice.

Special breakfasts can be for weekends and something to look forward to (pancakes etc) but certainly not used as a bribe.

Porridge is great for children, it's a good option to have on the table. Don't buy chocolate spread and rubbish like that.

Smoothie and babybel doesn't sound like very much food.. Surely they would be starving by breaktime at school if that's all they had!
Ours for ds 2.5 is weetabix or oats and yoghurt, sometimes plain cheerios if we have them

If you want to keep the sugar content down and keep it interesting for them, could you given them a mini continental selection on a plate of say, a hard boiled egg (you can cook a batch of 6 at a time and keep in the fridge) a piece of ham, piece of cheese or yoghurt, and a bit of fruit? Melon or grapes would go well. Mine would happily eat that 5 days in a row then have something sweeter at the weekend as a treat.

Advance warning, this is going to be a totally unhelpful post.

I just want to say I am so glad I had DC before all this angst over sugar!
I read all these posts and just sigh in all honesty! Mine were born 30+ years ago and they had sugary cereal every day! Oh the horror! Well they are not obese and their teeth are fine! I have not created sugar addicts. In their 30s now one DC doesn’t even bother with breakfast and the other just has a savoury breakfast. In fact it’s rare now for either of them to eat anything sweet.

A pp said “coco pops on Christmas Day only” come on! Lighten up fgs! All this massive controlling over food is going to lead to a generation who just go wild once they can make all their own choices! They will binge on sugar as soon as they get the chance.

I’ll probably get flamed for saying all this. But honestly creating battles over food does no one any favours. A handful of parents will find their DC carry on the good habits and they will then be the most vocal on what you should do but the truth of it is that controlling behaviour is usually rebelled against at some point. I’m not saying let them go wild and eat unhealthy food day in and day out. Just be balanced and don’t let food turn into a battle ground.

Mine literally help themselves to cereal every morning. That’s it. That’s breakfast. Porridge, low sugar cereal, sometimes they’ll put some toast in the toaster.

Plain porridge is horrible, plain yoghurt is revolting. Why do parents expect kids to eat stuff they wouldn't eat themselves?

If you don't want them to have X, don't buy X. It's not rocket science.

@Meruem I actually agree. I’m not at all bothered about sugar, they have chocolate spread every morning! They tend to naturally self regulate now (9 & 11), and we had Easter eggs left at Christmas that I had to throw out as they just weren’t bothered about eating them.

My sister is very strict about sugar. When we went on holiday together she and I had a row over the fact I let mine have a slushie after going on a climbing wall. When all the kids were allowed to buy a cookie from one of the shops, mine wanted plain gingerbread men, hers wanted the massive cookies with smarties/mashmallows etc that made them feel sick. DS ate half this gingerbread man and threw the rest in the bin because he’d had enough. He’s now on a sports scholarship and runs at county level so he’s doing OK.

Toast, a glass of milk, yoghurt and fruit.
They can have other stuff at weekend.

You’re making this a pointless battle. Plain porridge is horrid, it really is.
Compromise.

Plainish cereal with yoghurt/fruit. Or, those trendy little jars of overnight oats with fruit /yoghurt.

Who lets small kids cause such ructions at breakfast causing problems with meetings!!

What are you worried will happen if the kids eat toast every day? If you control what they eat now then you are setting them up to start hiding snacks once they're teenagers.

I remember my parents letting me have a hot chocolate for breakfast if I chose to when I was in primary school. I quickly realised that it made me hungry later in the morning, so stopped choosing it. If it had assigned 'treat' status and prohibited then I would have battled for it as often as possible, as children do.

Not everyone hates plain porridge or plain yogurt!

But if your children want to make it a bit more exciting, there’s nothing wrong with a drizzle of maple syrup. Really.

And a Mr Organic choc spread or PB on toast won’t kill them either. Get them to make it themselves. Put marmite, light cream cheese or some hummus out on the counter at the same time and they will probably choose the savoury option for their toast themselves sometimes too.

My teen has cheese on toast, a falafel and cheese wrap, an egg or egg and bacon wrap, greek style yogurt with honey, a banana smoothie, or sometimes just has fruit and a glass of milk.

I had weetabix for breakfast every day for 18 years give or take the first year or so.

Yours sounds way too American and complex for me.

Breakfast should require no effort or thought in my view.

Or a buttered hot cross bun when I buy them.

Fucking hell. If my day started with this level of stress over breakfast I’d spend every day in bed!