to be surprised at how many people give crisps to their young toddlers?

[lowrib]

I'm not a food fascist by any means, but when DS is so small (21 months) he can only eat what we give him. And too much salt is bad, right? So why would you want to give your toddler crisps? I don't get it! They have no nutritional value, and they're bad for you, right?

This week I saw my mate and her DS (21 months) and he was munching a whole bag of whotsits. And my mate yesterday gave her DS (16 months) a bag of those teddy bear crisps.

DS has had chocolate as an occasional treat when bought for him by relatives, and I let him have the crisp that was offered to him yesterday, to join in. I expect he'll have crisps at parties etc when he's a little older.

But why would you buy them regularly for such young children? I don't get it

Crisps are terrible for teeth. Worse than sugary sweets.

Odd but true

(lowrib have you seen new meet up thread)

It's the starch isn't it? I saw it on QI.
I'm sure there are lots of exceptions to this, but generally speaking, the smuggest parents in the food arena, are those with one very small child....

My BIL (33) dips wotsits in milk which turns orange and slightly frothy. He then drinks the milk.

I have to leave the room.

I do have a friend who was very concious that her children eat NO RUBBISH AT ALL when they were growing up. I once collected her DS from school and was chatting in the car about his day. I asked what he'd had for lunch and he said 'pizza and chips'. His mum asked the same question when we got home and he looked at me pleadingly and said 'baked potato and salad'. I didn't say anything, but vowed that I would allow my DC to have these things occasionally so that they didn't 'crave' unhealty food. My DD(5) knows about healthy eating and is keen to eat to stay healthy, but we do occasionally go out for fish and chips or pizza. She knows these aren't off limits so doesn't want them all the time. Her nursery have done a great job of reinforcing the healthy eating message, and she knows herself that crisps and chocolate (and wine!!) are okay in moderation.

MilaMae - your children cried when they first tasted coke? I couldn't stand having children that fragile - I certainly wouldn't be broadcasting it... how very odd.

I am horrified there is so much salt in bread! I hadn't even checked..

I allow crisps once it a while but go for salt free if possible e.g. saltless salt and shake or if I am feeling particularly smug middle class Tyrells Naked - no salt (bought from Waitrose naturally )

"So the answer to my question is that people don't take salt intake very seriously, which surprises me TBH. I thought it was common knowledge that salt is bad for you?"

Um, no. The answer to your question is that people think that there are far greater sources of salt in a typical toddler's diet than an occasional bag of crisps -- largely what the CASH statement you quote ("It can be surprising which foods contribute the most salt to our diets. Always read the label.") says, too, interestingly enough.

And your OP referred to one-off incidents from two separate friends -- which has now segued into "regular" crisp-buying in your most recent post. You can't take responses to a post about occasional crisp-eating (which is what you asked about) and then claim they are all talking about regular crisp-eating.

I think, myself, that so far as salt intake is concerned it's more important to worry about the salt content of foods that don't taste obviously salty (bread, cereals, most processed foods, even apparently "healthy" foods like vegetable soup containing lots of your five-a-day) than the salt content of obviously salty foods (crisps). It's easy to keep an eye on the latter -- you know what you've been eating and what your children have been eating, and have the whole class of food mentally tagged as "occasional indulgence, not particularly good for you". But it's hard to keep tabs on how much salt you're taking in in, say, a pre-prepared three-bean and tomato soup, without religiously checking the label every time (or cooking everything from scratch). And the sad thing is that the "healthy" soup probably has far more salt in it than the crisps, and a single serving can easily send a child over their entire day's salt limit.

If I'm going to rant about salt content and children's diets, I'm going to focus far more on very high levels of "hidden" salt in things that appear to be healthy, rather than lower levels of bloody obvious salt in things that are badged as an occasional food.

DS cried when he first tasted coke as well. He was under 2 though and it wasn't so much a cry as a 'WTF mother??' kind of unappreciative noise. I let him try it because I knew he wouldn't like the fizz and it stopped him asking for it. Now he looks at my drinks and says "Eeurgh!" and picks up his cup of water, drinks it and says "Num num!"

I tend to cook from scratch and not add salt to things so I don't think crisps in the scheme of things are too bad. Unless you are constantly feeding your toddler processed foods I don't think it's difficult at all to stay under the 2g limit. I do tend to let him have a whole pack of crisps (sometimes we share one) but as others said I stick to the lower salt count flavours like pom bears and quavers.

They are convenient, easily available and not too messy. And for a relatively small amount of food they take ages to eat which means you can go round the supermarket/get something done/etc.

In our local shops there lots of Polish goods and the best things ever are wotsit-alikes with nothing in except for corn. Perfect for weaning and my children love dipping them in hummus ( now that's full of salt).

I'm also surprised about how aggressive some posters are! If you are so comfortable in your choices, why do you feel the need to go on the attack, eh?! Oh sorry, I forgot, it's AIBU

"If that's the most shocking/confusing bit of parenting you've seen OP then you must live in a lovely area!"

um no. In fact I've just left an area of London that was rife with crack cocaine, and I've seen some shocking examples of parenting, which I won't repeat here as it's just too depressing. (Am now in a lovely area!). But that doesn't mean I can't think about diet!

I'm not having a go, I was genuinely interested. For me crisps=bad (it's not just the salt, it's the saturated fat and the other crap that goes into them) and so why would you give them to a child too young to be aware of them unless you introduce them? I have been educated by this thread. Apparently I'm in the minority although I still don't get it really.

Some people are stricter than others about food, of course and that's just the way it is. My personal opinion is that once DS is older, and has found out about crisps for himself - if he wants to eat them, then a packet every so often won't do any harm IMO. But that's when he's older. I expect some people would find that a lax attitude, but I would think them food fascists

But I am still mystified as to why you would introduce it to a child as young as 15 months?!

There is way too much salt in processed food, and it's really not good for us. I haven't salted my food for years, and when I eat processed food I can really taste it now. You do develop a tolerance for salt, and if you eat a lot of it when young (regular processed food / crisps) you'd be hard pressed not to develop a taste for it as that's how it works.

I remember when I worked as a nanny (many years ago) I added a small pinch of salt to mashed potato I made for a little girl (6) whose mum never added salt to their (mostly home-cooked) food. She instantly recognised that salt had been added and said yuck! I was surprised then that she could taste what I thought to be such a small amount, but now I've stopped eating so much salt this doesn't surprise me, I know it tastes really strong if you're not so used to it.

I the same vein, a few weeks ago, a friend made porridge for DS (then 20 months) and added salt. It's usually one of his favourites, but he refused to eat it. Again, he's not used to it so he didn't like it.

Gotta go, DS need some attention

2shoes, I'll be at the meetup, I'm looking forward to it.

I promise not to mention salt

Now. Just found my old De la Soul video, and me and DS have some important dancing about the front room to do

all food is ok in small amounts. i agree there is little point in introducing it to children at a very young age but especially if you have older children that can be difficult as they see the other children having them and want a little but themselves. either way a small amount is not the end of the world

Sometimes you cave in from pressure from relatives. I never gave ds1 crisps or chocolate or anything that wasn't good for him. Whilst he was too young to ask for it made sense not to introduce him to bad habits. Mil thought I was an evil cow and because cousins were having it their parents thought that by default we were judging their parenting skills so in the end I eventually caved in for an easier life.

Mil pretended to feed ds2 a chocolate biscuit the other day (he is 5 months and hasn't started on solids yet) it was purely to wind me she had no real intention of feeding it to him.

For some reason the whole world feels they have a right to decide what you feed your child.

thedollshouse I know what you mean. DS's first taste of chocolate was at about 8 months. SIL didn't ask if it was OK, she just popped it in his mouth! I let it go at the time, by the time I noticed what was happening he'd already had it, but I was that she didn't ask. I'd never offer sweets / crisps to other people's young children without asking the parent if it's OK first, particularly if the parent is actually there.

YANBU

I would not feed such a young child crisps on a regular basis. I think that once you give something to a child regularly then there is no going back. I used to give my DS's plain rice cakes when on shopping trips and they thought they were a treat! Now aged 9 and 6 they would not want to eat them as they are used to the salty taste of crisps. Likewise, I used to give them organix crunch bars, which they would find tastless now and would never eat now after eating chocolate etc. My SIL fed her baby flavoured snack a jacks which had MSG in, and her DD is now very overweight, only liking junk food.

So I think that while they are very young,eg under 3 there is no point regularly ginving them crisps etc. Why not keep their diet as good as you can. When they get older things will change. My DS's enjoy all sorts of food, so me being strict when they were babies has not affected them badly.

I know bread has a lot of salt in, but bread is not a snack, it is a meal, and when made into a sandwich with cheese or tuna etc, it is a relatively healthy lunch for a child.

OP. YABU. Crisps and flavoured ones in particular are lovely. DD adores them and she is fine. She doesn't eat a packet every day she takes a couple in a plastic box to school a couple of times a week.

I never gave DD crisps - if I bought crisps i would snaffle them all, so was safer not to.

However I have always cooked with salt, and didn't reduce it when dd was weaning (she ate food off my plate anyway, or purees of what I had eaten). i had no intention of doing without salt.

We don't eat ready meals or pre prepared crap (or not much of) and when she was a child she ate loads of wok cooked food covered in rivers of soy sauce. Oh well.

DD (2) has so many food intolerances there is loads she can't eat so a bag of crisps is her treat instead of cake/biscuits etc...

Also the tescos value multi packs are much smaller individually than say a bag of walkers too.

She loves the onion rings variety.

YANBU, lowrib.

I agree with everything you've said.

I also disagree with those posters who have said that what you are fed as a young child has little bearing on your eating habits as an adult.

My mum gave us a super-healthy diet and sweets and crisps etc were severely rationed. When I left home I did eat a lot of pizza and takeaway food etc. But once I'd had a baby I reverted to the eating habits I had when young, and will eat this sort of fresh, healthy food for the rest of my life. So the proportion of my adult life spent scoffing junk (and not all the time, either!) is actually quite small. I much prefer healthy food to processed junk - which is what crisps are - and I'm sure that's because it's what I ate when I was young.

FWIW my DC have a small amount of sweets/choc every weekend, and can have any crisps/sweets if offered them by others (something my mum banned, and I hated it!) But this consumption is occasional, not everyday.

No crisps?

What do they get to keep them occupied when you're all at pub then?

YANBU. I'm with the OP on this one.

all my DS's as toddlers were capable of polishing off an entire bag of crisps - is that unusual then????