to ask politely that a visiting child not to have sugar on his cereal?

[ChaosTrulyReigns]

Occasionally I'll have one of DD2's classmates before school, as it helps with his parents' working situation.

I have 4 DCs who obviously will have to be cautious over their eating habits for life. Genes.

Therefore we have only cereals that are not excessively sugary for breakfast.

This child moans about what is on offer at my house. So he then asks for augar to be added to weetabix, which I would rather not, but if DS is not in the room he can have some discreetly, as the girls understand my rationale, but DS is only 4 and I would rather not have this eating style visible to him.

So, AIBU to request politely that he doesn't add sugar when ChaoticBoy is around?

I don't think this is an issue of whether sugar is reasonable or not. It is a question of when in Rome...

This child is coming to your house, therefore, he follows your rules, end of!

If your house rule was he had to stand on one leg whilst eating his weetabix, so be it. If he complains and his parents say they don't like it, well they have to find someother helpful mum who is happy to take on a 5th child in the manic mornings before school.

Chocolate sauce we had left over from DDs birthday!

You see, I am not a food facist, just a skintflint :o

I find it a little bit sad that some people would never have sugar in the house. I'm sure teaching cooking and baking promotes healthy eating far more than keeping sugar out the house.

ledkr, pretty much no-one is banning sugar on this thread - it's a total red herring. weetabix is vile either way, but my children love it without sugar, so what's the point of me adding it? - there's nothing to be gained.

no i guess its one of those things if you never start it they never know like mine with squash etc.i think i gave them a bit cos i dont like it without
bogeyface me too, we have been given tjose food bins here,i thought i could use it up when gets full-a sort of quirky bubble and squeak haha

bonkers thread.

chaos, that's really kind of you to help this boy's folks out by giving him his breakfast and taking him to school, he should at 10 be able to understand that he needs to help you out by not causing more fuss for you in the morning. and if he can't, say you have no sugar in the house and he'll need to eat in his own home first if he really needs it.

although fwiw, cereal is all cack and they'd all be better off with scrambled eggs. which is wot mine have of a morn. [smug]

Yes, that's what I was saying upthread, ledkr - I drenched my cereal in sugar as a child - possibly copying my dad (he of current type 2 diabetes fame, but he's a hardcore sugar fan - none of the sprinkle for him). I think I must have stopped eating cereal when I was a student or something, as I now find them all very sweet (change of bliss point for sugar, apparently). I do put sugar in porridge - dcs don't have it as I gave to them when they were weaning, and just never put it in then, and they don't ask for it - I don't know how they can stand it, frankly, but for now it's just fine.

Every morning, Aitch? I don't think I could eat that much egg.

I've just finished a bowl of porridge. Food of the gods.

porridge, scrambled egg, oatcakes and cheese... that sort of thing. with a glass of milk. we eschew a sweet breakfast chez nous. ( because i don't like them myself)

Really? In my dream world I'd eat nothing but pannettone for breakfast. And possibly lunch and dinner.

My porridge is sweet, though

Oatcakes and cheese a nice twist on the continental model, though. I like German style breakfasts of bread and cheese and meat, etc, but never think to recreate them at home.

I can see Chaos' point. If I were trying to get 5 children out of the house to school, I wouldn't want to risk a tantrum from my 4-year-old.

And if she starts letting her ds have a teaspoonful of sugar on his weetabix (because she's let the visiting child have it and her ds has seen), then she is going to have to control the amount of sugar her ds has on his cereal - and that might be more likely to lead to him bingeing on it later on - what he never has, he can't miss, but if he has a bit of sugar, but isn't allowed lots and lots, then sure as eggs is eggs, one day, when unsupervised, he will try lots and lots.

My mum used to control rigidly the amount of certain foods we were allowed - eg, the amount of butter on our toast, or the amount of sugar that dad, dsis and I were allowed on our cereal and in our coffee. I definitely used to try to sneak extra sugar onto my cereal, and when I left home, I went from having toast with a bit of butter, to having butter with a bit of toast.

And once dad, dsis and I went to a concert, but mum was poorly and stayed at home. Come the interval, dsis and dad shovelled the sugar into their coffee (I had recently given up sugar in coffee) - and got the shock of their lives because someone had put salt in the sugar bowls!

golden syrup on porridge here but only at weekends,apricots and prunes in the week-funnily enough dd chooses something different weekdays.

She has a friend tho who isnt allowed anything,you know the type-mum used to give her a dry rice cake at toddlers at biccy time.She is a nightmare here,all she does is whisper to dd "can we have some biscuits,crisps etc" and then wolfs down everything on her plate before asking "is there any pudding" and looking disappointed at my offer of fruit or yogurt,I have no ides why i told you that but i think its mildly relevant.

i am in heaven with a proper meaty, salami and cheesy italian breakfast, with a rosetta roll. no alla confitura!

Ledkr, you'd think I was incredibly cruel if you saw my dd's reaction to yoghurt - she gets incredibly excited! We don't usually have pudding - she was never one of those babies that you thought needed the extra calories, iyswim - but sometimes I'd mash banana into natural greek yoghurt - it's cheap and really really lovely, and she gets massively excited.

But - we bake a lot, so actually she gets a fair amount of treats, etc, she just has this hilarious reaction to yoghurt as some kind of wonder food. But am with you on rice cake people - blerg.

I like ricecakes - I like the way they squeak in my teeth, and they taste nice with marmite.

weirdo

I'm still with Pagwatch, cereal really is shit in a box.

did anyone watch that programme on bbc2 (i DID recommend it at the time). can't remember the name, basically took three cheap as shit products - water, cereal and yoghurt - and explained how we now came to be paying gazillions of pounds for them while the manufacturers ptsl on their yachts in monaco harbour.

I used to have loads of sugar when I was a child.
I couldn't eat porridge without 4 spoonsful in it.
and weetabix had to have 2, same with rice krispies.

it didn't do me any harm.

an now i'm older, I don't have so much sugar. only a spoon on my weetabix.
Most of that is self-controlled - I made my own conscious decision to cut down the sugar when I was in my late teens.

but surely all you sugar-lovers would say that Chaos is entitled to do a favour for a pal in a way that causes her as little disruption as possible?

seems to me totally obvious that if the nipper sees the sugar he will want the sugar, and while no, it's not the worst thing in the world, it's a bit rich to let a 10 year old's presence in the house dictate what she will do with her own kids.

anyway, it's dead easy. if he wants a sugary breakfast he can have one, in his own house.

Habbibu my ds is the same... he'll do anything for yoghurt