to send my child to bed hungry?

[ladyfirenze]

dts 7 was offered snacks after school of raisins, apple and carrots with a glass of milk. He ate some raisins and turned down everything else. At five thirty he was served a roast dinner consisting of chicken, roast carrots and sweet potatoes, steamed mange tout and gravy. He sloped off for a poo during dinner and left his carrots and potatoes. I didn't push him to finish them, but I did say I thought he should. He's just got out of bed to tell me his tummy is rumbling and he's hungry. I've said he can have a drink of water and have sent him back to bed...... That's right isn't it.....

I don't know, I guess because to me dinner is the most important meal of the day. I cook it from scratch and we sit down together to eat it. To reject that and then eat rubbish like toast just seems so wasteful. And greedy, yes.

Oh I see that if a meal is rejected in favour of a snack, but some post seem to suggest that any food eaten after a meal is just from greed which I find quite odd.

Last night we had fish with bread and salad as our dinner. A few hours later DH and I had a coffee with some chocolate. Hardly greedy. Different people eat differently and at different times.

I guess my point wasn't directed at the OP as much as those shocked at people eating outside of set meal times.

I'm not shocked at people eating outside of mealtimes, I am shocked that people consider it cruel for a child to last from dinner to breakfast without more food in between.

Everlong in my defence you did say "of cake and some milk, or a teacake, or a cereal bar" which tend to be packed with sugar and fat.....

And really.."do you get me?" ok....I "get" you. This thread has turned a bit silly. I don't like getting personal with individual posters. We have different thoughts and I am happy to leave it at that. Bye now

To reject that and then eat rubbish like toast just seems so wasteful. And greedy, yes

I can understand wasteful to an extent, but how is it greedy to eat toast instead of a big plate of dinner? that doesnt make sense!

How is toast 'rubbish' anyway?

F you're not hungry, you're not "rejecting" a meal. And surely it's greedy to eat when you're not hungry.

And on what planet is toast "rubbish"?????

I'm not saying toast doesn't have it's place, but in comparison to a proper meal, yes, it's rubbish.

I offer my child a nutritious dinner. She can eat it or not, but she doesn't snack in the evening. Neither do I or my dh. That's it. I get that other people do things differently, fine, but am annoyed that people would think not offering snacks in the evening is tantamount to child cruelty.

So your child, for whatever reason, is genuinely not hungry at dinner time- 6.00 or whatever. You would rather she ate food she didn't want than give her a slice of wholemeal toast and peanut butter late in the evening?

Fruit-I don't think people think that not offering snacks in the evening per se, is tantamount to child cruelty-but wrt the OP and subsequent posters, some dogmatic attitudes and rigidity around food has been questioned and challenged robustly-and rightly so, in the main.

Everlong oh god yes we do....andI got DS tea cakes today (they were reduced in my defence) for after school treat today

[bgrin] how Scottish!!!

But why would she not be hungry at dinner time?

Unless she's been to a party or something, which is obviously different, she is hungry - assuming she's had a not too huge snack in the afternoon.

Look, to us, dinnertime is important. It is a social occasion and not just about the food. Also, I am on a tight budget. We can eat well, but I have to plan meals carefully. So no, I am not going to allow my daughter to eat toast instead. She eats plenty all day.

It's how children have been raised for a long long time really.

There's no reason why my children wouldn't be hungry at dinnertime. All they've had since lunch is an apple and a humzinger. Of course if I'd filled them up with cake after school I wouldn't expect them to be hungry. Surely it's better they have a bit of fruit after school and a well balanced dinner rather than cake after school, skip the balanced meal, and toast for supper because they're now hungry having skipped dinner? Never mind the fact you're throwing £££ in the bin. I'm just not getting this at all! The only reason my children don't eat their dinner is because they're being fussy about what they are offered. They would be much happier if they could skip being told to eat vegetables every evening and instead got fed with toast at bedtime.

Every now and then Mumsnet seems like a parallel universe.

Mealtimes are really important to us too. Even if you don't want to eat, you sit at the table while others do. And 99.999% of the time everyone eats. But sometimes somebody doesn't want to. A bigger than usual lunch or snack. Ds sometimes doesn't wantto eat much after he's been very physically active. Sometimes somebody's hqd a bad day and doesn't want to eat much.

The sky will not fall in and you will not lose control of your family if that person eats what they can, then has some fruit and a bit of toast at bed time. It's called kindness and flexibility.

I would say that maybe he wasn't feeling too good if he went off to the toilet in the middle of dinner so I would be flexible. It isn't as if he refused to eat it and wanted something different.

Normal kids in the UK do not suffer for being 'hungry'. IME, there is no challenge keeping up their calorie intake.

However, many - shamefully many - kids are at risk of being malnourished. They take the calories in through a too narrow selection of food, and don't get the vitamins, minerals and protein they need. A misbalanced diet will in itself make you feel 'hungry' in the sense of unsatisfied. This is one of the theories on obesity - you eat and eat because your body is trying to harvest sufficient nutrition from 'empty' food.

This is the reason why it is important to eat during meal times. At his usual time, the OPs son was expected to sit at the table, eat with cutlery and consume a balanced meal. It is worth a growling tummy to emphasise the point that mealtimes is when you're supposed to eat. Letting a DC pay lip service to meals, confident in being able to fill up on bland, soft carbs later from their 'kind' parents is really not supporting them at all in either meeting their current nutritional needs or future eating habits.

Surely it's better they have a bit of fruit after school and a well balanced dinner rather than cake after school, skip the balanced meal, and toast for supper because they're now hungry having skipped dinner? Never mind the fact you're throwing £££ in the bin. I'm just not getting this at all!

Is it really either one or the other of the scenarios you've posted there?

I dont think anyone who says they will give a snack after dinner is saying they 'fill them up with cake' and allow them to completely skip dinner are they?

"Normal" kids, Footprints? What does that mean? Do you mean "the majority"?

I know plenty of kids that have gone hungry, not malnourished, hungry.

I'm excluding SN/food phobias/ deliberate neglect etc. - issues which clearly don't apply in the OP.

And I mean hungry in the sense of causing suffering - not tummy rumbling. Everyone gets rumbly tummy once in a while if they break their routine.

"normal" kids without SN?

yes I do get your point, it just stings a bit to hear your child called "not normal"

still maintain that a bit of supper will not lead to malnourishment though!!

(!) this isn't exactly relevant to the OP.

'In the absence of particular issues specific to that child and that family, numerically equating to the majority of children, in the UK actual hunger is rarely an issue for children.'

Nor.mal

Adjective. Conforming to a standard. Usual, typical or expected.

Noun. The usual, expected or typical state or condition.

'UK Children conforming to expected circumstance, typical and usual in the UK, do not have hunger as an issue.'