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 really like most vegetables, and they are not in general something I've had major problems with my children eating, even though they have both at times been quite fussy. I certainly would not equate eating vegetables with cleaning the toilet

I would not provide interesting snacks as an alternative to a meal. We do generally eat good meals together, but sometimes one of us isn't very hungry when we eat our evening meal, and has smaller portions than usual, and then later sometimes needs a top up. In our house that isn't usually finish up because we operate on an 'all the more for us' basis so it will be a piece of bread or something like that. ds for example likes to eat dry pasta. The only thing I object to is when one of them announces a couple of minutes before bed that they are hungry.

Ffs of course you have to encourage them to eat veg, it's essential for a healthy diet, we've all seen the program's.....

My dc's eats veg, but does need a little encouragement, but we know he does not like mushrooms or courgettes, I think it's the texture, but I still cook meals with them in and on his plate, I don't insist he eats them though sometimes he will nibble at a cougette.

I often find ds saying hes full etc just because he wants to go and play quicker.

Fgs you know your child when to give them the benefit of the doubt or when they are using meal time to call the shots.

Sometimes I let him chose what he eats if I'm not cooking a family meal other times, eat what is given. But 8 do accept that some days he eats slightly less, but no way would I allow snacks as a substitute to healthy cooked hot food.

Agree nooka

Lapsed Pacificist

Quite!

OP, and many others on here - you have ishoos with food and certainly with control.

Imagine this, my boys all eat three square meals a day with a few little snacks, they eat all their veg and fruit (cabbage is a big favourite in this house).

I don't really see how encouraging kids to eat veg means you have "issues". Those of you that say your kids eat all their veg, without you ever saying a word, are are just lucky really, not all kids are like this. It's the same as those parents that have 6 week old babies that sleep through the night, just luck, but parents are convinced it's because of "their' fantastic routine or something?

Amberleaf what would you do if your kids didn't eat a single fruit or veg, ever, would you still not ask them to? Would you just sit back and allow them to live on a diet of nothing but carbs?

I never said it did snow.

If someone isn't going to give a 7 year old boy a small snack, when it is obvious, by the OPs own admission that they hadn't eaten a lot that day, there is a problem.

My kids sometimes fight me on food, grumble that they don't want what is on offer, but on the whole the balance seems ok. They eat a good variety and some days they don't want to eat something, because they, err, just don't want to. They simply don't fancy it. Is this different to a lot of adults? I don't think so.

That is perfectly normal behaviour in both adults and children alike.

Providing the diet is generally balanced and healthy, I fail to see why you can't just let them eat a little snack if they've asked for it.

This is the first time he's done this by the way, did you all catch this?

Also love the way some people are accusing him of being manipulative. Unless kids are made to realise that food is a tool with which they can attempt to manipulate a caregiver, they are probably just hungry.

Referring to him manipulative 7 year old, or that he's trying to chance his arm, simply because he woke up hungry and wanted a snack.

Dear god!

Oh I must have an issue then that I actually give a flying cook if my ds eats a healthy balanced diet, well long live my issue.

I think ensuring your child has a healthy diet in this climate of increasing childhood obesity is a basic requirement in being a responsible parent, how we all achieve this may be different, the point is you do what your child best responds too. I do not give in to demands for snack plates when my ds dinner is still there for him to go back to.

In the same vain, dc's would rather stay and play on wii allay saturday if we let him, but when he gets to the gym he enjoys his football/swimming play area just as much.

Think some folk need to get grip and be a parent not a blood servant alacart menu making chefs either.

I agree with you Damn, as I said way up thread I think the OP should have given him something to eat if this was not a regular thing for him. I would.

Providing a snack to HUNGRY child as an excpetion is not mutually exlclusvie to wanting them to eat a balanced diet is it!

Seriously, a la carte menu?

HE JUST WANTED A SMALL SNACK AS A ONE OFF

FFS

And the dinner wasn't there to go back, and the OP said he was probably "just thirsty" despite him climbing out of bed to tell her his tummy was rumbling

Amberleaf what would you do if your kids didn't eat a single fruit or veg, ever, would you still not ask them to? Would you just sit back and allow them to live on a diet of nothing but carbs?

One of mine doesnt like the texture of fruit, he never really has.

I have a blender, so I make smoothies which he loves.

I have a child with autism, he doesnt eat much meat due to the texture. I have found ways of getting iron into him without having to make an issue of him not eating meat.

There are ways of making sure your child gets what they need without standing over them while you force them to eat carrots.

It doesnt make you a soft touch or mean that you dont care about what they eat.

Agree with poster who says you are lucky if your kids will eat veg with "no encouragement". Mine were very good eaters when they were little but have got increasingly fussy as they have got older.

Mine will sometimes go hungry rather than have a "healthy snack"- as they "don't like it". Well too bad!! That's their choice then. They are offered a variety of things- most of which don't appeal, rather than they actually hate.

I must be such a bad mother

If your child said he was thirsty would you say "no get back to bed, you should have had a drink earlier"

I would imagine any decent parent would not say that.
Then why would you say NO to a child who says they are hungry and you know they haven't eaten their tea?

I think any parent who would say in the circumstances described by the op is bloody mad and far too controlling.

Well I guess I will just have to agree to disagree. But I will just say one last thing - I read out the OP's post to my 11 year old and 12 year old sons last night and told them what the general consensus on here was and, for what it's worth, they do not think the OP is being unreasonable at all. I was going to ask my 6 year old but he was in bed fast asleep on a full stomach having eaten all his tea (at 5.30pm). Then, after my older boys went to bed at their agreed time, I enjoyed a good cuddle and glass of wine with my husband in the safe knowledge that - unless one of them was unwell - the evening was ours to enjoy our much valued quality time together as husband and wife. It's no wonder the relationship boards are full of miserable couples, they are too busy throwing perfectly good food away and making toast for kids who should be in bed to have any form of sex life. And on that controversial note I bid you goodbye as I'm bored of this earth mummy "I'm better and kinder than you because you dare to have routine and structure in your children's lives" thread now. The answer to the OP is that some mothers think you are unreasonable and some don't - simple. So just do what YOU think is right and be confident in your own judgments of your own child.

at the thought that occasionally giving a a child a slice of brown bread and a glass of milk at 8.30 in the evening destroys your sex life!

Gooshka You have made a huge jump from "shall I give my 5 year old something to eat on the rare occasion he gets out of bed and says he is hungy" to "If you do this on a rare occasion your DC will be up every night taking the piss."

Can't you see that giving a child food once in a blue moon, will not lead to years of distrupted nights?

I'm not an earth mother by any streatch of the imagination, and my 2 had very structured bed times, but that doesn't mean that you can't occasionally be a bit more flexible.

And I do actually do think it's mean to refuse a child food/water/cuddle if they very occasionally get out of bed at 9 oclock at night for it.

I have found ways of getting vegetables into my child, I say "c'mon dd, eat your veg up, there's a good girl", much easier than cooking something different and trying to hide it!

Love the thought of all these people making snacks when they should be making love instead .

Classic straw man argument.

"Shall I give my child a slice of bread if he's hungry at bed time occasionally?"

"it's people like you whose children have no structure and routine and who are out on the streets at all hours smoking dope who are destroying our society. Children need boundaries, ffs- not this laissez faire attitude. I bet you haven't even got a dining table. It's your responsibility to teach them right from wrong, not let them run riot eating junk food and getting fat and being disruptive at school....."

When I was in my twenties I was very prone to "night starvation". I dealt with this by keeping a tin of oatcakes by the bed, not by making sure that I ate plenty during the day.

The relationship board would be full of people like my husband bitching about his lazy-arse wife who couldn't be bothered to get their child a small snack, even though she knew he hadn't eaten much.

My husband would be unimpresssed if I did this so I could have a glass of wine, shag etc...

Seriously

How about all these part-time, fuck of now it's mummy's time, parents.

Just wow!

before someone jumps on the gender-sterotyping of my last post, I am talking about a wife/mother not getting a snack since that's what the OP is about.

Of course a father could just as equally get a snack if required.

Agree Seeker I don't understand it, it is all a bit daft.

TheSurgeon I am the same, I cannot sleep if I'm hungry and often take a couple of digestives up to bed.
And before anyone chips in and says this will lead to eating problems, I'm a size 8 thank you very much

People are also forgetting that DC are growing a huge amount, so the food they eat, the amount and when they need it changes.

I have found ways of getting vegetables into my child, I say "c'mon dd, eat your veg up, there's a good girl", much easier than cooking something different and trying to hide it!

Do you say 'come on eat up your chicken/roast potatos etc'?

Im guessing no.

It is easy to create a veg avoidance issue by placing too much attention on making sure they eat some! you are training them into thinking veg is not nice.

Gooshka ive always had a great sex life thanks

Seeker did someone really post the text in the second set of quotations?

Fuck off gooshka there's a dear