to make my dc eat healthy cereals for breakfast????

[icancount]

Apparently EVERYONE else has chocolate type breakfast cereals.

Mine have to have things like shreddies/weetabix/cornflakes/rice crisps etc etc. They are allowed honey on it.
During school holidays they choose their own cereals (frosties, coco pops type stuff)
Am I a horrible mother?

Not particularly, but I don't see the point of having a "healthy" cereal and then pouring a load of sugar on it anyway. I don't think it really matters tbh, so long as they eat a balanced diet otherwise.

I often get full fat milk for breakfast so I can sneak in extra calories to get them through the morning.We always have butter too as there is no way I'm feeding my dc the shite in a lot of those low fat spreads.Butter is a natural food.

I agree MrsH

It has taken a long time to get my au pair to give the children fullt fat milk, and butter rather than the low fat everything she uses. If my children were overweight then it may be differnt. Children need fat and sugar. Fat is critical to absorb vitamins. My children have their balanced food with lashing of whatever else they want on top. They are still as skinny as rakes

YANBU! My DD mostly has healthy cereals (loves porridge!) or toast and marmite, although sometimes gets something a little less 'good' but not regularly.

Nutella is my 'nasty mummy' thing - I only buy it for the school holidays otherwise she'd live on the stuff.

I used to feed mine 'healthy' cereals, until I realised there was less sugar in sugar puffs that there was in shreddies. Now they have a free-er rein to have what they enjoy. Currently shreddies, sugar puffs and mini weetabix with chocolate.

My dc eat porridge, whole grain toast or weetabix for breakfast too. YANBU.

ivykaty I just got the nutritional info for weetabix too and saw you'd beaten me to it.

Grrr!

Breakfast is such a minefield. I'm not so much worried about the sugar content from the fear of them getting obese, but rather the way their blood sugar goes up and down and that effect on their mood and minds.

If mine have rice krispies, they are hungry 90 minutes later, about 30 minutes after school has started. They probably don't notice at school because they are busy, but I notice the sharp decline in mood on the weekends. I used to give them corn flakes, but then I saw that a bowl of corn flakes has as much salt as a packet of ready salted crisps!

Now they will have oatmeal with raisins or frozen blueberries thrown in, shreddies or mini-wheats with fruit in them, usually store brand. I got them frosted mini-wheats as a treat on holidays and they were rejected for being too sweet. Other choices are toast with peanut butter and banana or eggs and sausage, but that's a bit much for me to cook on school mornings.

sorry folkgirl - I was curious and then wanted to share what I had found.

I was thinking - I purchased some smoked haddock today when shopping - I may make up kedgree for next week breakfast and see what dd thinks to that!

Not at all, we had issues as because I used to buy in the chocolate cereals thats all the children wanted so I have now stopped buying them. The have them once a week at my mums but other than that I have shreddies, reddi brek, porridge and things like that which now they have tried them they actually like. They also sometimes have fruit or boiled eggs too.

I am really glad I did this as although I know some other cereals are no better than cocoa pops etc but if they had run out they would be an almightly fuss and I thought it would be better for them to have a bigger variety.

Littlemissgreen, there is more sugar in Sugar Puffs than Shreddies. Per 100g, Sugar Puffs have 35g of sugars and Shreddies have 15.5g

Sugar Puffs info Shreddies info

AndiMac Your blaming blood sugar which could indeed be reasonable, but the size of bowl of rice krispies required to be remotely calorie equivalent to your other choices is immense. So whilst you've changed the GI of the meal, you've also increased the calories, so it's perhaps not surprising they get less hungry later.

My daughter has porridge - no sugar but with fresh fruit (strawberries at the moment). The other option is an omelette or scrambled eggs which my son chooses. No sugar allowed either as honey or in cereals. They eat enough of it with supposedly healthy school lunches and so have no sugar at home at all during the week (except in fruit or the sugar in things like bread). We relax a bit at weekends and they have the odd homemade cake or an ice cream and sometimes have a bagel or make themselves pancakes with maple syrup or lemon and sugar. We don't buy bread which helps with sugar intake and try to make everything ourselves as far as possible. However, we do not bother much when on holiday or out anywhere - then we have a juice and a cake or something unhealthy but delicious.

My son is not bothered at all about sugary things, my daughter is having to educate herself about moderation (with help) as she doesn't have a very good off button with sweet things - like her mother.

I can honestly say I have never checked the sugar content of cereal. I think we probably do eat quite a lot of sugar but I don't care. We are all thin, fit and healthy and never had fillings and sorry to sound smug but we are very close and happy. Sometimes we even stop at McDonalds for breakfast!

I'm a bigger meanie than all that. Mine only get frosties & coco-pops on their birthdays.

Mine have one or more of either Weetabix, Ready Brek, Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, Cheerios, muesli, egg with toast, peanut butter/jam on toast, usually with watered down juice and raisins somewhere in the equation. 6 yo sometimes has a cup of tea as well. I don't really have any cereals myself other than Ready Brek or occasionally muesli, as I'm hungry again an hour later. Personally I find protein such as egg the most filling thing for breakfast.

At weekends we sometimes have full English or croissants and pain au chocolat. I tend to forego the pastries though as they don't agree with me.

shredded wheat is very different from shreddies

This is true, some of the other food is more nutritionally dense. Which is fine by me if they don't get the mood swings, as they are in general good shape.

There is no cereal in my house
Eggs or bacon here for protein to get you through the morning!

I get one box of crap cereal a week (minibix, multigrain shapes usually). when it's gone it's gone - I have 5 children, so it is usually gone in 2 days. Then they're on the other stuff. Not that it's particularly healthy, but there's less sugar per 100g than minibix.

They like to to have toast though or eggs though too.

I wouldn't buy the really high sugar stuff like cocopops or other chocolate cereal as it just seems too high in sugar. Having said that, rice crispies aren't particularly good, and dh kindly introduced them to sugar on the top of their cereal so I don't give myself any medals.

The thing is with adding sugar to non-sugared or low sugar cereal is that you can control how much you add, or have honey & fruit instead, so it is slightly better in my book.

I let mine try the chocolatey cereals, but like me at their age, they expressed disgust at the milk turning brown, and the general sogginess.

If they put honey on it you might as well give them the sweetened ones they want. You can get sweetened wholegrain cereals.

Ds eats 4weetabix for breakfast. And no sugar. we go through 48 weetabix in about 4 days.
Dd has porridge.
We currently have All Bran, Bran flakes, cornies and crispies in the cupboard.
I never buy multipack stuff or Sugarpuffs type cereals as dh would eat them.

we do low sugar/ high fibre cereals only and no sugar/honey. Porridge is also on offer. We have frozen and fresh fruit that can be added to either if you need sweetness. My kids accept this because that is how it always is. We have crap sweeties-pretending-to-be-cereal on holiday and mini packs of crap cereal in stockings.