to want to give dd2 (5) Coco pops for breakfast?

[sherazade]

DD2 , age 5, is not fussy about ANY meal apart from breakfast, and thats only weekday/school morning breakfast. Dring the hols and on weekends she will work up an appetite by 10 am and happily tuck into scrambled eggs on wholemeal home baked toast.

I am a full time primary teacher and she attends the school i teach in so our school run is invariably an hour before everyone elses. she just doesn't like eating early in the morning. I have tried porridge (which dd1 and I have every morning), sweetened with honey, with unsweetened cocoa, weetabix warm with honey, plain cereals, oatibix, toasts , fruit etc and I feel like I am force feeding it to her every morning as every mouthful is an unhappy chore but I cant send her to school without breakfast. I have tried giving her breakfast at school when we get there but no luck (ie delaying it by half an hour).

the rest of the day she has a good diet, she eats plenty of fresh fruit and veggies, protein, grilled veggies, but sugary treats/sweets/chocolate/juices/biscuits I just do not buy. However whenever we go past the cereal aisle in sainsburys she will point to coco pops and says 'mummy i'll have that for breakfast on school days'. I am so tempted to just give in and have a fuss free morning where she eats something without tears but I am just not sure with the sugar/salt/rubbish content .

Am I being unreasonable to consider giving her the cocopops or am i being idealistic not to? what would other mumsnetters do?

When I was a kid I used to have Coco Pops every single day. My mum even let me put sugar on them it was the 80s! My nan still buys in a box if we go to visit them :)

What would you do if we all said "how could you? you vile fiend, you are poisoning an innocent child and will be smitten with lightning bolts for your heinous abuse" ? They're cocopops not human flesh. Have you nothing else to worry about? really?

Didin't you know that you can only buy Coco Pops if you are on holiday or you work in a hotel? My DCs will tell you that - they KNOW it is true!

Ds17 still likes his cocopops, he had a variety of cereals growing up but does have a sweet tooth.
Anyway he's tall, slim and pretty smart too.
Cocopops are fine.

What about the variety packs? My kids love them and at least a couple will be cornflakes or rice crispies or something not chocolatey.

Pombear, if you find my concern is so silly and insignificant then why are you wasting your precious tine partaking in this thread? I wonder why join a thread for the sole purpose of demeaning the OP.. Seriously u are not forced to read or join in. in answer to your question, yes i do have lots of real serious issues to worry about, like every parent, i didn't know mn was only for posting life/death questions..
Thanks to everyone who posted its great to get a different perspective x

DD2 has chocolate spread on something bread like.

Both DDs have had Coco pops over the years. Hateful things if they drop them, they don't show on our tiles until you stand on them.

Basically I don't give a monkeys so long as they eat something for breakfast that either they or DH organises without involving me.

I'm crap at mornings I shout and get in the way. Life is far more peaceful if I keep out of the way except for doing the actual driving to school bit.

'Give her the cocoa pops- so long as she brushes her teeth extra specially well to brush the sugar off afterwards!'

Not a good idea, it's better for the teeth to brush before breakfast. If it's teeth the OP is worried about then honey is just as bad for them as sugar.

Oh don't go down the route of variety packs - surely I'm not the only one with a mountainous stash of the not so tasty ones - boulders anyone?

I make them eat the unwanted ones first!!

Just give her the bloody coco pops. It's not crack!

We are talking about coco pops not arsenic! For goodness sake, give them to her. . . and give yourself a break

Give her the cocopops and insist on brushing teeth afterwards as somebody else said. It is by far the easiest and most sensible option. I think anyway.

Hands up who's never given their kid something they will eat without a fuss rather than had a fight over a healthier option?
Oh, just the Virgin Mary and Santa Claus is it? Thought so.

I buy a couple of boxes of cereal, included in the selection is cocopops, the cookie things or some other chocolate things. The dc's know until all the boxes are finished, I will not buy any more.

Just to add a perspective, my dc are now in their teens; they did not ha e a perfect diet (^both sampled coco pops!) bur they have perfect teeth, good behaviour, and decent results at school. I stressed over this kind of thing, and now really wish I hadn't

Apologies for typos - phone is responsible, not me!

Give her the Coco Pops she needs a breakfast and tbh I think that there is too much emphasis on diet needs nowadays, as long as things are taken in moderation and the right parental care/love is given there is no harm done.

Depriving children of certain foods can cause eating disorders in later life.

Stop beating yourself up. You know she eats well, Coco Pops are not the work of the devil, it's just a bowl of breakfast cereal. Now, if you gave her a Red Bull and Marlboro Light for breakfast, THAT would be bad. Keep it in perspective.

Personally I don't think you should 'go there'. It's something I'm slowly learning about parenting - if the option just isn't there, a bad habit isn't formed and you don't have the bloody awful drama of prising them away when you start to feel it's not the right thing anymore. What about whole meal toast with bloody loads of butter?

I'd go with the coco pops - they're not that much more sugary than things like shreddies.

My time isn't remotely precious - I come here instead of watching tv in the evenings, to see just quite how inane people can get before someone shouts troll. You're winning tonight - as long as we all continue to believe that an adult, and parent genuinely thinks that she has to ask a load of strangers for validation before she feeds her child cocopops.
Its no wonder some parents stress themselves neurotic over shit like this when a) you ask and b) people take you bloody seriously.
Can nobody else see this as ridiculous? Are people really so insecure in their parenting that they need permission, from strangers no less, to feed their child, oooo, food!
I'm sorry if I seem to be getting at you personally OP, you are far from the only person who gets stressed about ridiculous issues, but it is farcical just how many parents seem to be so confused and unsure that they need this constant stream of reassurance just to parent their children. Just feed them ffs. It's not rocket science. Someone else today wanted to know the "guideline age for chocolate" is it not reasonably obvious to anyone with half a brain? do we really need an official guideline for this?
ARGH!
I am ranty mcranty pants now, I shall go away and not come back honestly. Quite why this is getting to me so much right now I don't know since it happens often. And blame the government, Lord knows they fuck everything else up so are probably behind all this 'advice culture' and the infantilising of parenting too.