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?

What's wrong with cocopops!!

Two of the best things we can teach our kids to take through life is moderation and self discipline.

They'll learn neither of those things if sweets/junk/crisps etc are simply kept away from them.

I do wonder if we're raising a whole generation of confused and guilty binge eaters...who'll feel like they've just bought a wrap of heroin because they've nipped to newsagents and bought a Marsbar.

I have a feeling that ds17 is sneaking a marlboro light for breakfast
My duty frees are mysteriously depleted.

I really wouldn't stress about it - if you want to give cocoa pops just do it! It isn't the pathway to general junk eating.

I agree with WorraLiberty.

God I wish DS would eat bloody coco pops im sick of making porridge everyday. He sees coco pops in the shops and asks for them, I buy them, give them to him for b/fast and he says "I dont like them" thankfully I like coco pops so I eat them instead.

Don't mix other cereals in with them you'll ruin them, you heathens.

They were the only cereal I would eat and DD1 is the same, she will eat the supermarkets own make, but I only like the real thing.

DD2 eats porridge with half a ton of jam in it.

Coco Pops are an absolute mainstay in our house. All my DC are doing fine/ look really healthy. Look at the ingredients - they're fine.

Do people honestly post this kind of question before making a decision? AIBU to have a 5th glass of wine? What would other "mumsnetters" do? Oh wait, I've already poured it. Shit.

Coco pops are a big part of our breakfasts too.

They'll also eat wedgies or toast so we rotate

The kids are fine, the rest of their diet is good and they don't go off jacked up on sugar and rampage around the classroom every morning

Ooops

Wedgies - Weetos - autocorrect!

I hated milk (still do) but would eat/slurp it after the milk went chocolately.

My siblings and I would rush downstairs to get the top of the milk out of the gold top bottle when the milkman arrived to mix with the Coco Pops. Just lovely. All that sugar and fat!

We've all stood the test of time without keeling over or it addling our brains (in my case eight kids/ size 10/ the mandatory MN RG degree etc. etc.).

Well, they're marketed as a breakfast cereal so I doubt you'd be the only one...

i tend to give my kids weetabix or a plain cereal and then let them have a handful of a 'treat' cereal on the top, seems to work ok for my 5.

they also have porridge, toast, fruit etc, it depends but if they had a whole bowl of a treat cereal like those chocolate cookie crips or coco pops etc it would cost me a bloody fortune, so boring cereal with a handful of treat cereal seemd a good compromise :)

Yellowtip. YOU'VE GOT 8 KIDS?????? Respect

It's just coco pops - go for it!

The rest of her diet sounds great & you've got your head screwed on so stop giving yourself a hard time.

Kids r clever little monsters tho so don't let her catch on & do the same with swapping squash for Pepsi etc.

Deprivingchdren of sweets sometimes makes them crafty and greedy.

gawd just give her coco pops if its what she is going to eat, I cant stand porridge my mum used to force it down me in the winter it lay there the whole bloody day, getting out the door must be stressful enough without trying to get her to eat, what about a cereal bar in the car on the way , you can even get coco pops ones

My much older DD isn't a breakfast girl either. I've taken to buying (expensive) waffles for her - on the grounds that they have 20% egg in them and nothing rubbishy -except sugar, but at least it's not in the form of glucose-fructose.
Would your DD eat home-made pancakes? You can greatly reduce the amount of faff by making the batter the day before, so it's ready to go straight into the pan in the morning. I don't bother weighing the flour or measuring the milk. I whisk egg and sugar with a fork, then beat in SR flour and add milk until it's at the right consistency.
PomBear may well be right..... :o.
I've just googled Kellogs Coco Pops and they don't seem TOO bad in terms of nutrition, not compared to some of the other cereals. But then in a few weeks she might be commenting that she'd eat Sugar Puffs Mummy!

Oh my goodness, I've just read PomBear's latest post on this thread! I didn't realis I'd missed three pages of posts. Sorry.
I was referring to the remark about your DD taking one spoonful of CP and deciding she doesn't like it.

choco you use sugar to make pancakes?

PomBears post is genius, so true. It has amused me greatly that people have actually recommended not giving a nursery age child any breakfast at all just to avoid pouring a bowl of perfectly edible breakfast cereal for the child.

The mind boggles. It really does.

Op how about nutella on toast for something different

My DM used to give me half and half ricicles and rice crispies. Could you compromise?

Yes. But not ten grams per serving. I take your point though.
My thinking is that I put two eggs into the batter to increase the amount of protein. I wouldn't recommend it as a healthy breakfast - just preferable to cocopops.
Some nutritionists would say that there's little difference in terms of health benefits between a breakfast that is high sugar/low fibre and protein and NO breakfast. Honestly! The no-breakfast child will have horribly low blood sugar levels whereas the sugary-breakfast child will have a massive spike in their blood sugar, followed by a horribly low blood sugar level - likely 'treated' by another sugary snack at playtime and so the day continues. Up down up down.
The OP is trying to be the best parent she can be. Good for her.