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?

OP cannot be serious, no full-time teacher has time to make her own bread!

Bread-making machines, iggi!
Tip everything in the tin the night before and wake up in the morning to the aroma of freshly baked bread.

OP, I admire you for sticking to your guns this far. I started out full of good intentions but gave in quite quickly to my DD's demands for sugary crap.

I don't really agree with what other people are saying about "it's only cereal" or "a bit of sugar now and again doesn't do any harm." The trouble with this stuff is that it is both crap nutritionally and addictive. The more sugary rubbish you give them, the more they want.

Have you tried toast with her at all? Or toasted bagels? I mean, I don't suppose it will be the end of the world if you give her Coco Pops, but I agree with your intentions of not doing so.

DD2 (5) has either Coco Pops, brioche or Cookie Crisp for breakfast.
DD1 (9) will eat Bran Flakes, porridge, Ready Brek, toast etc.
It's not worth the battle of they are eating well the rest of the time. Honest!

There's many cereals worse than coco pops! And I love most of them! Plenty of fruit and veg and decent food throughout the day.

I tried fruit loops this morning though as I'm a sucker for new things (I know they're popular in USA but Kellogg's just brought them out here. Eeeuuuuuuwwwww.

(although I can't say I've ever looked that closely at the exact sugar content of all the cereals)

How about a small bowl of Cocopops for breakfast, plus a substantial snack for morning break when she is really hungry? Or let her skip breakfast and just pack a large snack for break?

My 11 year old is just tucking into breakfast now! He really doesn;t do early morning eating and breakfast is always a struggle - even though he eats really well the rest of the time. No idea what he is going to do when he starts secondary next week and has to leave the house at 7:30! Maybe a breakfast bar in his bag to have at morning break.

My older boy has pain au chocolat for breakfast.

Give her the cocoa pops - in the grand scheme of things it wont hurt! And who wants to be arguing and stressing every morning?

What about those mini boxes of mixed cereal. She might get a bowl of pops in there, but there are other choices too and she has to eat them all before you get anymore so no being selective and I don;t like. Variety pack or porridge - choice is yours!

Chocoluvva I think the OP would feel that was cheating

For those who are concerned about my dds being deprived of treats, they are not deprived of them, they are treated with things like pineapples, mango,more unusual fruit, and dried fruit like raisins,sultanas, dates, figs they love. I dont see how processed goodies are necessary if we are doing fine without them apart from this breakfast issue. Their grandparents will treat them to cake or puddings on the weekend.

re the poster who said i couldn't b a teacher and bake my own bread, i use the breadmaker. It takes 30 seconds to place flour yeast and water into a machine and switch on. I dont even need to mix it!I usually make a loaf on sat morning by the time we are back from swimming a lovely loaf awaits.

Pombear, i rather enjoyed reading your last post, it would be the kind of thing my mum would say. But hey, neurotic is my middle name!

I had coco pops every day till I wasinto about 16, I have never had a filling and was not overweight. They are lush and you can also mix them into ice cream.

Is she allowed to eat birthday party food?

My DD would eat nothing but a Penguin biscuit and a glass of coca cola. As someone up thread said after your first child there is no fight left.

Yes my dds eat birthday party food! I never said they were banned from junk food per se, but i dont buy junk food as part of my weekly shop and junk food isnt part of our daily life. Does it really have to be?

I don't have an opinion on whether or not you should give in on the Cocopops front. But since you obviously don't want to have 10 other suggestions for things she could have that are not Cocopops, don't take long to make and might keep her going

1. A smoothie - 1/2 a banana, some greek yoghurt, a handful of frozen berriess (Sainsbury's basic ones are good) and some full fat milk all shooshed up in a hand blender.

1. Peanut butter with honey on toast, crackers, rice cakes, etc etc.

1. Scrambled eggs made in the microwave (only takes 90 seconds) with or without toast, maybe with a little chopped ham, some grated cheese, or some of those smoked salmon trimmings you can get.

1. A low GI muffin with some yoghurt on top. Obviously not freshly made. My Mum makes a couple of dozen of these, freezes them and then defrosts one every morning for three weeks.

1. A german style breakfast - just a bread roll and some slices of cheese and ham.

1. Pumpernickel bread with nutella - I'm scraping the barrel now but maybe the extreme low GI and all round hairy shirtedness of the pumpernickel would outweigh the sugariness of the nutella.

1. Fairy bread? Or bread with hagelschlag if you know anyone going to the Netherlands.

1. Rice Krispies with Nesquik

1. Left over pizza and a can of Stella (channelling student days)

10. err

OP I share your attitude to feeding the family - though you will probably find that it gets more difficult as the DCs get older.

Please take no notice of people who try to trip you up. They are obviously very insecure or something but that's their problem, not yours.
In my experience the subject of providing a healthy diet brings out the worst in some people. They demand of you, "Well, what do you do about THIS, or THAT, or what on earth will you do when the DCs are older?" All those people who seem to think that if you try to give your DCs healthy food usually and try to promote a healthy lifestlye you're a terrible FRAUD if you EVER let them have treats......
Once I had the temerity to suggest that a toddler group have fruit for their snack and I honestly thought I might be linched on my way home!
It's very difficult when there is so much cheap, attractively-packaged, heavily advertised rubbishy food every where you look!

You know what? I wouldn't. I have given my daughter sugary cereals and fruit smoothies for breakfast over the last year or two (she's nearly six and a confirmed breakfast-hater) and she now has quite severe tooth decay and needs to have at least two teeth removed under general anaesthetic. She doesn't get a lot of sugar otherwise - fruity yoghurts, honey on toast occasionally, maybe a glass of watered down apple juice with dinner and a cake or biscuit once or twice a week. She gets ice cream about once a month if we eat out. It seems that she has fairly weak teeth but there was no indication of this before the decay began around a year ago and I cannot tell you how awful I feel about it. If I could do it all over again, I would not give her any of those sweet things. We're now in the process of removing practically all sugar from her diet and it's hard, for her and for us. I feel so ashamed that I've basically caused her to have to go through this painful and unpleasant procedure.

I do realise that not all children will have teeth that are as vulnerable, but the point is you don't know until it happens. I ate Coco Pops and similar all through my childhood and my teeth are fine. But knowing what I know now, I wouldn't take the chance again.

Wow

But none of my eight DC (eldest now 22) has a single filling between them, having eaten Coco Pops (or similar) all of their lives. So I don't think that that follows.

Could you try cocopops mixed in secret with something a bit healthier, like crumbled up weetabix?

I think tooth and gum health/ strength is hereditary to a large extent.

DD has a very varied diet with lots of veg but she loves sweets and she is allowed them within reason. She can be a bit haphazard with brushing and she has lovely healthy teeth I am quite amazed.

Coco pops for brekfast will not damage her teeth!

You are sweetening the porridge with honey and I would suspect that that is worse for her teeth than coco pops.

She could also bebeing a typical kid and playing you so she gets what she wants to eat for breakfast.

Boiled egg and soldiers doesn't take that long to do and will fill her up.

I agree that it is largely hereditary. Fruit is worse than cocoa pops due to the acid.

Also-make sure they clean teeth after breakfast.