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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to think that having a desire for crap like crisps and choc is NOT a pregnancy craving?

133 replies

NeoMaxiZoomDweebie · 30/05/2013 15:41

I think the idea of cravings has been distorted. I have 2 DC and both times had full-on Pica. That's the need to eat weird things which aren't really food...also the need to smell certain things.
Mine were ice, smelling flash cleaner with bleach and coal.

THAT is a pregnancy craving. Fancying more Walkers than usual is not a craving.

Neither is a desire to gannet pies and cakes.

OP posts:
BeQuicksieorBeDead · 30/05/2013 18:07

YABU.

I work with people who try to make me feel shite about eating too much bread and carbs, telling me I will be a whale... I tell them to f off. Well I wish I did.

Pregnancy is amazing but can make you feel terrible. I felt like I had been poisoned for the first twelve weeks. No I probably wasn't craving bread, but it made me feel human enough to do my job and function for an hour, so please dont invalidate my experience by accusing me of stuffing my face and using an excuse. I dont care if it was a craving out something I could have stopped myself eating.

Also, if you want pies and cake when you are pregnant, presumably you are an adult and can make your own decisions! If you feel like a treat, have one, dont let judgemental people make you feel guilty. I might actually tell some people to f off at work after all!

WestieMamma · 30/05/2013 18:08

I also woke in the night once and would have killed for a tin of raviolli in tomato sauce. Husband put his life on the line by trying to palm me off with a tin of beans. He went out and bought loads of the stuff. Three mouthfuls in, the craving was sated and never came back.

Now I still have a cupboard full of the stuff as nobody likes it.

Fakebook · 30/05/2013 18:13

I don't eat crisps at all. I don't buy them even for my children. I bought two 12 packs of walkers crisps (CO-OP bogof) last week and finished them off today. I ate 4 in one go the first day. I'm 17 weeks pregnant. That is definitely a pregnancy craving. Last time I ate monster munch pickled onion flavour.

AMumInScotland · 30/05/2013 18:14

I craved ready-salted crisps, constantly, for a few weeks, then completely went off them again. They are something I never normally have any interest in. That is a craving. If I had just "wanted" to stuff my face, then I would have been guzzling chocolate biscuits.

The idea that pregnancy cravings don't count if they are for food that might be counted as unhealthy is just nonsense - a craving is something quite different from greediness.

soverylucky · 30/05/2013 18:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

HokeyCokeyPigInAPokey · 30/05/2013 18:16

YANBU

I also ate bags and bags of ice.

Thingymajigs · 30/05/2013 18:19

I became obsessed with ice too. Specifically crunching them with my teeth which had an odd calming effect. The lovely midwife went out of her way to fetch me some whilst I was in labour. Apparently this might be due to an iron deficiency but I'm not sure why.

shellandkai · 30/05/2013 18:20

This is bull I don't normally eat sweets or cake or chocolate but have been CRAVING them it isn't an excuse to eat for 2 either as I did eat loads with my 1st pregnancy, with this one I'm trying to replace sweet things for healthy/tangy food instead

hedgehogpickle · 30/05/2013 18:20

I had a few weeks where I just fancied a bag of crisps with my lunch every day (normally don't buy them & maybe eat a small bag every 6 weeks if that). Didn't think it was a craving as I felt I could do without - until a few weeks later when I realised I wasn't doing it anymore! Hardly using my pregnancy as an excuse to munch on junk food - when I no longer wanted it, I stopped eating it. If it's something you only want or want more of in pregnancy,I personally would count that as a craving. It doesn't have to be something wild & wacky for it to be legitimate.

freddiefrog · 30/05/2013 18:25

For me it was sniffing creosote.

Curly Wurlies. Never just any chocolate, it had to be a Curly Wurly or nothing.

And sucking a wet flannel, I loved the feel of it against my teeth

MrsDeVere · 30/05/2013 18:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

AverageHeight · 30/05/2013 18:34

YABU as so many have stated and explained.

You know if its a craving or if you're just being greedy, I did a bit of both. First trimester I craved crisps and McD's, I went from having a packet a month if that to at least one s day. Managed to only visit McD's once, I got dizzy with too much walking and it was too far down a pedestrianised street. I'd sit in our flat dreaming of their fries.

Overall though, my appetite plummeted and I completely went off chocolate and other foods I normally like... Until half way through the second semester. I began to pig out a little, having missed my favourite foods and been mostly 'good' with my diet up until that point it was much harder to resist chocolate brownies and the like. I knew I was being greedy but felt partly I could justify it having not had any for months. I knew really though that didn't mean I could have one or two a day for the whole second half!!

HorryIsUpduffed · 30/05/2013 18:41

I get far more aversions than cravings in pgy and agree with earlier posters who say often a "craving" is actually "the only foodstuff I can think about without wanting to vomit".

I think women know if they are experiencing genuine pregnancy cravings or just being greedy.

waterlego6064 · 30/05/2013 18:46

I had a thing for smelling waxy brown paper. I couldn't get enough of it (but there isn't a lot of it about, unfortunately). That felt like a real compulsion, whereas my predilection for jam doughnuts was just me being greedy.

MrsDeVere · 30/05/2013 18:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
NeoMaxiZoomDweebie · 30/05/2013 18:59

GoshAnne Yes I was. Grin but that was only to wind up ScottishMum as she's always so miserable. Most people know I am a woman. Her too probably. it's not something I hide.

OP posts:
HeffalumpTheFlump · 30/05/2013 20:03

Hmm looks like I wasn't the ONLY one feeling you are being judgemental after all OP... Hmm

HanShotFirst · 30/05/2013 20:27

YABU - pretty judgemental OP overall. Pregnancy for some people is fucking horrible and if you take comfort in food it's not up to anyone else to make you feel bad about it. Pregnancy for me was debilitatingly painful (had to use a wheelchair if I went out) and sometimes I just needed to feel something nice and comforting so I'd eat some chocolate, or icecream or make DH drive me to KFC because it actually felt physically good.

So whether it's a craving because it may be giving you nutrients that your body needs, or whether it's just because it fills a little hole and makes you feel good and if it's not causing irreparable damage to you and your baby, who gives a shit. Pregnancy is a means to an end, IMO, and it's about time that we stopped judging women through every step of their life.

littleducks · 30/05/2013 20:58

I get HG when pregnant, I still craved things in fact sometimes I would eat only that. When pg with dd I craved avocadoes, I ate one for breakfast, one for lunch and one for dinner. Due to the HG I ate nothing else. Prior to the pregnancy I had tasted avocado once (with prawns in sauce as a child) and thought it vile so not tried it since. dd loves avocadoes Hmm.

With ds I craved crème eggs.....pretty sure not a vitamin defiency, with this baby it egg mc muffins Hmm. Its not comfort eating, I would rather eat proper food.

HopALongMcLimpyLegs · 30/05/2013 21:02

I craved crushed ice, the kind you get out of those self service fizzy drink machines. Normal ice would do, but crushed ice I just needed sometimes. Also salty salty food, and I never ever put salt on my food normally.

Cake I ate because I just like cake.

HibiscusIsland · 30/05/2013 21:06

I couldn't get enough of cheese sandwiches with dd1, having never liked them previously. With dd2 it was more sweet things like cake.

DrCoconut · 30/05/2013 22:01

I loved the smell of dampness while pregnant with both dc. Think of a musty damp cellar. We hired a rug doctor carpet cleaner just before DS2 arrived and I swear I could have eaten the damp gritty dust out of it if it wasn't just weird and wrong. Food wise I loved smash and we don't normally buy it.

Original poster
NeoMaxiZoomDweebie · 30/05/2013 22:06

Oooh me too! Well not when I was pregnant but when I was a kid that ate mud, I LOVED the smell of our cellar! The smell was actually similar to whatever it was I got out of sniffing Flash Spray with bleach.

OP posts:
edam · 30/05/2013 22:12

First trimester, I craved healthy food - fruit, veg, salads, it all had to be HEALTHY. To the point where I burst into tears one night when dh made nachos as a treat. Blush

Second I think I was normal(as much as I ever am...) but third I had a serious craving for chocolate digestives. Pre-pregnancy I didn't really eat biscuits very often, never had them in the house - late pregnancy and during b/f I couldn't get enough. Carrying ds changed my fancies - before him, if I wanted a treat, it'd be savoury stuff such as crisps or nuts. Post-ds, chocolate, biscuits and any form of bad-for-you refined carbohydrates. Still like crisps as well though...

MrsRickyMartin · 30/05/2013 22:14

YABU. I never eat crisps but when I was pregnant I had cravings of the cheddar and the vinegar one. Just writing this makes me sick, as I really don't like any crisps, but for some reason, my body craved it.

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