WIBU to put all the bloody Christmas Chocolates in the bin?

[Dollslikeyouandme]

Think I'm after advice really, ds is driving me crazy.

We have never had so many chocolates given to us. I'm talking 7 tins of roses/heroes etc. 6 or 7 boxes of biscuits. 5 packs of chocolate coins. A giant cake. At least 10 or more giant tubes of smarties, rolos etc. Lots of selection boxes, a few chocolates santas and snowmen, that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

I have a 5 year old with a very, very sweet tooth, he won't go more than an hour without having a tantrum over the sweets. He's coming into my room at 6.30am with handfuls of chocolate asking if we can share them and going on and on, getting up in my face, putting the sweets on my face.

I allow him a reasonable amount of sweet things each day but unfortunately he doesn't know where to stop and would happily eat until he was sick. I think much more than your average child, even others have noticed such as my mum and sister who I know would never have a bad word to say about ds, but they noticed he's 'greedy' and aren't sure what to suggest.

I've explained and explained that he can have a few sweets after lunch and some after tea. But he is constantly begging for more, he will talk about it for half an hour hoping that I will give in.

He's always like this and I usually hide sweet treats and get them out as and when so it's put of sight out of mind. But we've got enough to last until March and nowhere to hide them.

Help.

I would never actually bin chocolate especially if it has been given to me or the family. We will just eat healthily in January

That's my concern Vivacia, I can't understand why he's so sweets mad. Why he will eat until he's going green. He hears a bag rustle and his ears pop up.

Don't worry I'm not actually going to throw any away. I've hidden it all for now and will give some away/take it to work in the new year.

In all seriousness though, I don't know if it's becoming a behaviour problem with him.

I think that without seeing what goes on people can't really understand.

On a bad day for example, we could go to the hairdressers in the morning, now when we go to the hairdressers there's a nice cake shop nearby which I would like to get us a cake from. But the hairdressers gives him biscuits and squash. I say he can have one which turns into two, but then they give him a handful plus sweets to take away despite me saying no thank you. So I end up with a full on tantrum outside the hairdressers as I say we will save them for later.

Cake shop is usually out the window by then.

If we then go to see my mum or gran they usually have sweets treats in ready for him, my mum has been (although she's beginning to see my point now) giving him unlimited food and sweets. So she will make him an adult sized plate of chips and fish fingers with a cheese sandwich, followed by cheese and crackers, then a cornetto and say a crunch corner yoghurt. Her opinion is that nannies is for treats, then say we visit my sister she will give him more treats, plus she usually wants to bake cakes with him.

He often comes out of school with sweets from somebody's birthday and has a tantrum if he can't open them immediately, he'd honestly eat the wrapper so as not to just at least wait until we've got outside the gates.

In the supermarket he wants to 'look at the sweets' just touch the sweets.

His new technique to get me to buy sweets is to pick up something I like and say 'you can have one too'.

Since he got up this morning he's had breakfast and I've of last nights jam tarts and is about to gave lunch and all I've heard constantly is 'I'm starving, I'm so hungry, where are the snacks'.

He's not at all overweight and his teeth are fine but I do worry it won't stay that way.

Because I have a big family and of course everyone wants to treat kids, it often feels like I never get to treat him myself and I'm just the mean mummy saying no all the time.

When the temptation isn't there he is great, I know it's a cop out to blame others, but we had our own little Christmas stash which has now quadrupled. It feels as though there's food everywhere. Even walking through town there always seems to be someone giving out free samples or lollies to tempt you to buy something.

Have you looked at the Paul McKenna stuff? (Sorry, I know it's annoying when people push their favourite magic at you).

I try to get the kids involved with making (convoluted) snacks, so cutting up an apple and putting a tablespoon of peanut butter on a plate rather than opening up a bag of crisps.

Eating is never done in front of a screen or book or toy. I try to get them to be aware of what they're eating (talking about the tastes and smells and textures) but this is easier said than done. And it's never enforceable in others' homes.

And we start with small portions on our plate and I never mention Empty Plates.

I hadn't heard of it Vivacia but will certainly look into it. Can't hurt and I'm sure I could do more in getting ds involved in the cooking and talking about healthy foods.

I think we have fairly reasonable eating habits. Sugary cereals are banned with the exception of the school holidays, but even then nothing too bad.

We eat three meals, always eat at the table, only time we don't is if we order pizza which is usually when ds is in bed.

My mum however feeds him in front of the computer, and there is no movement on this or ds cries his eyes out and my mum and dad give me filthy looks.

I have 'Grandma' issues too-luckily my DC have 2 loving grannies who like to treat them, my DM being the worst (everytime she sees them she wants to give them crisps/sweets/pop). I think she feels it's ok as I do the 'limiting' the rest of the time (and if she was honest I think she feels I'm a bit mean. Don't know when she got so soft though, she was strict with us growing up!).

Unfortunately (and I mean purely from a health point-we love her dearly!), they see her all the time. So the thing of 'Grandma's are for spoiling' goes back to the time when I was a kid and we saw grandparents for Sunday tea time, therefore once a week.

In reality it means I can never turn up at the school gate with a little treat as they get what's a reasonable amount from my DM alone.

"My mother feeds him in front if computer...there's no movement on this otherwise he cries his eyes out and they give me filthy looks.."

Sorry op, but god me this is one of those 'tough love' things. He's the child, you're in charge. The first couple if times I'd let him cry it out, even take him home unfed if he refuses to come away from the computer to eat. Tell your parents in advance and ask them to support you in it (before it reaches the 'filthy looks' stage). If they won't, tell them (politely!) that he will be having his meals at home whilst you address his eating issues.

Not read the whole thread so it might have already been mentioned but there is a mn present swap thread and you could try and swap some of the chocolate for something else he'd like.

Hmm. Is there disordered eating and/or control issues within the family? It sounds like your mum is overfeeding the DC and that you are more than usually paranoid about sweets and chocolate. I get that there is a lot of palaver within mundane culture about sweets and chocolate ('guilty' pleasure, blah blah, self-denial made into a big performance blah blah) which it can be difficult to keep DC from being affected by, but TBH you have a son, not a daughter, so he's not going to come under as much cultural pressure to develop disordered eating as a girl would, and my suggestion would be to stop worrying about it, let him eat what he wants and let him grow out of it being such a big deal.

No not at all SGB, we're all just fairly usual eaters, noones overweight or underweight. My mum uses food as treats a lot which is not unusual. She did get me into bad habits as a child. Such as we'd go to the cake shop every day after school without fail. And she'd give me food in bed right before I went to sleep for years I would have a crisp sandwich or cheese on toast in bed.

Luckily I never became overweight and have long grown out of any strange food habits.

I know I might sound a bit like a control freak but I'm really not. I've no problem with ds eating sweet treat type food, puddings are lovely and I don't believe in depriving yourself, believe me I don't 'do' diets and the like.

But it has become quite noticeable that ds would like to keep on going.

And as I've said there have been days where he's had so much usually when we've been visiting, that he's come home with tummy ache and ended up on the toilet with a bad belly.

Give them to a local food bank

Bin themI have. Have binned mince pies too. Junk food is not good for anyonenot even people in care homes. It's not morally wrong to throw them away, sorry.

I do think my mum and dad are a bit funny about food, I explained about my eating habits as a child and how she will over feed ds.

My dad is always worried that ds hasn't eaten enough even when he has, such as ds may eat a full meal plus pudding at my mums, at say 5 o'clock, and then my dad will ask if I'm going to give him anything else before bed as he might 'wake up in the night and get hungry'.

Don't bin them people paid good money for them! Give them away if you don't want them.

snakeoil you shouldn't bin any food unless it's gone off, If you really don't want them give them to a food bank. Also it's nice for those in Care homes to get treats.

Binning food rather than giving it away always strikes me as a sign of either excessive self-righteousness or controlling, bullying tendencies.

I would throw them unless the food bank wants them tbh.
I know that seems wasteful. But it's a lot of temptation.
I will do the same when staff start to bring in stuff in the new year, be ause they don't want to be tempted by it at home.
If it's here because you don't want it then it can go in the bin.

Do the food bank want sweets/ choc biscuits?
If so, then that's what I will do with the work ones.

I think food banks will take any food offered (though I don't know for sure) - but high-calorific food is actually pretty good when you are starving.
Otherwise, you could donate to hospitals/care homes etc.

Your parents' attitude to food is really fucked and could be part of the problem. A second meal before bed in case you wake up hungry is a dreadful habit. Can you limit how much time he spends there?

My family have a horrendous attitude to junk/sugar and there's diabetes about (never connected to their diets you know...). We have a ton of choc here but it's stored well away from the kids and carefully divided out for puddings. Anything not finished by New Year will be donated.

Last Easter I think we had over 30 eggs v (kids were 4 & 2) and we donated almost all of them to the food bank.

I donated a load one year (again, too much boxes and boxes of chocolates and biscuits)...the food bank charity apparently would use them in starter hampers for people who had been homeless and had been given a new home.

Word must have somehow made it's way back as we've never been given chocolate and biscuits again ...which suits me.