To ask ex not to bring DD to McDonald's AGAIN

[Anonfornow00]

DD is only two, she'll be three in June.
She has been staying in the dads every Saturday night for the past 3 weeks, this is a new arrangement as I was fed up having his lazing around my home "visiting her"
We've really had a hard year of it, constant fighting and battling about everything but finally we just have no contact other than hello and goodbye on the Saturday and the same when he drops her back on Sunday and the peace from the arguments is fantastic!

However, I really don't know if IABU here, but every week she's come back with a McDonald's toy and I'd love to ask him when he's taking her tomorrow, not to take her there again at least for a little while.
Like she's only 2 years old I think a McDonald's once a week is a bit mad, plus what ever other rubbish he's giving her.

Have I got any right to kindly request this or am I being unreasonable?

Oh, and some deep fried churros and chocolate sauce for pudding......

I smiled inwardly too

Crab pasta with lashings of ginger beer!

my daughter had fish and chips last night. do i even deserve to call myself a mother?

my daughter had fish and chips last night. do i even deserve to call myself a mother?

Ah, but were they Heston Blumenthall triple cooked chips with sustainably caught fish from a certain market?

Or like the rest of us and it's straight from the freezer?

I used to be so proud when my children ate "smart" food. My dd has always loved sushi- I used to do shameful loud parenting about it!

Two year olds need fat in their diets - you'd be doing far more harm feeding a 2 year old a low fat diet that a McD once a week and healthy food the rest of the time.

One of mine when aged 6 said 'I don't really like the food in Mc Donald's but I do enjoy the social occasion!'

worse nicky - we had a takeaway :(

I brought my kids up on home cooked food, though we have had the odd MacDonalds. I make our burgers and pizza and chicken nuggets and even our doner kebab (yes I am a saddo who really likes cooking).

But the upshot is that, even without any propaganda from me, our kids think junk food tastes pretty vile, and MacDonalds burgers are certainly not in the same league as mine.

If you try to ensure her other 20 meals a week are decent OP, she will probably not develop a taste for the crap stuff.

OP I would have done the same as you when me and ex initially split. We attended mediation and discussed stuff like food and I lived in hope that the standards of parenting we'd agreed on together would be upheld whilst in his care. My dcs were 4 and 1 at the time and I was very precious about them. As time has gone on, the more i've tried to make suggestions the more he has resisted. So for my own sanity I have had to detach and just accept that he will do what he wants to do and there is nothing he does that would warrant a call from ss so just accept it.

Good luck op.

It's only been three weeks!
Give it time, it will run its course.
But seriously, once a week IS NOT going to hurt her! Might not be ideal for most of us, but as someone mentioned earlier, it is not neat heroin injected into her eyeballs!!!
I can think of far worse things than eating a McDonalds.

"I brought my kids up on home cooked food, though we have had the odd MacDonalds. I make our burgers and pizza and chicken nuggets and even our doner kebab (yes I am a saddo who really likes cooking)." So did I, and so do I. Sadly, it means hat my children would walk across not coals for a KFC!

My mother always baked all our bread, biscuits and cakes. Apparently I cam home from a party aged about 6 saying "oh,it was soooo delicious- they had shop bread!"

OP do you know what he's giving her? Only asking because I used to live near a retail park with a McDonald's in plus a pizza hut Harvester etc. I used to shop at the Sainsburys with Dd when she was little and then have a McDonald's once s fortnight then. She would always have the chicken nuggets and the fruit bag with it instead of the chips? Maybe Ex could be doing the same? If not maybe use it as a compromise. Tell him you don't mind as long as he chooses one of the fruit bags or something instead of chips. I'm with th e majority here though. I'd let this one go.

Only on mumsnetndo children say "oh, no mummy, I'd rather have the fruit bag than chips"!

mine would have had both

No Vampyre shame on you. You should have caught the fish yourself! . I'm a fine one to talk though. we had chippy tea last night. .

Chuckling like a loon at the borough market post,! Terribly Malcolm and cressida!

curlew mine would probablyb have both too! . I'm not trying to come across as pretentious.MN would probably be horrified by some of the crap I've let them have since It obviously means a big deal to the OP so I was trying to find a middle ground.

OP I had a similar issue with my ex. I personally didn't want DS to go to mcdonalds at all while he's so little - he's just as happy with a little packed lunch with healthy bits in it. Ex doesn't even really agree with him having McDonald's but is a bit disorganised and lazy so ends up taking him.

I did nicely ask him to take him less - and he agreed. However, I obviously don't know whether he's taken him just as much or not!

When I first started accompanying DH to see his DCs on Sundays (all exW was allowing at the time, and understandably not in her house) we used to take them either bowling or to see a movie, then to the macdonalds in the same leisure park. Then we'd head to the park for running about, football etc.

It was like a ritual, and I'm sure the 'safety' of the routine helped us bond. I have such fond memories of us all sitting round the table - we always took paper and pens with us and every time the girls (then 5) would ask me to help them draw things. I think they'd remember that time fondly too.

No it wasn't the healthiest of rituals but it wasn't about the food IMO. And they aren't burger addicts or anything... :)

i didn't realise until now that it made us bad parents pixie!

I do think some of these replies are missing the point - much as lots of people dislike McDonald's and would prefer to give their children home cooked food, you cannot control what a nrp does in their time. If you try to, it will drive you mad.

(BTW exW wasn't at all fussed by us taking them to McD - the only proviso was that they couldn't have fizzy drinks so they always had milk)

i wish i could stop xp's mother from emotionally abusing my dd but because she does it in 'his' time, i can't. tough shit unfortunately. things could be worse though.

Part of the reason we don't eat McDs etc was seeing the 'Year old happy meal' experiment. Seeing how little the happy meal broke down over the course of a year - when it had been left out and uncovered, horrified me with the amount of preservatives that must be in the food.

You couldn't leave a bog standard slice of bread on a shelf for a year without it going mouldy, but McD's burger buns seem to be made of sterner stuff!

There was a time lapse video on YouTube as well if I remember - and it was really boring, because the food hardly changed.

It shocked me and made me glad we don't choose it as a family staple.

talk about sucking the fun out of the thread (me, i mean). was just making the point that it could be worse than a happy meal once a week. yeah, there are much healthier things she could eat but i don't believe it will do as much damage as some posters are making out. :)

OP, you really aren't a food Nazi for not wanting your 2 year old eating at McDonalds once a week. Anyone who says you are have either forgotten how small 2 is - just a baby! - or are feeling judged themselves. You can't make him give more of a shit about making a better effort, but you can tell him calmly when things bother you. Poor you, and all the others on this thread, who have to put up with such difficult exes.