Furious over mil giving ds so many sweets

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I've asked her and asked her not to but she just doesn't give a fuck. Apparently it's because she 'hardly ever sees him.' She sees him twice a week! He's at school so often does she bloody expect to see him?!

He's 7. When mil comes here in the week it's ok but dh takes him every Sunday afternoon without me. And apparently lets her do what she wants. So typically ds has a large ice cream, two packets of sweets, cake, coke and biscuits. I mean wrf? I've just told dh he can't go again unless she's going to be more sensible. I don't mind ds having a treat but one of those things is plenty. I know why she does it. It's because she knows I'd never let him have all that and she thinks it makes him like her.
I'm so annoyed. He's come home again bouncing off the walls. I know I'm not being unreasonable I'm just so cross about it. And with dh. Why give him all that sugar?
I'm type 1 diabetic and although obviously sugar doesn't cause type 1 if he were (god forbid) to become diabetic he'd have to cut all that out so I'd rather he wasn't used to having it and it's just so bad for him anyway.

She calls herself Mummy?!!!

I have a similar problem with ex-MIL and it drives me nuts.
My children are quite little, 7 and 5, and they need very little to feel that they have had a treat. It is infuriating that she is artificially pushing up their tolerance and appetite for crap food, when they could actually be very satisfied with and pleased with very little.

I get really sad and angry and upset when I think that this could have an impact on their whole lives. MIL has a terrible diet, was naturally very slim for a long time (boasts about her past slimness as if that means anything) and now is very big with all kinds of health problems. I think her slimness in her youth makes her think that this sort of food isn't a problem. but it is. She is suffering for her poor diet now. And anyway - my family has a different build. We can't just eat and expect not to put on weight, even when young, that doesn't work for us.

And what really annoys me is that none of this need be an issue. We can be the adults and just not put so much crap in front of them and they wouldn't even miss it. When they are older, they will be free to have what they like and a training in "treats in moderation with no angst" is exactly what they'll need. It's not just the food itself that is the problem, it's that if adults are going to be stupid about it, we then need to talk about it, and create a sense of anxiety or tension around it.

She is their grandmother and I can't (and wouldn't want to) stop her from seeing them but this drives me nuts. I just can't get through to her.

Sorry to hi-jack but if anyone has some great tips for explaining to people like this that it isn't ok, I would be very grateful.

I'd stop the visits because she is deliberately undermining you as the parent and doing exactly what she knows she shouldn't and deliberately tells your child it's horrible mean mummy's fault but lovely wonderful grandma would let him have it. No way would that shit wash with me. And it isn't a DH problem, I never get this on here. Ok he should step up and say no but he is lazy and doesn't for an easy life but MIL is an adult who understands what you are saying so it is her doing.

My nan trys to feed my DC crap all the time. Thankfully she asks me first but she will ask in front of them, at 4pm and we have tea at 5. It's always sweets, biscuits, chocolate, chocolate mousse, cakes etc. Never anything remotely healthy. Then she would let them help themselves to biscuits rather than put a couble on a plate, then they may have some cake but she'll want to know if they can have a chocolate bar too. It's annoying but thankfully she will defer to me but after 8 years I wish she would tone it down.

Why does ur DH go to MIL without u on a Sunday? It's family time so surely you should be there too.

Definitely too much! If DH won't be the bad guy, then I think you need to step in and do it regardless. Either by going along and telling your DS he can pick one thing on offer or by telling her to limit it to one and if that doesn't happen, visits will have to be reduced to once a month.

YADNBU FIL loves to treat the kids but they would have 1-2 of those things over the course of an afternoon. Even at Christmas we don't manage to get through that much.

You need your DH to step up here and say no. It's not good for your son and your DH needs to get a grip.

There's spoiling kids and there's giving them more sugar in 4 hours than is recommended in 4 days.

Can you show him the info where a PP calculated all the sugar? Then compare that to guidelines.

Why does ur DH go to MIL without u on a Sunday? It's family time so surely you should be there too

Couples can go places without each other

Besides I avoid heading to my MIL if at all possible too.

"You are so BU, it has it tattooed on its forehead."

Are you the MIL Clandestino. That is an awful lot of sugar in one go. And, given that the son comes back bouncing off the walls after that much sugar and the OP has to deal with it, she isn't being unreasonable at all.

OP - I think the dentist idea is a good one. Getting the dentist to tell your son that eating that much sugar is bad for the teeth will help him understand. Also, he may be more likely to listen to what he perceives as the voice of authority rather than you.

Is it an option to ask him to not open the bags of sweets straight away and bring them home to eat throughout the week? And maybe you need to go along for the next few Sundays to reinforce the sugar is bad for your teeth argument.

My MIL likes to give her grandchildren sweets, but we never had it at that level. I once had to point out that as DD still has all her teeth, unlike MIL, it was worth keeping the number of sweets in check.

I wouldn't be placing a 7 year old in between his Gran and his Mum. It isn't his responsibility. He shouldn't have to be coached to manage the fuckwittery of his Dad and Gran.

General info about health and modelling good eating is much better than demonising food and scaring small children about health. It could cause as many issues as it solves.

Deal with your DH / deal with your MIL.

That's an insane amount of sugar!

My MIL likes to load the kids up with sugar too, but I've kind of resigned myself to that as we don't see her often. Last time they saw her they had apparently had sugary cereal with two kinds of sugar on top for breakfast.

I don't see why I should go. Dh plays golf all day on a Saturday and never sees any of my family - why should I get tied in every single week to seeing his? I go occasionally but I'm not going every week. We have NO family time but that isn't my fault as far as I'm concerned. Dh makes his own choices.

I feel for you. It's hard work. My DS is 6 and has psychological issues around foods especially sugar and having 'treats' is hugely loaded for him. My mother has a lot of emotional issues around food and comes from an obese, type 2 diabetes, binge-eating family.

Each visit it's a round of sugary cereal plus toast and jam, lunch and dinner is followed by cake and ice cream then wafers or biscuits then within an hour she's offering crisps and chocolate or sweets, then trying to push 'snacks' onto him 'for the journey home'.

Last time we got half way down the motorway and heard 'Mummy my tummy hurts'...

She thinks it's my issue not hers and wants to 'treat' her grandson. She does loud stage whispers asking me what he can have and makes a big song and dance about me 'not liking him having sugar'. So he's perfectly aware.

If she takes him to visit her sisters she accidentally calls herself mummy and they try to stuff him too....

Drives me up the fucking wall.

I don't see why I should go. Dh plays golf all day on a Saturday and never sees any of my family - why should I get tied in every single week to seeing his? I go occasionally but I'm not going every week. We have NO family time but that isn't my fault as far as I'm concerned. Dh makes his own choices.

I hear what you are saying but there are times as a parent that we have to think about our children first and do things we really don't want to do. You can't look at it as 'tit for tat' for what DH does or does not do. You have to do what is best for the child.

Going under the premise that both parents have equal 'say' in the raising of the children, you really don't have the right to ban your DH from taking your DS to his parents, anymore than he'd have the right to ban you from taking him to see yours if he disagreed on something they did. Obvs if there was a true child safety issue it would be different. But too many sweets is not the same as a vicious dog, a houseful of smoke, drug use, or rickety stairs, iyswim. And if your DH doesn't have the cojones to stand up to his parents then your only option is to go so you can supervise what he eats.

It's what I'd do. At least until I could (hopefully) train my child to say 'no' or 'may I take these home for later?'.

I don't want to ban him from going I just want her to be more sensible when it comes to sweets.
No it isn't tit for tat but I do a lot lot more with dh's mum than he does with my family and ds basically considers himself, dh, mil and me as a family and then my parents separately because that's how infrequently we do anything with them altogether. When it's the school holidays mil is here nearly every day and we take her out. If my parents come over dh goes out.

Even if it's so one-sided (and I admit that would piss me off, too) it's still about what's best for your son. Sounds to me as if that one-sidedness is a separate problem that you may want to address at some time.

Do you think it would do a single bit of good if you wrote your MiL a letter explaining your concerns, asking her to limit treats to and provide her with printed dietary guidelines from the NHS or a dietician to back up your concerns. Stress that you know how much she loves DS and that you know she only wants the best for him. Phrase it in more of a 'perhaps you don't know' rather than 'you are ruining my child' iyswim.

My MiL (more FiL actually) was inclined to go a bit overboard with food (more with large portions than sweets) but I was very lucky in that MiL was very sensitive to 'Parent's Prerogative' as she herself had an interfering MiL.

That sounds pretty dysfunctional to me. So basically you do ur thing with ur family, he does his thing with his, you don't seem to have any family time together and u wonder why your wishes/rules are not taken into account with regards to your child????

You are not taken into account or respected because you are not part of their unit!

YANBU at all, that seems a very unhealthy amount of sugar, but you seem to be suggesting that he came home with a 'sugar rush' (that he was "bouncing off the walls"), and I think the notion of sugar causing spells of hyperactivity has been pretty comprehensively debunked over the past couple of decades.

Indeed it has Sybys. It was first debunked in 1994 and later studies have confirmed it.

www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199402033300501#t=articleResults

The worry about sugar now is related to developing poor dietary habits, obesity, dental health, and type 2 diabetes.

If it has been debunked how come some children become hyperactive after a lot of sugar? Is it just coincidence?

Can you spoon out how much actual sugar that is in a plastic bag, and show your DH?

Like this

You would never ever eat that amount of sugar in one afternoon.

Or surely your DS has done "healthy eating" at school - could you use that to talk to both your DS and DH about how much sweet treats are appropriate?

Can I just say - and I would welcome disagreement / discussion on this point because I am not sure that I'm right - but I really don't think it's right to put the responsibility for this onto the child, as some people are suggesting.

whether through a chat from the dentist, or visibility of all the sugar, or whatever - I don't think this is the right age to introduce this sort of thing, for various reasons

I think that worrying about food causes problems. EDs of all kinds - compulsive eating as well as the other kind - are exacerbated by anxiety around food. It is better to inculcate good habits and confidence.

It's really hard for a child to disagree with important adults in their lives. the should be able to just trust adults, not have to argue with them. And if they have to argue with some of them, than which side do they pick? this isn't fair.

Also it's too much responsibility. We know children love sugar. We know it can be hard to resist. When they are older and have their own money and independence, they'll need to have good habits and good dietary knowledge to help them make good choices. I think this young age is the time to inculcate the good habits and be really, really gentle about the knowledge - and certainly not expect them to have to exercise too much will power. Just keep it simple and have really broad brush rules that you treat as universal, for all the family - "only one treat a day, weekends only" or something like that - and just don't make an issue of it.

NicknameUsed I think it's mostly confirmation bias; some parents believe sugar causes hyperactivity, so when their child has a lot of sugar, they are on the look out for 'hyper' behavior. There have been experiments where parents are told their children have been given sugar (when actually they haven't been) and then the parents say their kids are being hyperactive and blame the sugar.

Basically, it's in the parents' head.

Obviously, you should be able to control your child's diet, but I used to go to my gran's every Saturday and, typically, get through: a packet of Jaffa cakes, 2-3 chocolate bars, a large slice of cake, a couple of packets of crisps, and a pot noodle (y'know, for vitamins 😁). It's not the greatest diet but, by gum, it never did me any harm! Honestly, though, it didn't.

Confirmation bias, yes that's it.

A study was done on this, too.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7963081

If it has been debunked how come some children become hyperactive after a lot of sugar? Is it just coincidence

My dd didn't become hyperactive but my dgd does. I didn't believe in PMT unless my dd got it.

But the Coke is the worst with caffeine and huge quantities of sugar. It is also terribly addictive.