To demand fruit first

[Rixera]

My 19 month old DD seems to think so.
She has become a fruit rejecting, veg scorning, biscuit eating monster.
She demanded a biscuit. I offered a selection of fruit. She asked for an apple. I peeled it for her. She demanded a biscuit. I said have some apple first.

Nearly an hour on she is bright red and still howling, we are both covered in her snot, and she is still clutching the apple, licked but unbitten. I am holding firm. No biscuits until she has at least had a bite of her fruit.

AIBU? Should I just give her the sodding biscuit?

Just put the apple back in the kitchen, and ignore her.

It's fine if you don't want her to learn that she can eat biscuits on tap, but there's no point sitting there all day labouring the point.

I would eat the apple, with obvious relish, she'll soon want a bit.

But she is a bit little to be making healthy choices and understanding concepts like "eat this first". Just offer her fruit and forget about the biscuits altogether.

Your child will merely learn to hate fruit. Not even 2 yrs old, she doesn't even understand why you are doing this. Give a biscuit. In future tell her there are no biscuits or give both on a plate.

^You are all right. Thankyou for the reinforcement!
She tried to fool me by holding the apple up to her mouth and taking it away again then pointing excitedly and asking for a biscuit. Is now even crosser as it didn't work.^

What a smart cookie. Hold firm. Especially now that you started.

Can't just give up in the middle of this, can you?

If it was DS1, giving the biscuit would be fine. He's pretty reasonable, and good about eating things, but knows what he wants. Another day he'd have been yelling for the apple and refusing the biscuit. Having a chat and changing a rule is fine with him

If it was DS2, it's important that I stay firm because his character is such that boundaries need to be strongly enforced or he'll just trample all over them.

You know which type of child you have, you'll have to make the call unfortunately.

Way to make biscuits look like the ultimate highly desirable prize ...

Way to make fruit eating seem like a drudgery-filled chore ...

'Stay firm' with a not even two year old?! What on earth for? How can you explain to a toddler that apples are better than biscuits and why, her understanding will simply be apples=arduous task, biscuits=yummy. She wants what she wants, I would absolutely back down with a child that age.

Agree with the poster who says that she is a bit young to get the concept of "apple first, then biscuit". If you don't want her to have a biscuit fine, but I think making her eat an apple first is counter productive. At this point I would put away the apple and try to distract her with something completely different - a game or something.

She is too young to learn anything at all from this.

And the only possible lesson to take out when she is a little older is that fruit is a punishment, something to eat while sobbing and through ropes of snot in order to get to the reward of a biscuit, and that mum makes some strange arbitrary rules.

If you want your daughter to eat and enjoy a more balanced diet, you need to present it as an exciting and tasty choice, not a punishment.

The baby child is 19 months old?
^

All the people saying 'stick to your guns' etc - have you no common sense at all?

Presenting both items at the same time was your first and only mistake OP. If you want her to have fruit, give fruit.

Can't believe you've turned it into a battle of wills for an hour (!) with such a small child. Ineffective and completely pointless.

Move on, and play a game instead or do something different - poor kid^

^^ This, and what KnitMeaUnicorn said about setting her up to hate fruit and see biscuits as the reward.

Baby is 19mo and is not capable of reasoning at this level. If she won't eat the apple, she's obviously not hungry. Take her out, away from the biscuits, distract her, and maybe try the apple again when you're out.

'Not backing down' from a 19mo is not good parenting, FFS. It's sodding pointless.

She cried herself exhausted and is now asleep.
I know she is a baby, but I don't want her getting scurvy with fruit in the house. She's really gone off fruit and veg, picking it out of sauces, rejecting a whole pasta meal if it's in tomato sauce, picking the rind out of marmalade! She used to have a brilliant appetite.

They were not presented at the same time; she asked for a biscuit, I said no biscuits right now, apple/banana/grapes.

Tried taking her out for a walk, cue even worse hysterics and trying to be sick on the floor.

She is allowed biscuits, just not all the time!

My DC only get fruit or biscuits as pudding. DS will have 4 large pineapple chunks (fresh, chopped) and a Cornetto. There are no arguments or tantrums.

I thought the same, Naboo

That sort of low cunning will take her far.

Keep her biscuits in "her" biscuit tin, Make a big fuss about looking to see if there are any biscuits in her tin . When the tin is empty it is empty, sad face. Obviously for this to work she must never see you taking biscuits from another source!

My ex sil kept chocolate buttons in a high cupboard. Her children only ever saw two chocolate buttons in a plastic cup. They never saw the packaging , for about three years ,basically until they learnt to read ,they did not associate chocolate buttons with packets of chocolate buttons.

So she's a fussy eater. She just is. Don't turn food into a bigger trauma for her. She won't get scurvy.

Her fussy eating is nothing to do with you or what you've done at this stage - it's just how she is. Leave her to scream for an hour over a biscuit and you will be responsible for her issues with food.

We had the "must take a bite of fruit before sweet stuff" rule at the same age. As did every room DD was in at nursery (several as 2 nurseries and they move them up every six months or so).

DD learned very quickly to make sure that someone was watching, take her bite and then demand the other thing.

Demands to eat the whole apple would just mean she refused to eat anything else.

She is now 10 and will now eat some fruits if cooked but no fruits if raw.

Retrospectively it really wasn't worth fighting over.

There's probably more sugar in the apple...

Give in and give her a biscuit now, she's 'only little'. Then give in the next time because you gave in last time. And so on.

Then, when she's 15 and tantrums until she gets her own way, remember that you taught her how well tantrums work

Bullshit. Total bullshit. We know a lot more about why toddlers tantrum than when your now adult children were small, sorry.

She's 19 months old and you let her cry all morning and eventually cry herself to sleep over a biscuit?!
19 months old!!

I don't want her getting scurvy with fruit in the house. She's really gone off fruit and veg, picking it out of sauces, rejecting a whole pasta meal if it's in tomato sauce, picking the rind out of marmalade! She used to have a brilliant appetite.

Trust me - she won't get scurvy!

And they all go through this picky phase - it's part of self-dertemination, and also just because she is becoming more selective and developing her own likes and dislikes.

If she is a strong-minded child (and she seems to be) then forcing food on her will make her more determined than ever not to eat. I would do as someone else suggested and not make a biscuit available if you want her to eat fruit - also grannie smiths are quite tart. Perhaps a sweeter apple, and maybe with some grated cheese? (Apple with cheese is delicious).

I wouldn't feed her a diet of rubbish, obviously, but if you turn this into a wa of wills, you won't win it.

Eating is something the child can control and if she feels thwarted then she most certainly will.

Or make it look as though fruit is only for Daddy as a special treat, and he can give her some for being good.

I know it's a cold comfort, but most of us have been through this and sobbed with sheer frustration and exhaustion.

She's unlikely to get scurvy
I don't agree with setting up different foods as 'bad' or 'good'. The mantra in our house has always been 'everything in moderation'.
You're teaching your DD that fruit is a chore and biscuits are a reward - my DM did this. It leads to an unhealthy attitude towards food.

I'm not fussed about sugar personally, what I am fussed about is vitamins.

Everything seems so conflicting! If you feed your baby a bad diet they'll grow up to eat like that and be obese, but if you limit the junk and enforce healthy eating you're making it a chore.

Oh well. No real way to win, like with every other aspect of parenting :p

She isn't going to get scurvy

All you have done is made a massive issue and shown her she has a reason to hate fruit

Have you tried cutting the apple and taking the core out, making quarters? It looks less daunting that way (at least, I remember it looking less daunting). Also, I clearly remember apple being hard enough to hurt when biting and bitter / sour (ditto many other vegetables and especially tomato, but not, oddly, Brussels Sprouts, which I ate by the plateful). I don't remember getting a lot of biscuits (we were too poor), but I do remember the fruit being made more palatable - i.e. fruit salads with glace cherries, etc., although even today you can terrorise me with a banana. Another thing that was done in my day was home-made biscuits that were pseudo healthy - i.e lots of nuts (in fact, shop-bought was a treat and we only ever got plain ones then). Or, how about fruit smoothies? Not speaking with any insight re parenting - speaking as someone who never was and still is not that keen on fruit ...