AIBU to ask your ‘food rules’ for your DC?

[firstworldproblems2018]

Not a TAAT, but the sleepover one did get me thinking. Do you have any ‘rules’ for food/eating in your house? Are your kids allowed snacks whenever they want for example? Do you have any specific rules around food?

Genuinely curious. I’m aware of the way these type of threads sometimes always go though....

For us, (DC 9 and 5) the only rules are only 1 snack between after school and dinner as otherwise they don’t eat properly at dinner. I’ve started making dinner earlier and this means they eat better. After their main course at dinner they always Have a ‘fruit course’ ie fresh fruit of some kind. They may or may not have pudding after that, but always fruit after their evening meal.

Otherwise I’d say we were fairly relaxed. Both kids healthy weight and very very active. Little one doesn’t really have free access to food but I offer him choices for breakfast and snacks, and he has a treat box where all party bag sweets/choc/Easter/Christmas chocolate etc goes and he can have something from that most days after dinner (and fruit!!) but doesn’t always.

DD has a bit more free rein and is allowed to get snacks herself in the evening when I put her brother to bed but she’s pretty good at self regulating.

Mine are 9 and 5 and only drink water or milk I promise! They just don’t like juice/smoothies or fizzy drinks!

firstworldproblems2018

Have you tried 'Give me that' and putting the snack in your bag? People shouldn't be giving your kids food.

I don't feel I can dictate what they get to eat at other people's houses, (unless it was health thing/vegetarian/veganism).

I usually send mine with snacks ever since the time my youngest went on a sleepover and got no food from 4pm Friday till he came home at 3pm on Saturday. Food was cooked, just his friend wanted to play Xbox instead of eating so they didn't eat. Now I send mine with a packet of biscuits/pretzels and a few apples or oranges.

Properly reread the question...

If any of their friends wanted to share my kids snack I made them ask their parents first and watched to be sure they did.

To thank the person who has cooked / provided the food (normally me 😉)

To try everything

No helping yourself to food without checking first.

I try and limit sugar but dd has a real sweet tooth, gave up with healthy cereals as dd won't eat them and decided some battles aren't worth fighting! !

My food rules, with 3 x DC's, 2 of whom had health issues. They are now all over 6 foot tall adults with their own lives.

No snacks between getting up for breakfast and after school. They had access to a big breakfast, a big lunch and a small snack, ie a piece of fruit after school. No restriction on water or juice. Then an evening meal.

They never had to eat the whole plate, but knew there would be nothing else until the next meal.

Breakfast would be either porridge, bacon and eggs with wholemeal toast, poached egg with wholemeal toast or yoghurt.

Lunch would be a sandwich, 2 slices of wholemeal with meat or egg, plus a yoghurt, plus crisps and a treat that might be a granola bar or a cereal bar.

Snack on the way home, a banana, orange, apple, rarlely a cereal bar at the end of the week.

Dinner - Meat, carb and veg combo, could be Veg, italian, Asian, UK, European, etc. You get the picture, I cook every night for my benefit as a downtime for me, but the family benefit.

So, food rules are, you eat 3 x times a day. You think about snacks. You eat a good evening meal.

I've never had a stranger try to give my child food but I'd tell them not too. I'm perfectly capable of feeding my own child and I'd find it quite weird for someone to be offering 30+ kids a bag of crisps at the end of a school day you just sort your kid out and leave surely?

Those of you who say you have no rules, can I ask what you'd do if you're 5 minutes from serving dinner and your DC wanted a biscuit/packet of crisps/chocolate bar? Would you let them have it?

You don’t need to have rules to respond to that. I’d just say ‘dinner will be in about 5 mins’ and that would be that.

Sit at the table to eat.

Can have a small snack before tea if he asks but I tend to start tea early so doesn't usually bother

Eat what you can and at least try everything on your plate once.

Yogurt or fruit as a pudding.

Treats like chocolate are for the weekend.

I'm very lucky that my ds enjoys milk or water but if its a special occasion or a meal out he can have a fizzy juice such as fanta or lemonade.

Take plates through to the sink when done.

What do you all do about other people giving your kids food that you’d rather they didn’t have?

It doesn’t bother me in the least. I’m just grateful someone else fed them.

Having teenagers makes you much less precious about minor things like sugar or fizzy drinks I find.

Unlimited fruit/cheese/toast at snack times (after school and 11ish in the holidays).

At table, & no screens for meals. Listen when someone else is talking and take turns.
Cutlery not fingers.
Eat or leave what you feel like but nothing after meal unless plate is pretty empty, inc pudding.
Little ones only have water unless special occasion/ eating out.
No food upstairs.

Have something from the fruit bowl first thing while I have coffee and try to drag myself into the land of the living. Then I will feed you properly.

My only real rule is that they have to try a food before they say they don't like it.

And no snacking if I'm in the middle of making dinner!

Chocolate cereal is a weekend treat. Weetabix and fresh fruit or toast the rest of the time. Dd usually has a biscuit or something from her treat box in the evening. Tonight she had a 2 finger kit kat. Meals are healthy and balanced. Snacks ate usually fruit. I think I'm laid back.

We don’t keep sweets/ crisps/chocolates in the house so it’s not an option.

They can eat whatever they want whenever they want.

This translates to fruit/ yoghurt/ whole meal bread/ raw veg/salad which they help themselves to.

They are a healthy weight and rarely get ill so I think this works.

My kids can eat whatever they want whenever they want except, chocolate, crisps and biscuits they are monitored. I have different meals from the kids, so I let them choose their own menus for the week, and we have a takeaway once a week and they get to choose their takeaway meal.

Geez
Some of these replies are madness!

Food is food, nothing is good or bad.
My children know my one 'rule' eat what you like and leave what you don't.

I cook food they like and will eat.

I also have a no eating upstairs rule and table manners are learned early I expect them to be used. I'm not controlling, gentle reminders are perfectly adequate and often not needed.

They can help themselves to snacks but not right before a meal, it not a rule, just common sense.

I don't reward with food and I don't use pudding as a 'carrot'

My SIL is the food police on acid, her children are underweight and have poor food associations. She thinks I'm too relaxed, I have two healthy children with healthy food associations.

You are right Basin. I think that the rules you have should be specific to the requirements of your dc. It's no good having a long list of things if your child cannot manage one of them. You are just setting everyone up for misery. Something i have learned the hard way is to not be rigid about what you expect and don't follow other prescribed advice if it isn't working for you. I like seeing what others do as i borrow bits from here and there, but i now do what suits us.

For example, the screen thing with dinner. I have rules around this, which are no individual devices the table and no watching something which everyone can't enjoy and get involved in. So today we watched 2 episodes of 'Do you know' and sat chattering about container ships and building stuff, all the while the kids happily munched (with their hands because ds1 has extremely poor motor skills and struggles holding a fork) their Pitzas and breadsticks and humous (ds2 and dd also had some cucumber). DS1 ate 4 times what he'd have eaten had the food been served without the tv on for distraction. He would have kicked off immediately at the food 'I want sausage' and started to cry. He then wold have refused any food at all. DS2 would have then followed suit.

I want to make eating pleasurable first, then start adding some rules. That's what we are working on. DD on the other hand is 18mo and already eats with a fork and spoon and eats most things. So now i have to adapt rules for her too. And try to make it not look unfair. It's a bloody minefield!

About the other people giving snacks- I just mean it’s quite common at DC school for people to turn up with a pack of biscuits at pick up and give other kids them without being asked. To be fair, it’s happening less now DD is older and DS’s class don’t seem to do it so much! It doesn’t bother me hugely but it’s annoying if we have cake to have at home after dinner for example, or I know they’ll want some of their Easter chocolate- I just don’t think a chocolate cookie after school is necessary as a regular thing... maybe that’s me being ‘too strict’.

What about school cake sales etc? If they ask, I let my kids buy one cake each and they do have that as their after school snack on those occasions.

i feel like i have hundreds of rules having read previous posts!

eat at the table only, must use cutlery (unless pizza/finger food)

only allowed to drink milk or water

must finish dinner or make a good effort to get pudding

only 2 bowls of cereal max at breakfast

no sweets unless its a birthday

no snacks

...... maybe i don't know if i do have so many rules! seemed more in my head.

Also I try and remember that it’s normal for kids to have hungry days/weeks and not so hungry times. I was seriously worried about my 9 yr old DD last week as she seemed to almost stop eating, saying she wasn’t hungry, didn’t want any food etc. she didn’t eat much at all for 4 days, then came down with a bug, then didn’t eat again properly for 3 days after. This week so far has been so so different she’s eaten loads.

@firstworldproblems

If I didn't have such strict rules at dinner time, my 2 girls would run wild.

I'm scared to say - we're pretty feral (we don't eat off the floor or anything)

What about school cake sales etc? If they ask, I let my kids buy one cake each and they do have that as their after school snack on those occasions.

Honestly, I don’t worry about such things. If we’re at a school event and DS2 eats two biscuits and a cake, I’m not worried.

DS1 (now 17) never snacks, only eats when he’s hungry, stops when he’s full and pretty much only drinks water. He also regularly refuses dessert. He’s never had any ‘rules’ to limit food and just doesn’t see it as a big deal.