To ask how much sugar your 3 year old eats?

[Myfriendanxiety]

I know this is Mumsnet and there will be people that say their 3 year old only eats avocado and quinoa- but I’m after some real opinions please.

My 3 year old has just said his tooth hurts when he was eating lunch. I’m now in mass panic he could have tooth decay so am worrying about his diet!

He drinks weakly diluted squash, only eats sweets at a birthday party so rarely, doesn’t really eat chocolate- maybe once a fortnight. He does eat a lot of fruit (apples, grapes, strawberries, blueberries) and he has a small glass (maybe 50ml) of orange juice with breakfast.

He does eat biscuits (maybe 2/3 custard creams most days) which I will cut out and usually has one small yogurt every day which I buy the lowest sugar one available. 3/4 times a week he has an ice lolly after dinner which is possibly too much so I will cut that down too.

Can anyone let me know diets for their 3 year olds along with any suggestions of lower sugar treats than custard creams and ice lollies I would much appreciate it!

Could you get a referral to the SEN dental team in your area? Ours are AMAZING!

@SinkGirl not to pile on but from what you’ve listed I’d be more worried about the lack of fat and protein in your children’s diet, children need a good amount of fat and I can’t see any - though I appreciate its just one day and maybe not representative

Mine are more likely to eat porridge and weetabix, rice crispies or honey hoops occasionally. With fruit or fruit and yoghurt, toast with marmite or pate, or eggy bread, scrambled eggs, they love a cooked breakfast at the weekend. DD likes milk, DS likes Apple juice.
They have water as their usual drink in the day, 1 cordial or squash with lunch or dinner.
Snack is maybe crackers or oatcakes and cheese /soft cheese/ nut butter and or fruit, homemade popcorn, houmous and pitta/carrots/cucumber. Sometimes cold chicken/sausage/quiche/boiled egg. Maybe pepperami/sausage roll/pork pie/scotch egg would be an occasional treat if ive fancied adding them to the shopping. Pretty much always go down the savoury route be because if it's sweet they will eat it regardless and you end up with a sugar crash which makes you want to eat more.
Lunch might be soup and a sandwich or toastie, they love anything on toast like beans or cheese or both, tuna & sweetcorn sandwich, share crisps for a treat or tuna pasta/jacket. Sometimes have a small portion of leftover dinner. Quiche maybe.
Dinner is whatever family meal, we usually don't have 2 snacks.
Sometimes they will have a cake they've made or a sweet/chocolate as pudding after dinner but I gave all the sweets away at Halloween as they never get eaten and I've just thrown the last of last Easters chocolate away. I put it in the treat tin and forget about it, they rarely ask either.
We may have a pudding once every few weeks, they know they can have seconds of dinner or fruit and yoghurt if they're actually hungry.
We haven't had ice lollies etc since the summer, don't have enough room in the freezer for ice cream regularly.
Biscuits and milk occasionally more for the bigger one once the little one is in bed, certainly neither of mine have ever had biscuits daily.

not to pile on but from what you’ve listed I’d be more worried about the lack of fat and protein in your children’s diet, children need a good amount of fat and I can’t see any - though I appreciate its just one day and maybe not representative

No I know, it’s very difficult between their dairy allergy and their ASD - they won’t eat things like dairy free cheese and yoghurt and they don’t like meat other than say mince in spaghetti bolognese or meatballs. I slather dairy free spread on any bread products but I find it super difficult to find sources of protein and fat they will eat! Would love any suggestions if anyone has any ;)

Forgot to say they will eat nut butters but for extra fun I’m anaphylactic to nuts and sesame, so they can only have that when DH is around to feed it to them and then denut the kitchen 😂

I’ve a 2 year old and I’m very mean when it comes to sugar, I have a very sweet tooth and don’t want to pass it on!
He has sugar free cereal for breakfast or toast with peanut butter or marmite.
He has fruit or kids yoghurt (sweetened with juice) for puddings. Sometimes has a malt loaf bar or toddler biscuits. He only gets adult biscuits/cake/ice creams at special occasions or when we are out for pub dinner. Milk with breakfast and water otherwise. His nursery is similar and never give sugar. He doesn’t seem to mind.
I’d drop the juice and try to avoid raisins for teeth health. You could try gradually watering down the juice if it’s easier.

Sorry to takeover but my 3 year old has terrible tooth decay which has gotten worse. I've no idea how because he only eats chocolate about once a month, he eats fruit regularly though and I make banana smoothies for him about 3 times a week. I'm very particular about what I let him have, he rarely has actual sugar unless we've been baking and usually it's coconut sugar.

He only has water to drink and Oatly, no squash rarely fruit juice. Could oat milk be the culprit? He's had it since he was very young and I know oats are quite high in sugar. He also had a terrible habit of refusing to drink without a straw for a very long time, do straws increase tooth decay?

He has kallo puffed rice, cornflakes, granola with yoghurt or toast most mornings and some times I'll drizzle some honey on for him or add in some berries.
He brushes his teeth twice a day, I feel like such a shit mum. His teeth are definitely damaged along the gumline he has brown ridges where his teeth have started to erode.

We were due to see a dentist but with everything going on his appointment was cancelled. Tooth decay is primarily diet related I'm assuming...

I have a 3 year old (and 6&8 year olds) it is harder at the minute as we try not to go food shopping very often.

Breakfast usually one of these - porridge with warm berries or scrambled/boiled/poached egg or bagel with peanut butter or cream cheese or French toast
Lunch - eggs (if not bad at breakfast), tomatoes on toast, beans, cucumber carrot sticks humous etc, something like that, 3 year old eats like a bird !
Dinner - tonight it was home made shepherds pie and fruit

They can help themselves to fruit whenever

We never have crisps in the house, biscuits rarely (as I just ear the whole packet), snacks are crackers, nuts, seeds, fruit
Drinks are water, very diluted cordial, small milk, milkman delivers cranberry juice carton on a Friday then when it’s gone that’s it for a week between 5 of us. Primarily they have water.

Dinners made this week have been veg chilli, quorn Thai curry, sausage and mash, tuna steaks on rice, macaroni cheese and cherry tomatoes.

So some much healthier than others but you have to looolk at the whole week to see if it evens out health wise.

@SinkGirl thanks for not being offended! All really valid reasons why its more challenging for you. Dairy free cheese is generally really low in protein anyway so not a huge worry. Would they try Wowbutter? It’s like peanut butter but made of soya so no allergy concerns for you! Could you make hummus without the tahini? None traditional but healthy, you can add lots of olive oil for fat and flavour it how they’d like. Any bean or lentil can be ‘hummused’ too, frijoles dip made from black beans is delicious (you can leave out the chilli) and not as strong tasting as you might expect. Avocados could also be an option? Would they eat tofu? Delicious if you know what you’re doing with it - it’s worth experimenting - and a source of calcium as well as protein.

It can definitely be difficult when you’re dealing with ASD and lots of dietary restrictions together, but worth continuing to offer lots of different things

I think it's frequency as others have said that is bad for teeth specifically, but that does seem a lot of food and snacks to me. Especially 2 or 3 biscuits. Dd has water or milk only and no biscuits, cake etc. Breakfast is wheetabix or cornflakes with an apple. Snack of cheese and savoury biscuits. Lunch of a sandwich, mini cheddars, cheese and raisins. Dinner followed by yoghurt.

Thanks Buffalo - DT1 was allergic to soy as a baby so I haven’t given them anything high in soy since, but will certainly start trying to build that up and then that should give us some more options.

They struggle with textures, it’s why they won’t eat meat, so I’m not sure with tofu but I can certainly try.

Will see if I can make up some non-sesame hummus, and will try some other ideas. Thanks so much. Not offended at all. Between the allergies and ASD issues I find it such a challenge!

@XmasRibbons are you sure it's decay? I thought my 3 year old had decay but it was actually hypoplasia.

We stopped buying the bottles of fresh juice cause the kids would just neck the lot as soon as they could. Fresh fruit juice watered down is fine, but straight is highly acidic and high in sugar. Our kids are older and get one choice of sugar a day. I usually just buy chocolate or whatever the fad of the month is . I'm not the quinoa brigade but a lot of so called healthy stuff is loaded with concentrated fruit sugar. Fruit sugar is still sugar . Check the packets before you buy them. The most important thing is getting them to brush their teeth (nightmare with my two). I did my best to keep the level of sugars and salts down when my kids were little. I worked on the assumption that what they didn't get they wouldn't miss. Look at what the recommended daily allowance is for your child and put that up against his daily consumption.

When mine were little the menu was typically, porridge with small amount of fruit/honey, snack would be cheese,cucumber, tomatoes, rice cakes, lunch would be sandwich/eggs/cheese on toast/soup, dinner would be pasta/stews/fish/veg/salad etc. At 3 both of mine did better with finger foods and would only eat a main meal if it was on my plate. There's added sugar in pretty much all processed foods including breads and cereals. It never occurred to me to check properly till I got the maternity healthy eating pack.

That's a lot of sugar.

Squash and fruit juices are big no no in our house.

And biscuits are a once a week treat, with only 1 eaten

As for treats, fruit blended with Greek yoghurt frozen into lollies is a brilliant alternative.

I would suggest trying Alpro plain yogurt as an alternative -- no added sugar or sweetener but has quite a creamy mild almost sweet flavour that my kids will happily eat as a change from fruit yogurts (& they're teens so can sniff my healthy substitutes a mile off!).

That sounfs likr a lot of sugar! Definitely cut out the juice. My 4 year old only has juice very occasionally, we never have it in the house. Also 3 biscuits a day? That’s too much. Mine had 1 a day about 2-3 times a week.

Tbh when mine was 3 she had loads. She used to have a long car journey with her grandad every weekday and he would give her so much crap. Literally I'd find she'd eaten a share bag of haribo and two kinder eggs. Drove me nuts but her teeth are fine. No decay.

Ours eats loads of fruit, which someone on Mumsnet told me once was “appalling” and I was setting him up for a “lifetime of trouble”
I did laugh that only on Mumsnet would you be told that because your child has a liking for apples

Would he tolerate swapping the orange juice for milk? Also better to brush your teeth before breakfast apparently or wait 30mins. As it’s better for the enamel on their teeth.

I also give the kids organix crisps (in a pot) as a snack as they are less salty and sugary. They love them so might be easier to swap a biscuit for that then say a plain cracker.

Sometimes loads, sometimes very little. It all balances out. Yesterday he ate "well", toast, tuna pasta, watermelon and apple slices.

Today it's been yoghurt with muesli, cheese and crackers, crisps and chocolate cake.

Monday he basically ate biscuits and that was it.

Everything in moderation and I refuse to get hung up on it or make food a battle. Some days are healthier than others.

The OJ is bad. Are you diluting it?

My three year old has a sweet tooth. I do too. I do give puddings (I don't believe in forbidding all sugar as that makes it into A much desired treat) but i home bake things and don't use much sugar for him, or add fruit instead. I don't ever give sweet/sugary snacks, fruit juice. He has one cup of very weak squash some days, that's a recent thing, he mainly drinks water.

Eg today meals:

• porridge with grated apple in
• ham sandwich, cucumber, red pepper, home made yoghurt sweetened with a banana & blueberry blend and a little vanilla, a pear
• lamb tagine with chopped spinach in it & cous cous
• custard made with 1/2 tsp sugar & 2 squares dark chocolate per 200ml, one portion = 60ml, with 1/3 of a small banana chopped. This was a more sugary pudding than usual.

Other puddings: rice pudding with blackberries to sweeten. Home made pancakes with apple puree. Home made banana loaf. Scones with mashed up raspberries & cream.

Ps as others have said, avoid buying toddler/childrens yoghurtss or snacks advertised as sugar free/sweetened only with fruit. They use very concentrated fruit purees which are still sugary albeit "natural". Better to buy natural yoghurt and add chopped fruit that way you can see how much you are adding

Fruit over the years has been modified to be sweeter and therefore higher in natural sugars. A colleague works in dental and she recommends brushing teeth after fruit/fruit juice due to the heightened sugar content as well as acidity. It's a ruddy minefield. That is a lot of refined sugar, and I'd not be giving it to younger dc, it's empty calories with no nutritional value. Do a bit of research and decide what's right for you and dc .

It depends on the health of your childs teeth, probably hereditary, my sister and I were allowed more or less what we wanted to eat outside mealtimes, I am 56 and sis 52. Never even needed a filling.
My sons the same, 34 and 32, I personally believe if you withhold food all of the time, it makes them greedy when older.
We are very healthy eaters, so they never had junk meals, but were allowed sweets after school and could have biscuits etc.....