Friend adding sugar to her toddler's water

[FurrySlipperBoots]

I have a newish friend (met at the end of summer this year) with a two year old. She's a good person and I don't want to rock the boat, but I'm disturbed by her adding sugar to her toddler's drink! She has a LOT of pure fruit juice which was worrying me already, so I was relieved to notice her drinking water one time - until I saw my friend refill it, and adding a tablespoon of sugar! She just said 'she doesn't like the taste otherwise' and we moved on, but it's been on my mind since.

On the one hand it's none of my business how she raises her child, but on the other how will I feel after hearing the poor munchkin has to have a bunch of teeth out under GA, and I'd never said anything to try and prevent that from happening? Surely my friend knows the damage sugar does? I mean it's not exactly a secret is it!

YABU - butt out, it's nothing to do with you what someone elses toddler drinks!

YANBU - advocate for the child and say something now!

Nah, not buying this. No-one is that stupid, and especially to do it in front of someone else.

Never happened

Butt right out unless you want the friendship to end. You haven't been friends long enough for your advice to be at all well received and, even if the friendship ending doesn't bother you, if you like locally then you're likely to encounter her for some time to come via activities, nursery, school, etc and do you want to be known as the Uptight Sugar Police when she tells people about it?

Its not ideal to put sugar in the water but its not the worst thing in the world and realistically is no worse than fruit juice or squash which lots of people wouldn't think twice about.

Surely no added sugar squash would be better?

Wtf.... she is a looney

@Gancanny

Butt right out unless you want the friendship to end. You haven't been friends long enough for your advice to be at all well received and, even if the friendship ending doesn't bother you, if you like locally then you're likely to encounter her for some time to come via activities, nursery, school, etc and do you want to be known as the Uptight Sugar Police when she tells people about it?

Its not ideal to put sugar in the water but its not the worst thing in the world and realistically is no worse than fruit juice or squash which lots of people wouldn't think twice about.

Stay out of it is one thing.

Justifying it as acceptable is another.

If you were going to say something, you missed the opportunity.
"Oh she must be better at having her teeth cleaned than my lot were!" little laugh might work as pa

Didn't happen though

Has she tried anything else like honey or sugar free squash if lo doesnt like the taste of water. Tap water where I live tastes horrible.

Some people are that stupid.

I know someone who said they was cutting sugar out of their child's diet as they had too much. She did this by not adding sugar to their coco pops and taking icing off cake before giving it to them. She genuinely didn't know that coco pops and cake even without icing is full of sugar. She's not a bad person, she's just not very clued up about food and nutrition.

@Redolent I'm not justifying it, I'm merely pointing out that its no different to squash or fruit juice in terms of sugar content and most people wouldn't even bat an eye at a child drinking either of those.

It's sugar, not meth, and it's none of the OP's business.

I don’t know, my ex SIL is a social worker and this seems a lot like the things she saw. Kids being given sugary drinks as standard, never water. Terrible teeth, abscesses and all sorts, parents still couldn’t believe that should give the child plain water.

So many threads on here where people claim not to like water and you can’t help but think they may have been given squash and undiluted juice from early on.

Water tastes nice! It’s what we’ve evolved to drink, kids will only not like it if they get a taste for sugar.

I think I’d have to say something as it’s so damaging. I think that’s an unpopular opinion. Maybe a drop of no added sugar squash in the water to start with, and then bring them on to plain water. It helps if the kids see this is what the adults drinks- water as the main drink.

I do realise that water in soft water areas can taste a bit grim but I’m sure you can get used to it!

Why do you care?

I nannied for a family where the mum added honey to bottles of warm milk for the 4 year old, after lunch and at bedtime.
I’m not sure what horrified me most, the 4 year old sucking bottles or the honey.

Drinking from a straw is meant to be a good way to bypass the teeth if they must drink drinks other than water.

Whilst I don’t think it’s a great idea per se, it’s better to add ordinary sugar in a drink than use any of those ‘no added sugar’ squash shite substitutes.

I’m convinced that the artificial sugars such as aspartame are far more damaging than ordinary sugar and potentially carcinogenic. I’ve always had migraines after eating or drinking anything with artificial sweeteners so I think my body is trying to warn me off them.

The water where I live is rank and undrinkable plain. I wish it tasted nice!

A tablespoon?

[quote Gancanny]@Redolent I'm not justifying it, I'm merely pointing out that its no different to squash or fruit juice in terms of sugar content and most people wouldn't even bat an eye at a child drinking either of those.

It's sugar, not meth, and it's none of the OP's business.[/quote]
It is definitely different to fruit juice. There is zero nutritional content or any other kind of benefit in adding refined sugar to water.

I have family who have only ever given their children squash from the age of six months. Ever. They’ve never tasted pure water in their entire childhood. I keep my mouth shut, but I don’t think it’s acceptable.

It may not be meth, but studies on rats have shown that sugar carries addictive properties similar to cocaine. So I’m not sure the drug analogy is working for you here.

I’m not saying we become puritanical about refined sugar, but it’s worth wising up to its harms anyway.

It's a very old fashioned thing to do. My Grandmother can remember when people did this to fill their children up because they couldn't afford milk! When my youngest was a baby going through a growth spurt I was offered unasked for advice by a neighbour to do the same thing when she up guzzling milk every two hours, so she wouldn't get fat! For a lot of older people, it seemed to be standard practice so perhaps your friend was told to do this by a relative? Either way, she is not going to like you saying something, so be prepared to lose a friend if you say anything! I agree with you, though, it's wrong and it would make me shudder to think what this child's diet is going to be like throughout her childhood.

I once saw a family at a resort in Greece put full fat coke in a bottle to give to a baby who was around 10 months old. I literally couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it!

@krustykittens

It's a very old fashioned thing to do. My Grandmother can remember when people did this to fill their children up because they couldn't afford milk! When my youngest was a baby going through a growth spurt I was offered unasked for advice by a neighbour to do the same thing when she up guzzling milk every two hours, so she wouldn't get fat! For a lot of older people, it seemed to be standard practice so perhaps your friend was told to do this by a relative? Either way, she is not going to like you saying something, so be prepared to lose a friend if you say anything! I agree with you, though, it's wrong and it would make me shudder to think what this child's diet is going to be like throughout her childhood.

My mum is Arab and was advising me to do this when DD was 3 months old As a way of spacing out breastfeeds. So it definitely has an cross cultural element!

I would say something similar to as suggested already. Say it's hard to keep kids teeth clean and leave it at that. I worked with an absolutely beautiful girl who had really bad teeth because her parents gave her ribena in a bottle for years and then she was given lots as a child. It's very painful and extremely expensive to try fix the damage.

I’m convinced that the artificial sugars such as aspartame are far more damaging than ordinary sugar and potentially carcinogenic. I’ve always had migraines after eating or drinking anything with artificial sweeteners so I think my body is trying to warn me off them

I couldn't agree with this more. I know lots of people that let their kids have diet drinks. I would much rather my child have coke full of sugar than diet coke with artificial sweeteners (my kids don't actually drink either though). I wouldn't let my children have anything with aspartame in it.

Not sure why people don't believe this. I work for a an organisation that works with midwives in developing countries and one of the key problems our midwives tackle is telling women not to put sugar in their babies water! It's a very common, mistaken belief in many parts of the world.