To think that babies dont have to have pudding every day?

[Aimee1987]

I got into a disagreement with someone on a weaning Facebook group so want to pool for opinions.
The woman had given her 7 month old chocolate cake after dinner on the advice of her health visitor to increase calories before bed. She also posted a picture of the baby who was not underweight.
I asked why the HV had given that advice as it does not sound healthy to me and got told that babies should have pudding.

So my question is why do we give puddings after meals? Surely it just teaches one of 2 things either eat your dinner to get your pudding (potentially overeating) or dont eat savory and you can just have sweet. Is this not just asking for trouble when they are toddlers and will just start demanding pudding.
By the way I do give my DS( 1) and DSS (9) age appropiate treats but I dislike the association with dinner. So as not to drop feed when I met DSS at 2 every meal was a battle to eat 2 more bites and you can have pudding which really annoyed me so we ended up getting rid of pudding when he was 3/4 and replacing with an afternoon treat that has nothing to do with his dinner.

So
YABU - kids should have pudding after dinner
YANBU - pudding is not necessary after dinner

@VinylDetective I totally agree with you. On Mumsnet it's considered practically child abuse to force your poor child to eat the healthy dinner you prepared to get a biscuit or whatever treat is going.
Generations of healthy weight children were brought up doing just that!

A pudding after dinner as a reward for eating your dinner in a normal happy family is not going to stop a child being able to control their appetite or get an eating disorder which often comes up on here too. Just don't give them a massive portion.

In fact I regularly see advice given to just put a dinner on the table and then give them pudding even if they don't touch it. I don't agree with this advice. A lot of kids will leave the dinner and eat the pudding regularly and won't be getting the vital nutrients they need to thrive.
Most children are also given way too many snacks in the day and aren't even hungry for dinner. 3 meals and 2 small snacks is plenty, but a small snack needs to be just that, small.

The obesity epidemic is due to an over reliance on large portions of highly processed, high calorie food not little Jack getting his small scoop of icecream each evening for eating his veg lasagne.

YANBU but there's more than one way to wean and give a child a healthy diet. If someone wants to give pudding every day then so be it. That can be worked into a healthy diet easily enough. It's not what I do/did but I wouldn't judge others and wouldn't expect to be judged. So long as the babies are healthy that's the main thing.

When I had a premature baby I was indeed advised by both HV and baby’s dr to feed baby pudding everyday - specifically chocolate as a way of getting calories in. Maybe a similar situation? We’re normally pretty healthy eating as a family and I must say it certainly hasn’t done him any harm. He is a healthy (rather slim) weight and eats a wide range or food. Ironically he’s not particularly interested in sweet stuff now!

My ds has a yoghurt and fruit after dinner. He's very underweight and I was told to up his calories in any way I could.
However due to Intolerances its bloody hard.

@Aimee1987

Yeah I probably am overthinking it. There are still issues with my DSS and eating so I'm just dreading my DS following in his footsteps once he learns to talk. But I'm sure I'm overthinking it. We do give plenty of yogurts and fruit but tend to use them as snack food.

The kids dont have perfectly home cooked meals every day. They eat things like burgers and chips but I try to balance it as much as I can with healthy stuff. I'm not perfect by any means I was just genuinely curious if it was normal to give pudding after every meal.

We don't have pudding everyday. Kids might grab a banana or a weetabix around story time if they're still hungry.

DS doesn't routinely get 'proper' pudding at home. He usually has a fromage frais after supper which we call 'pudding', but that's it! To be honest I only introduced the fromage frais because DS is used to having pudding (the proper stuff, e.g. cake or jelly) at nursery and I thought it might be nice to have a similar routine reflected at home.

I grew up only having puddings on special occasions (Christmas and birthdays) or with a roast dinner (about twice a month) and I wouldn't say I missed out on anything (I suppose you don't miss what you don't have)! This has carried over into my adult life.

I will caveat the above by saying that DS does sometimes have sweet snacks (biscuits, flapjack) and the occasional sweet(s) or chocolate... I don't necessarily restrict sweet food, I just don't consider it an integral part of a meal.

My DC tend to eat a lot in the morning (fruit, toast, cereal, yogurt) then their lunches and have a small dinner. I get told I’m stingy as they only get dessert once or twice a week and usually only after lunch, and they don’t snack on much more than fruit veggies and those little puff crisps if we have them in. I don’t deny them things really, it’s more everything in moderation, and they’re both happy and healthy weights.

I don't necessarily restrict sweet food, I just don't consider it an integral part of a meal

See I'm the opposite - I think it's fine to have it as part of a complete meal, and would avoid giving treats as snacks.

I think it can be hard to imagine how another person's childs body can have such wildly different calorie needs to yours. But I know from bitter experience - my DD needs puddings to gain enough weight. She has a small stomach and appetite (ex prem, reflux, severe IUGR) and she just doesnt take enough calories without it.

For anyone really interested in health, raisins and fromage frais are typically chock full of sugar and may well contain more of it than a home made low sugar cake.

The same is true of lots of products aimed at toddlers that are heavily sweetened with fruit concentrates.

Sugar has the same effect whether its derived from fruit, honey, or cane.

I give my 15 month old pudding after every meal. She doesn't know it's pudding and it's either one of her five a day or a yoghurt which is calcium.

YANBU
We don’t have pudding type things in the house that often, purely because we aren’t fans ourselves. Don’t think to buy them but if DD asks she can have what she likes when we are shopping, cup cakes or ice cream etc.

@SnapAndFartAllDayLong

Op what gives you the right to judge and even call out another mother based on 1 photo? Keep your snout out!!

My question was regarding the advice of the health visitor not the mum. I am also in a weaning group for babies with allergies most of whom have dieticians and it is widely accepted in that group that hv dont recieve alot of training on diet and babies with allergies should be referred to peads to see an actual dietician. I was lucky that my hv recognised that they couldn't help wean my son and sent me to a dietician. My understanding is that if their are growth issues that the babies would be referred. The way the post was written was night time calories so implied it was more to do with sleep hence why it was questioned and not just by me. If your posting on a public forum I dont see the harm in asking a question.

@1940s

I don't do pudding often but when I do I serve it at the same time. Fish / potato / cabbage / 3 chocolate buttons.

Child can eat in any order. There's no reward to eat anything a d no special status given to the chocolate

I like this idea as it removes the concept of needing to eat dinner

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

so far the one year old eats everything hes given so hopefully he wont go through a refusal stage

Good for you - newsflash: babies vary. My first was like this, ate anything, healthy tastes etc.he changed hugely between 2 & 3.5 then got better again.

DD is a completely different kettle of fish. In ancient times children like her with poor appetites probably would have breastfed more and for longer and relied more on sweet breastmilk for weight gain, modern attitudes to weaning & feeding etc change things.

At the end of the day if people are careful about sugar, home made puddings are no worse than any other food as part of balanced nutritious diet.

Actually my child has a whole host of allergies which makes his diet very restrictive. I havent said I'm judging anyone. I was genuinely curious if puddings are a daily part of their day.

@MechantGourmet

Really people- don't make children finish what's on their plates. It stops them from recognising the signals from their stomach saying they're full. They're far more likely to be overweight when older if they learn they're expected to override those signals for a "reward".

This is something I hugely relate to. As a child we weren't allowed to leave the table untill our dinner was gone. I now struggle to leave stuff on my plate even if I'm full ( it's something I'm working on) and I dont want to pass that onto my boys.

My first dd was 9 week prem and weighed under 2lbs. We were told by the HV to give some kind of pudding after food and to bump up calories. I would feed her meals cooked with olive oil or add cream or cheese and then give her yogurts or fruit or maybe cake and custard after.

To look at a picture of her, you wouldn't know her age or weight unless I'd mentioned it but just assume she was a very young baby eating foods maybe not meant for her age.. To this day, she remains petite and although not a fussy eater, we still need to find ways to up her calories.

I literally couldn’t give a fuck what other people feed their kids. What a waste of brain space.