AIBU to despair at the amount of "grandparent candy" in the house right now?!

[FrauleinF]

So am having a muse of a Bank Holiday evening.

DH and I have two small kids who both have birthdays this month. DD had hers first - the amount of sweets bought for her was unbelievable, but tempered slightly by the fact that she still essentially is a toddler.

We have seen both sets of grandparents on separate days this weekend to celebrate DS turning 5 and the following treats have been served/proffered by the DGPs:

From my dad and his wife when we had them over for lunch:

Massive spiderman birthday cake
6 fairy cakes
2 little bags of M&S chocolate animals
5 pack of Barny bears
A kilo of plums from their tree
8 fancy profiteroles

From MIL and step FIL when they had us over for lunch:

Birthday cake that serves 8
Bowls with a wodge of forest fruit cheesecake and profiteroles in after we'd all eaten a chunk of the aforementioned cake after an enormous roast
6 rainbow cupcakes
2x175g bags of Haribo Tangfastics
(all the leftovers were put in a bag for us to take home)

Apparently there were also biscuits offered after all this by MIL whilst me and my son were in the garden, as DH has just told me that DD "sucked on a Blue Ribband for a bit, chucked it on the floor, then tried to eat it out of the bin". He was, unprompted by me, also incredulous at the amount of sugar provided (before sheepishly admitting "well i did have a KitKat myself" facepalm )

Now I'm not the sugar police, and don't believe in blacklisting food, but this is bonkers isn't it? Or am I just a sourpuss for the sheer volume of treats making me feel a bit awkward? We see each set of grandparents roughly every other week, and though it's not usually this extreme, every time, without fail, plenty of chocolate/biscuits/sweets are given out. It does obviously come from a place of love. Both kids are a healthy weight, fit, and have zero dental issues (for now) , so I haven't really brought this up yet. I certainly was spoiled by my late mum growing up, but never had this level of extravagance!

Does anyone else have grandparents who do this!? Can anyone beat the Bank Holiday kiddy candy haul?! Any tips on how you broached the subject also welcome...

Yeah this is an issue with lots of grandparents. It is with my MIL, and also was with my own nan back in the day!

For this specific birthday-related issue, maybe one big birthday party for each child, with all grandparents invited, might help a bit? Then you can just sort one cake and no one else will bring one/cupcakes.

Jesus keep them away from the plums….especially home grown plums that are free from air miles and commercial sprays etc. How could you even let them in your house?

I have this issue with several people in my children's lives, and the older they get, the more often the sweets/chocolate etc end up directly with them rather than through me. One of my kids has a weight issue and eats constantly and it's particularly tricky to deal with that.

My in-laws sent the kids a box of 50 Creme Eggs at Easter via Amazon. That was extremely tricky to manage as they opened them (in-laws had told us they'd sent 'a little something for Easter') and we then had to find hiding places for the box all over the house while giving as many of them away as we could. But there is a lot of undermining of healthy eating in that relationship (eg having healthy food that we have given the kids since they were tiny described as nasty by my MiL which they latch on to).

Thank you all for all your comments, be they YANBU or YABU, it's good to have the perspective. Having slept on it, I think that the word "despair" in my title might have been a bit strong, even if the amount of food is nonetheless IMHO a bit much for a 2 and 5 year old. As for using Americanisms, I guess DS has shown me one too many dinosaur unboxing videos on YouTube of late...

To address a few points:

PMSL at the other implied meaning of "grandparent candy" 😆

No, I am not a fully paid up member of the fruit gestapo - I genuinely have no problem with the kids eating plenty of fruit and don't equate one plum to a bag of Tangfastics just because they both technically contain sugar. Just wanted to include them on the list for completeness - and the fact that 25 odd plums is A LOT and they only keep for a day or two. This might also have been coloured by the fact that husband is mildly allergic to plums/peaches/nectarines etc - and you can imagine how many of the fuckers the kids were interested in eating after the deluge of other treats. Fear not - they have been turned into a lovely compote that I will thoroughly enjoy eating (and yet hope to convince the kids to try).

The "facepalm" at my husband eating a KitKat was more aimed at the fact he'd ranted about how ridiculous the amount of treats from his mum and stepdad was and then remembered he'd actually sort of been suckered into it anyway - we both laughed at that. I can indeed guide a toddler and year 1 child into making good choices when it comes to a healthy diet - but have absolutely no interest whatsoever in policing that of a man in his early forties and then browbeating him when he eats a KitKat finger at the wrong moment.

I also do know that in the grand scheme of things that this is small potatoes (plums?) and that DS and DD are very fortunate to have 4 loving grandparents. The eagle eyed among you might have noticed the "stepFIL" and "late mother" mentioned in my first post - DH lost his largely absent father when he was a teenager and my mother died suddenly in unpleasant circumstances nearly a decade ago, so we are doubly glad of the family the kids do have. But this thread isn't about that.

Thanks to those who have shared their own tales of sugar overload - they have made me laugh! I am already in the habit of hiding as much as I can, as DS has already mastered the skill of knowing exactly how much cake/chocolate/haribo is left in the house, so (after one memorable fuckup last year when DH and I ate 2 of his Colin the Caterpillars) if it's seen, it's his - it just has to be rationed out. Most of the stuff gets opened on the day, so no chance of a food bank donation. And yes, me and DH do take our cut!

Think I'll just stick with the status quo and only push for change if there is an actual health issue with the children.

What a lovely summary OP, you sound really nice! My DC are 13 and 11 now and it’s easy to belittle these types of things now but I can remember finding it really tricky with the in laws and sweets and it did put me off using them for regular childcare. Seems crazy now but certainly didn’t then.