Ex feeding 20 month old 10 month+ baby food

[Covidtrap]

This has really annoyed me and i dont know if i am being unreasonable. So my ex dropped of our son earlier the other night (6.30pm) i asked if he had dinner and he said no ive left his dinner in the bag. When i looked theres two pouches of 10 month plus baby food.. spaghetti bolognaise with lumps and chunks... looks like mush and also liquid cottage pie. Aibu to be furious at this? He eats normal solid food, i am even considering this as a form of neglect or pure laziness. At least buy an appropriate age group of pre made food. Should i say something and if so what?

YABU to firstly call it neglect when it is nowhere near neglect (you should be aware of this given what’s been in the news recently with these poor children) and also to kick up a fuss if it’s only once or twice a week - you may start to come across as just looking for problems and making a mountain out of a mole hill…

You have A LOT of years left parenting with this man - pick and choose your battles wisely unless you want it to be a complete disaster.

@x2boys the important difference is that toast involves chewing. Chewing is really important to speech development.

Saying ‘at least he’s fed’ shouldn’t be a standard that we hold people to. If it wasn’t for OP feeding proper meals, it would be likely that the dad would be hindering proper development through not providing age appropriate food. Surely that is neglectful?

If hes ever awake when he comes back from dads hes straight into the fridge looking for fruit/yogurts whatever nay be there. try approaching it from this angle. That he always seems hungry could he try feeding him what they are having please?

He’s being lazy, but this is way better than a ready meal, fast food or chicken nuggets. IMO.

The calorie count is a legit concern but generally a 20m old will let you know he is hungry.

You could explain to your ex that they need more calories than in food for 10m olds. But without having a go which probably won’t help.

Depending on the brand there's not much difference between the calories in these and the 12-24 month meals, the older ones just might be slightly chunkier. I was still buying the Ella's kitchen ones for my son at 20 months because he's fussy and doesn't like meat or fish unless it's either a sausage or ground up really small like in a toddler meal. I don't think there's an issue for development if the child gets to bite and chew food at other meals. Obviously if all meals and snacks are pureed then there could be.

Can I ask how you know he isn't having other foods when he's there? Everyone's assuming all he has is these pouches but he could be eating all sorts throughout the day.

My DD used to get them occasiionally up to the age of 3 if we were out and about - less faff than taking a toddler into a restaurant. If he is taking the kid out a lot he's not unreasonable at all to at least have those meals as a back up plan.

Calling this neglect and abuse is awful. Think about what forms real child abuse forms. Giving a child a pouch of food does not fit into this category.

Real abuse takes *

As this is the first time this has happened to your knowledge perhaps they were cooking something unsuitable so he chucked in something as he had nothing handy.
Perhaps he was just winding you up as you are concerned about good diet.

Wouldn't it just be a bit like eating soup?
I eat soup.
I also ate a baby pouch of fruit puree today. Yum yum yum.

From your update, I think explaining to your ex that your son is sometimes hungry when he comes home from his Dad's, and what type of foods are age-appropriate (and perhaps suggest some meals that your son likes) could be sufficient. At this point, I agree with another poster, having a go is unlikely to help.

your mad that he has given him some food from a pouch but you sometimes give him McDonalds?

make it make sense.

DD7 adored spaghetti bolognaise baby food until she was 5 .

[quote elbea]@x2boys the important difference is that toast involves chewing. Chewing is really important to speech development.

Saying ‘at least he’s fed’ shouldn’t be a standard that we hold people to. If it wasn’t for OP feeding proper meals, it would be likely that the dad would be hindering proper development through not providing age appropriate food. Surely that is neglectful?[/quote]
But we don't know every meal the dad gives is a pouch of baby food. That could be a one off. More likely it was for a snack when they were on the drive home or something.

Not ideal but no not neglect and total over reaction to be furious, it's not like it's a macdonalds every week. Perhaps suggest that ds may prefer the 1-3 yr old meals you get from supermarket. Like hipp or Ella's kitchen. Say it along the lines of you know ds can be fussy blah blah so perhaps these meals would help.

Honestly I used to carry some pouches around as they were quick if we were caught out and dc were hungry

This really isn’t the end of the world. You wouldn’t want them to have pouches 100% of the time but this isn’t the case.

You could say to your ex “oh you know Ds eats normal food now, so no need to spend money on pouches”, if you have that relationship, but it’s not neglect by any stretch.

[quote elbea]@x2boys the important difference is that toast involves chewing. Chewing is really important to speech development.

Saying ‘at least he’s fed’ shouldn’t be a standard that we hold people to. If it wasn’t for OP feeding proper meals, it would be likely that the dad would be hindering proper development through not providing age appropriate food. Surely that is neglectful?[/quote]
OP feeds him Mac Donald’s ....she said so

My13 year old would happily eat a 4 month purée pouch of the plain fruit stuff if it was going! (Like the strawberry and apple stuff)

She had a baby brother, I’m not letting her live on baby food, just if there was one going spare!

Good lord, if I had to choose between giving my 20 month old either a pouch of baby food or a McDonald’s I know which it would be….

Pot calling the kettle black.

I can’t get worked up about it. My son is 7 and told me a boy in his class has the “Ella” fruit pouches in his lunch box, I thought it was unusual but maybe there was a reason for it, obviously with other food as well, once I bought them for my dd but she wouldn’t eat it, my 7 year old then picked it up and started drinking it thinking I didn’t notice 😂

@CreamFirstThenJamOnTop

Good lord, if I had to choose between giving my 20 month old either a pouch of baby food or a McDonald’s I know which it would be….

Pot calling the kettle black.

Yep!

Maybe he'd only bought them for a quick bit of something in the car or out in the pushchair. Far better than handing him a chocolate bar! I mentioned upthread that I occasionally get these for 2yo, and that's usually the scenario when I use one for him, or the fruit ones.

And we don't know what else he'd eaten whilst at his dads/grandma's anyway!

It's a bit lazy and annoying, but not neglect.

I've occasionally bought much younger food for my toddler as I needed something she could eat whilst on the go and not all supermarkets have a very broad range of babyfood so there wasn't anything age-appropriate in that particular shop at that particular time. Or perhaps he doesn't realise and could do with a nudge about what food your son can manage. But even if he is just being pure lazy, well at the end of the day you can't force your ex to put in as much effort as you do into parenting. At the end of the day, as long as he's feeding his child, and not abusing or neglecting him, then it's not really your responsibility or business to micromanage his parenting. Your son might have an imperfect dad but it's the dad he's got.

Although having read your update, if the food he's being given isn't filling enough then that is your business, and you have every right to bring it up and insist he's given something more, even if it's fruit or yoghurt or a slice of toast or whatever as well as the pouch.

Also the odd pouch is not going to cause eating or speaking difficulties if the child eats age-appropriate food the rest of the time. Adults still eat soups, purees, yoghurts, trifles and other mushy/gloopy foods all the time.

@Kitkat151 I don’t know what that’s got to do with hindering development? McDonald’s isn’t the ideal food but some chicken nuggets aren’t going to hinder speech development.