AIBU to stop DD (12) snacking just before bed.

[McGingery]

So my DD likes to go to bed with a snack. I have always said no but DH is weaker than me and says yes. She eats a healthy dinner at about 5pm, then pudding and has fruit to eat whenever she wants.

My arguments are that she should have eaten something earlier (I say an hour bed bedtime so 8pm) and she is only eating as a delay tactic or out of habit. I doubt it is doing her any good to eat late and is only forming a bad habit for the future.

The snack in question is usually a large chunk of cucumber but sometimes it is cheese or chorizo!

Am I being unreasonable saying no to bedtime snacks?

You are being massively unreasonable. Please let her eat, she's hungry if she's eating cucumber!

I’m surprised by some of the replies on here. We eat between 4 & 5 pm in our house and bed time for kids is 8 and mine 10pm. Nobody is hungry later and I’d feel uncomfortable eating closer to bed time. I’m not hungry until around 11am the following day. I always give kids breakfast though.
Im a strong believer in listening to your body and if my kids or me were hungry before I’d let them eat as long as it was healthy, unprocessed food. The cheese and cucumber fine but maybe not the chorizo OP.

If dinner is 5pm, by the time she’s eaten, and then goes out to scouts, and gets home. Surely there isn’t much time to have eaten her snack before 8pm? Otherwise she would have to eat the second she came back home.

Why does everyone think 5pm is early for dinner can I ask? They eat school lunch at 12 so kids are hungry by 4/5pm? If it’s a substantial meal, why are kids hungry before bed?

Just make her some supper an hour before bed and push her bedtime to 9.30 if you think it's a delaying tactic. It's not a big deal.

YABU, it's inevitable that she wants to eat something after such an early meal. If 5pm is the only time that works for the rest of your family, then fair enough, but then you have to accept that she will need to eat something else before bed.

Presumably because most people eat later than this? My dc has never been hungry at 4/5pm.

According to Mumsnet, sitting down to Christmas dinner any earlier than 10pm is considered strange. 5pm isn't too early but supper is generally needed in kids.

LOADS of people have dinner at 5. Fairly standard time round these parts for families with kids.

Because it's 15 hours from 5pm to an 8am breakfast. Even if breakfast is earlier, it's still a long stretch between meals and older children are up for a good 4 or so hours after it so it's not surprising that they're getting hungry just as it's bedtime.

In this case on this schedule, the choices of cheese, cucumber, chorizo are great and won't spike blood sugars.

In our case my 9/ 11 yos have activities across the dinner time zone, DH comes in late and with picky sensory eaters favouring food that doesn't stay hot/ reheat well, we eat late and the DCs have a substantial snack/ light tea at 4-5 before the activities after a 12-1 lunch sitting at school. A main dinner shortly before a 6:30 swimming lesson is bad idea anyway so we eat after. It's not perfect but it's the best fit to our combination of circumstances.

5 is really early for supper

Supper 🤣🤣

You sound like you have disordered relationship with food and you are inflicting it on your child tbh. i don’t mean to be blunt but a bit of cucumber or chorizo or cheese is not the same as her eating a happy meal is it?

I think the feeling of controlling from your post is that you arent giving any logical reasons why. If she brushes her teeth after why is it bad for her teeth? If that worries you say she brushes her teeth after.

As a child it's very unlikely it hurts her digestion. If you pointed out actual evidence why it is bad for her rather than a "feeling" or an opinion that isn't based on anything then basically you just don't want her to do it because youve arbitrarily decided it's bad. Making your child behave in a way you have decided is not OK without any reason for it is controlling for no reason.

If you explain where you get this logic from (not just a belief unless you have the expertise and knowledge to back it up) then I suspect others will see it your way.

Otherwise it sounds like you just don't want her to and the house should agree with you....just because.

I agree, OP.

My DD is 6 and I don't let her ask me for a snack when I've just told her to turn the TV off and get a book ready for bed and clean teeth etc. She can have a snack after dinner but before bed if she wants, but not right before bed.

Why is your DD waiting right until it's bedtime to want a snack? It does feel like a delay tactic. She could easily ask for one 30-50 mins earlier. She knows the time.

I never had supper as a kid, so maybe that is clouding my judgement. Dinner, bath, pudding, chill, bed.

I think 9pm is a reasonable time to go to bed at 12 years old! Wouldn't allow mine to watch Netflix and stuff in bed at bedtime. Reading only.

12 year olds and teens eat . Constantly. They need food. They cannot go from 5 pm to next day without food. Let them eat ! They are growing.

I think in 6 years time darkchocooate you will look back and understand...and laugh... your 6 yr old needs food wise are very different. Teenagers eat. All. The. Time. They need fuel.

well, I know toddlers who eat dinner later than you 12 year old, YABU.

Fruit is available whenever but cucumber is an issue?

🙄

Why does everyone think 5pm is early for dinner can I ask?

Because most of us are still at work at 5pm.

My 11 year old DD and 15 year old DS snack loads, not just bits of cucumber, both are incredibly thin, my DS inhales food, I had to ask him to stop eating and get on with year 10 mock revision, it is not an issue with weight but it takes most of his time up! Sometimes we don't have dinner until 9pm but that is dinner and not 'supper', food that takes age to prepare and cook.

All the people saying that she should ask for the snack earlier...presumably she doesn't feel hungry at 8pm, having eaten at 5pm. But by 9ish, she is hungry again. The obvious solution would be a later dinner time, but if that doesn't work for the rest of the family, it makes sense to let her have a healthy snack.

It’s before she cleans her teeth, right? So what’s the difference?

I don’t understand your comment about it being ‘not good for your digestion’. Do you think you can only digest food while you’re awake? Is she suffering from digestive problems in any way?

I think you possibly mean that you wouldn’t like to eat right before bed. Which is fine. I don’t like to clean my teeth right after I eat. It’s weird having other tastes with toothpaste. But your 12 year old is not you. She’s a distinct person with her own preferences and, increasingly, the right to make independent decisions. Sometimes they will be bad and often they will be different from yours (and those are not synonymous) Because that’s how you learn to make good decisions. By making lots of them and getting it wrong sometimes. She needs to start with small and unimportant ones, which really, this is. Isn’t it?

5pm is incredibly early. I’d be starving by 9 if I ate then.

do you have food issues? Not wanting a 12 year old to eat cucumber is just weird, sorry.

Thank you to those who gave constructive nonjudgmental comments, I am going to learn and change. That is why I asked, and I didn’t know so many children ate so much at bedtime. When you have a baby everyone treats you as naive as you have never had a baby before. Why should that concept go when your child grows up? I have never had a 12 year old before and actually all the other mums I know actually don’t have children who eat late as all children are different. We are here to help other and support other aren’t we?

For those who called me controlling with issues with food, please know I was quite hurt by some of the comments. I was asking a question about timing of snack, not about not ‘allowing’ a snack. DD does not go 13 hours without food.

How controlling

My kids need to eat again just before they go to sleep. They are growing! And while it irritates me because I’d really just like them to go to sleep, I do let them as they need it.