DD with granny all day without lunch

[VCO]

I am a mother of a 3 year old that since she started eating she's not the kind of toddler that will eat anywhere, at any time, any kind of food. Routine is the key to get her to have proper meals. She's quite good at nursery as she seats with her little mates and she follows their example. Today she spent the whole day with her granny. From previous experiences I decided to prepare a lunch box and snacks for the afternoon as I know she wouldn't bother cooking her a decent meal. Sure enough she came back at the end of the day with her lunch still in the bag, all the snacks were gone and a bag of sweets that her G bought were there, half gone. She texted saying she didn't touch her pasta (that just happens she didn't even bother warming it up and put it on a plate!) She said she can't force her to eat when I mentioned she should have fed her before leaving to the park as she likes to eat at the table and the food needed to be warmed up (basic I know... I wonder how she had two kids of her own!) Can't blame my daughter not feeling keen on eating cold pasta straight from a Tupperware! She had cucumber and biscottis her Granny said... She left at 11am coming home at 5pm! I am flabbergasted, DD was happy when she got home but starving! As a responsible adult, wouldn't u make sure your granddaughter would have more during the day rather than sweets and cucumber?! AIBU?

YABU.

Be glad you got the time to herself. It's not like she wasn't offered food.

How come you don't want her to associate granny's with snacks and sweets? I knew that anytime I went to either grandparents there'd be sweets involved. My kids love my mums because out come the nice biscuits that mummy doesn't buy 🤣 they don't over indulge or keep on with me... they just enjoy the treat for what it is.

All those saying "just don't let her go then"...you know you're advising punishing the granny for not force feeding her DGC?

I LOVE having my DGD for the day. I'd be gutted if my DD refused to let me have her for any more for a stupid reason like this. And I assume that this GM adores her DGD too. She shouldn't never be able to have her again because OP is being ridiculous about one meal that her DGD wouldn't eat.

When DD1 went onto cows milk at 1 she was at my mums and my mum phoned in a panic because she wasn't eating, I asked if she'd drank anything, turned out my mum gave her about a pint of blue milk and she was full! No wonder she wasn't eating. I said to limit the milk a bit and give her water.

Anyone would think she starved the kid on purpose ffs. She ate. She's fine. She had a nice time?

Do you trust this woman?
If DM or DMIL had DD for a whole day and they reported to me that she wasnt interested in the lunch they had for her, I would trust their judgement. I wouldn't think anything of DD being hungry when she got home, that would be expected if she hadn't eaten much.
I trust both of them to have prepared food, offered it to her and not forced her to eat because they thought she should.
But I trust them both to look after DD without concern for her well-being with them.
It doesn't sound like you do trust this woman (unclear how she is related to you).

You don't have to be at home with your child every lunchtime. They can eat in the car or the park or cafe.

Granny shouldn't have to spend time cooking meals. She wants to spend quality fun time with her grandchild. She can't play or supervise if she's in the kitchen.

Enjoy the break and spend the time relaxing with friends or whatever you want to do.

Exactly! My wonderful MIL broke all the rules I had at home about sweets and such. But she adored her GCs, didn't see them that often, and wanted to treat them. Of course she did. At her funeral, her now young adult grandkids gave a joint eulogy and talked with a huge amount of love about how she spoiled them and ensured that her house was always full of their favourite sweet things.

YABU, it sounds like your child has had a nice day with her Nan. She ate, she is fine.
I would however recommend being a bit more flexible with her eating habits, what do you do when you are out and about or travelling? Do you never have a picnic? Are you always in your house sat at the table for all meals? It sounds very restrictive.

Omg she didn't warm it to the precise temperature and present it to your daughters liking with the silver wear layed out, MONSTER. How on earth is she going to manage once at school? The gran took her out, why should she wait at home to have lunch if you've packed a packed lunch surely the whole point is to eat it on the go? If I was the gran I'd assume you'd made a packed lunch to take with us with food she likes. You sound like a control freak. I have 3 children under 6, if they are out for the day routine and normal food goes out the window my kids are fussy, it's sometimes a case of this is what is on offer, if you don't like it well don't eat it. They won't starve in an afternoon!

Totally agree with this

I actually agree with you, Granny should have warmed up lunch & maintained routine
But she didn’t, and I suppose you need to decide on balance how is it best to pursue this (if at all)

I’d definitely relax on eating front. You are causing potential food issues if you insist on hot food at set times no deviation. Diet is overall so if she’s had more snacks and sweets at grannys it will even out over week. Some days you’ll eat out, some days she’ll eat more, sometimes less.

If your D was happy and fine when she came home then….. does it really matter that much? Why worry. If D was crying and breaking down… then yeah ok. But she had a fun treat day with her her granny. As someone who doesn’t have parents or even parents in law to spoil my kids and ruin their lunchtime routine….. I think you are being a bit OTT about this. There are days when my children aged 3 refused to eat…. At all. And barely let anything pass their mouths between waking up and going to sleep…. They are 8 and 6 now and absolutely fine.

My MIL used to do this. She'd load DD up.

My MIL has looked after my 2 once a week and always reports back that they didn't eat their sandwiches but ate all their other snacks from the lunchbox.
I know they eat their sandwiches at school / nursery / home but that's because they know they have to eat them first.

I let it go because in the grand scheme of things it's not that important.

To be fair most kids associate granny with snack & treats, dems the rules

Oh you need to relax a bit

is your DD extremely fussy and inflexible… or are you?

my kids once only had ice cream and coke at granny’s. They threw it up but were happy (I was a bit 🤔 tbh), and long term no harm done.

granny adventures!

I don’t see the problem really. It’s not ideal. I have a really fussy eater but I don’t blame anyone else for that fussiness. For most kids, if they’re hungry, they’ll eat. My son barely eats at nursery but he’ll have a massive tea at home. They grow out of it.

Thinking that at nanny's is just snacks and sweets

Yeah, good luck with that. Let us all know your secret if you succeed 👌🏻

I don’t understand why cold pasta is deemed unacceptable. I work in a school and loads of kids bring cold pasta instead of sandwiches. I often have cold pasta myself at lunch. Pasta salad is a thing.

OP, you didn't say whether this was the first visit or not but it sounds from your second post that it wasn't.

Did either you or your partner mention the canneloni in the tupperware? Packing a lunch bag is one thing, you could have left the canneloni to give your daughter for her evening meal. I think it's odd to pack something like this for lunch - and even odder not to mention.

MIL managed to get your partner to adulthood, slow-witted slattern that she undoubtedly is... why didn't you mention that it was canneloni packed in the lunch bag and daughter would like it warmed up please?

I don't know about the other posters but, if I was packing something like canneloni for lunch, I'd pack enough for Granny too.

I expect your daughter jumped at the chance to eat whatever she pleased with Granny - and I'm sure she enjoyed the canneloni for dinner.

Why do people say ‘don’t leave her there then you’re ungrateful for the free child care!’ ?? You realise many many grandparents / family members ask to book in tIme with children, it’s not for any childcare reasons it’s because they like to have them on their own for the day. and for some parents, saying ‘no, you can’t have her next Sunday, because last time she didn’t eat anything’ would cause Defcon 1 family fall out??
not everyone is taking the piss wanting free childcare. Some people don’t necessarily even want their child spending the full day with family members as they don’t really need the ‘ time off’ but they do it to keep the peace and build the relationship. I didn’t want my baby dd to stay out without me or be with family without me or her dad for more than about 5 hours til she was about 6 months because she was BF and also with MIL she couldn’t change her nappy without putting her on the dining table and DD would constantly nearly roll off. We visited MIL when dd was 4 weeks and she asked if we would go out for dinner so she could have dd for a couple of hours just the two of them. We didn’t ask her and never have done, she asks me to bring dd round then suggests I go out to the supermarket etc. This is very common amongst people I know so don’t always assume the OP in these situations is some sort of cheeky cow getting hours of free childcare

Exactly! We used to have a 'rule' when they were smaller, What happens at Grandma's stays at Grandma's, it was only when they got older that they realised that there wasn't much difference between the two places!