Stepdaughter eating too much fruit

[Katey83]

My dsd, 7, moved in with us full
time back in January. Our situation is that I am higher earner and breadwinner on Mat leave with 5 month old baby, husband does some part time work that doesn’t bring in much (he runs our family vehicle and contributes towards household costs such as shopping etc). Dsd’s mother does not contribute towards her expenses while she is living here (indefinitely for now).

At the moment, we are on a tight budget due to my mat leave - and one thing driving me crazy is dsd eating all our fruit. We will buy a weekly shop with 2 bunches bananas, few punnets of berries, peaches, melon, grapes, tangerines etc and she will eat her way through the lot in two days. For example, yesterday she ate a punnet and a half of raspberries, three peaches, four tangerines, some grapes, a slice of melon and two bananas. This is on a school day (so she eats this at breakfast and in the evening). She is then obviously reluctant to finish a proper evening meal or try anything she dislikes. She also has had a couple of accidents with loose stools (imo this is from bingeing on fruit). She takes from the fridge without asking and leaves nothing for DH and I.

I’ve spoken to my dh about this and he says she is a growing child and at least fruit is good for her - fair enough I buy fruit partly for her to eat, but the amount seems greedy to me, and beyond what is necessary for a healthy child. I think reasonable is a small
bowl of berries and grapes along with a tangerine and banana after school as a snack and then one piece for dessert. She can also have melon and banana for breakfast along with cereal and a yoghurt. I want her to learn that food costs money, we don’t have a bottomless pit of it and you don’t just gorge on whatever you want because you are bored/tired/didn’t eat your dinner, you ration portions in a family so everyone gets a fair share, and sometimes eat less tasty things to maintain a healthy diet.

We provide substantial breakfast, lunch and dinner portions, and I try to accommodate her tastes (though she can’t just have fish fingers and strawberries as a diet, which would be her preference).When she first came to us she was also gorging like this on sweets - that’s been easier to nip in bud as dh can see how unhealthy it is. I want to handle this in a compassionate way, would I be unreasonable to stop buying fruit until dh agrees to a sensible ration for dsd?

If you genuinely can't afford it then why are you buying so much fruit? Raspberries and peaches are out of season so very expensive... and not even very nice at this time of year. As others say, just buy cheaper fruit and not so much at a time, if your DH is working part time presumably he had time to go shopping several times a week?

Not unreasonable at all and this amount of fruit is actually not very healthy. There is probably almost as much sugar in all this as there would be in the sweets she was previously eating.

Some of these replies ‘take her to the gp’ Jeez no wonder it’s impossible to get an appointment 😂😂 Counting the calories 🤔 and only on mumsnet do people scream SUGAR in relation to fruit.

Both of my kids would have done exactly this at 7 if I let them. They still have full sets of teeth and grew out of it. Dd2 would also eat raw veg too (carrots, peas, broccoli stalks, cauliflower).

The simple fact is that you need a balanced diet and eating too much of anything will leave you deficient in something and isn’t a good thing. Kids need a balance of carbs, fat and protein in their diet.

YANBU OP. It’s just common sense surely,

do you say that to mums who work part time and rely on their husbands as main earners?

your dh needs to claim CM of mum, o/p.

She's only 7. She should be given set meals and snacks, not be allowed to constantly graze.

It sounds like your problem is that your DH doesn’t earn as much as you would like him to, not that your SD eats too much fruit.

I would make sure dh knows there are going to be huge dental bills if she continues to eat like that. If your dh won’t support you then I would just stop buying so much. If she eats it all she goes hungry for the rest of the week. Also just buy the cheapest stuff you can get.

Read this post well.

Your language about this poor girl, who's been through massive, massive changes, is unpleasant - bingeing, gorging, greedy. That way of thinking about her needs to stop, right now.

You're not unreasonable to say to her that you all (!) only have a limited amount of fruit each week and need to share (though I'm another who doesn't understand why you're buying so much out-of-season stuff), although I think children - yes, even stepchildren (!) - generally come first for this sort of thing. But this is about more. I can't help reading a sense of you wanting to 'put her in her place' behind all this. For whatever reason, this child's mother can't or won't care for her currently. She needs unconditional love and care, including from you.

Why was it OK for your dh to work so little (and maybe he can't find a FT job in his field, but there are shortages across lots of sectors) before she arrived, but now you are literally resenting the food that goes into her mouth?

Oof a lot of judgment here. You may have produced accidental klickbait OP by writing 'stepchild eats too much of a good thing'. Easy to misinterpret...

I think for cost control purposes the only thing you can do with immediate success is to stop buying the more expensive fruit/buy less of it.

I join the praise for the tupperware snackbox suggestion up thread. And at 7 (if memory serves) I think it's fine to explain in simple terms that you're buying less berries, say, because you have less money ATM.

I've met some nasty stepmums - my mum never quite got over hers - but you don't sound like one.

I know on MN we're supposed to be onboard with step parents not liking their step children very much ("but it's NOT her child"/"the kid's got her own mum" etc etc) But from the point of view of someone who was the step child who wasn't liked very much, these posts break my heart every time.

Of course it's totally reasonable to gradually adjust her diet if it's making her unwell. You don't even need to mention it out loud. But this poor kid has been through a massive upheaval, and letting her have her favourite foods is a very small way to make her feel welcome.

Far too much. Think of the amount of sugar! I wasnt allowed to help myself to food when I was 7! Change the rules so she has to ask you for food and you control her portion sizes.

Funny how you ignored all the posts about emotional support and just kept reinforcing the idea you don’t like your SD.

This poor girl doesn’t seem to have been parented very much. And the words you use make it sound like you resent her. Poor thing.

First thing to do is to take her to the GP and the dentist.

i would then start working hard on her diet, introducing her to lots of healthy foods, including full fat yoghurt when she comes home from school.

OP, your feeling so resentful over a little girl eating all the fruit is not a good sign for the success of your marriage.

Really who gives a shit if someone eats the strawberries? If it wasn't this, I suspect you'd be fretting and complaining about something else?

This is the most easily solved problem in the world. Buy a fridge lockable box from Amazon and lock all the expensive berry fruit in it. And buy a load of supermarket wonky apples, pears and satsumas for general consumption. I suspect the fruit addiction will stop when the fruit on offer is less succulent. This is not a SC problem you know. I hide food all the time from my teenagers otherwise they'll go through the fridge like a plague of locusts.

But you described yourself as a "high earner" anyway. High earners don't fret about the cost of fruit. So what is the real problem here?

It's obvious that now you've got your own baby, you resent having to pay for and look after someone else's particularly as the Dad is not properly contributing and you probably didn't bank on her being around much when you first got together. That's fair enough if that's how you feel but the problem will only get worse as your SD gets older.

Either you have to square this in your own mind and stop resenting your poor SD or call it quits now. At the very least, your DH needs to get a full time job. Unless of course he's got genuine caring responsibility for both DCs whilst you work which is also fair enough. But IME being a house husband does not work for the majority of families as the men tend to do fuck all other than what they term as "babysitting"and everything will be left to you when you get in from work.

I hope you find a solution that you are happy with. And don't resent or complain about a little girl over fruit. It's just fruit.

This clearly isn't about the fruit. You sound resentful in general.

Your partner has a child now living with you full time therefore he needs to work full time to support them both and he also needs to apply for CMS for the mother

(I was the main earner in a marriage and in the end I have to say it breeds contempt and resentment on the earners side and laziness and lack of appreciation of the cost of things on the part of the other who doesn't work much and doesn't feel the need to earn more either)

If you don't have the fruit in the house she can't eat it - so don't buy it all at once - she's old enough that you can talk with her that she's not to fill up on it all the time and about the cost of things - albeit doesn't sound like her dad does since he's letting you pick up the financial burden here

That’s way too much fruit and it’s giving her diarrhoea, so it’s clearly not good for her. Start rationing, and get other things like carrot and cucumber and celery as a swap. This is not ok…a punnet and half ?! She will end up with stomach problems .

Good God, hear yourself! You're talking about a 7 year old girl.

Suggestions like letting her go hungry? I don't understand why she would go hungry even if all the fruit is gone. Does she not get meals?

Why don't you read court transcripts of cases where a bio parent and a stepparent have killed a child. That often starts off with them denying a child food and letting them go hungry.

Have some compassion for a small child.

@Katey83 your resentment is natural, that is an obscene bingeing on fruit, and you are covering that excessive cost alone.

I think it’s time for your partner to resume full time work again and share the burden of both of the children with you. Especially as one is his alone. He probably won’t want to hit he’s had a long time of working part time now and there are two kids to think about, one of which is solely his and you are shouldering the additional financial burden (therapy) as you try to support her.

Lots of good tips above about portioning and involving DSD in the process of getting these portions ready every day.

Obviously DSD has gone through a lot of changes in a short time. You havent said anything about what her previous life was like. Right now access to food may be very important to her maybe because it is something she can control or there were shortages in what was available. She needs to learn to learn to trust that she will still get her fair share without having it all now.

This is also an opportunity for DH and you to start teaching DSD about seasonality and how different fruit and vegetables grow. It doesnt need to be expensive or intensive.

I feel your tone is a bit mean I’ll be honest… I get the impression you’re not that keen on her and she irritates you. I think it’s really important you do your upmost to have a loving relationship with her… I don’t think the details about who brings in more money are relevant. You’re married and she is a child of the family. I feel there’s some resentment on your part- I also think you sound frustrated with your DH. You’re right it’s too much fruit and it’s a lot of sugar!!! You need to make it less accessible or change tactics. Could you buy frozen fruit and make her a smoothie a day she can have in a couple of portions? Is she drinking enough water? Is she genuinely hungry. Things to think about. Good luck xx

She needs to learn the fruit is for everyone not just her

Does this work the other way?

interesting that many women are pt or don’t even work at all, yet men are supposed to pick up the financial burden. Even when they live in a home with stepchildren.

why is it such a problem for a man to work part time and take care of his kids?

do the millions of men supporting families also feel resentment that their wives aren’t working, and sahm are lazy and don’t appreciate the cost of things?

I can’t see the problem with him working pt 🤷‍♀️

What am I reading.. is she overweight? What else should she snack on- Dorritos? Crisps? sandwiches?

If her body is craving for fruit there is a reason for it and privided she gets get teeth brushed afterwards why not.

Your partner perhaps needs to sort out finances with his ex and find better paying employment, you are right she is not your child to provide for and sounds like your partner is not “contributing” enough and girls mum is not contributing at all. If both her parents pulled their weight she could eat fruit all day.

Yes well that's not the right sort of sexual equality for mumsnet. See also: children of divorced couples living with their fathers.

Sorry OP. YANBU about the fruit BTW but it's fairly normal small child behaviour. You'll resent it less when it's your child doing it.