4 yo sneaking treats

[Lallalala]

I'm at a loss atm.

my 4 year old DD is constantly trying to sneak treats

it's pretty much every morning she will wake up before me / when I'm still half asleep and tip toe downstairs and start helping herself to chocolate or biscuits or something

I've tried talking to her about it so many times but she doesn't stop. She has healthy options for if she wakes up hungry, there's loads of fruit and yoghurts etc and I've told her if she wakes up hungry come and wake me up and I will make her breakfast.

I woke up this morning to her trying to sneak an Easter egg into her room. She knows it's wrong because when I asked what she was doing she said "nothing" and got all shifty.

is this normal behaviour? I don't want to ban all treats from the house because from what I've read that will make it worse but I don't see any other option at this point, she can't be getting up and helping herself to chocolate the moment my back is turned

Not sure if this will help your situation but what I have done with my kids is given the a ‘treat basket’ each in the cupboard and I put some small treats in there like min biscuit packets and a couple of small chocolate bars in there every week and they can eat them whenever they want (within reason, not right before dinner etc) but the baskets don’t get filled up again until the following week. This means they feel like they have some control over the treats and don’t have to sneak things but also I’m hoping it will teach them to have some self control and make the treats last all week. The older dc can do this but 5 year old is still learning! I don’t keep any other treats in the house so once they’re gone they’re gone!

I think I have a slightly different take on this. I think in your own house, you should be able to get yourself something to eat if you want to. How this works in practice is that when they are too little to exercise any self moderation, then the only things available are things I didn't mind them having. (And things that belong to them. Easter happens once a year-I'd let her have her own Easter egg!) And as they got older, we talked about sharing, making sure there was stuff left for other people, and not eating "ingredients" so I wouldn't go for eggs to make dinner to discover they'd all been eaten in a late night fry up! That all started with variety packs of cereal, cheese strings and apples when they were little.

That's a really good idea, I'll give the a try. Thank you!

Totally agree with this - we seem to be increasingly surrounded with a culture of treats and snacks and don't think it's setting kids up well for the future.