To wonder why everyone is so keen to feed my child rubbish?

[Holidaytime86]

It seems like every time we meet up with family and friends someone will offer my one year old dilute juice, cake bars, chips, nuggets, crisps etc. AIBU to want to at least try and feed her a healthy(ish) diet whilst she’s so young?

Totally agree. I had this chat with my PIL this week. They will be having our DS (currently 5 months old) when he is 1 for 1 day a week. Asked them to please make sure he eats well. They said they will not - will be feeding him cake and sweets! Great- I get to be the boring vegetable pushing mummy!

Ohh we went through this, as if a tiny child needs a "treat" that people are programmed to think that is crap food - but we will call them treats.

I just kept saying no to everyone and swapping it out for something that our DS was actually used to eating.

Cake and sweets at 12 months old is utterly unacceptable, I would encourage you to send him elsewhere. At 5 months it probably feels like he’ll be much older at 1 and you’ll be ok with him eating rubbish, but he will still be a baby and you won’t be.

Tango ice blast😂😂😂

This is such an interesting contrast to the thread about a child being given cake every day at childcare.

Most healthy food is tasty but it can’t compete with stuff designed to be addictive so we try to limit the really processed stuff.

How is it so hard to understand that a brand new beautiful unspoilt little human has the chance of being from a healthier generation if we can stop the shortsighted jam today approach. Surely it can’t be that hard to treat children non edibly! Eg with a pot of bubbles, play a game, make up silly rhymes. Why is it so food centred?

And yet food 'treats' are a huge part of life in many other cultures, what are we doing wrong and they are getting right ?

I agree- hence my post! Thought I’d implied I thought it was unacceptable too

People have different views on what is a healthy food and what isn’t. For instance my grandparents used to try and feed my children rhubarb or strawberries dipped in sugar, they simply didn’t know any better. Many children were weaned at 12 weeks on baby rice as that was the advice given back then. There was no BLW that I know of when my parents or grandparents had children. There is a very kind way to tell people this though, parents don’t need to go in all guns blazing over a chicken nugget.

Many children can have a super healthy diet, become teenagers (who in my experience have daily changing likes for food) or leave for Uni and eat super noodles 5 times a day.

We never had food that was forbidden, our children grew knowing things were ok in small amounts, but we do have an adult daughter who loves chocolate. I sometimes wonder due to us restricting these foods and not making them part of our daily life is the issue?

Cafes and restaurants childrens menus are vile.

Always junk food. Always processed crap. We just ask for a small plate and serve up a bit from our plates. No way I'm giving my child the shit they serve to kids.

Jesus that's horrific. Seriously. 5 months old? Please tell me they were joking.

I'm at an age when i could be a grandmother and I'd never do that to my grandchildren.

Talk to them about UPFs and see if they change their mind about junk food.

My MIL was the same, jam sandwiches, white bread, tea with sugar. She even gave my nephew a sip of beer when he was around 5 months old! Oh and my own child water out of a refillable bottle she’d dissolved a strong painkiller in a few mins before!

I made sure they’d eaten before we went round there.

So nice to see these replies.

This 👆

Both sets of grandparents seemed determined to make our kids eat a lot of unhealthy food.

One set of grandparents thought it was ok for our 3 year old to eat a magnum, crisps, haribo, lollipop and coke over about 5 hours. I realised when she kept feeling sick after visiting and our older child told us they didn’t encourage her to eat lunch and just fed her this instead.

I’m not even strict, my kids had some chocolate/sweets/cake most days from around that age, as they got older we had takeaway once a week etc, but I did think this was too much.

The other grandparents fed my 2.5 month old child melted chocolate buttons. 🧐 I never left them alone after that but every time we saw them, they only offered my kids cream cakes, chocolate and sweets, even if they asked for a sandwich.

Both grandmothers are weight/health conscious and would NEVER eat like this. And we, as their children were not allowed to eat like it. It makes no sense. It goes beyond grandparents spiking then which I’m all for. Fuck knows why they do it.

Spiking! I meant SPOILING!

If you feed them well, then I am not sure what the 1% matters. Unless your eating habits are so fragile you think a chicken nugget will through them off

Oh massive sympathy. We’ve had this. My DS does eat well but I can really feel the junk creeping in. He was mad about raspberries, tangerines and blueberries once and they did nicely as puddings but now it’s ice cream or cake he wants.

I do feel it’s a shame to be honest.

What really annoys me is that DM wants to give my DC "treats" all the time but as a child we were NEVER allowed them. Maybe a yogurt for dessert on a Sunday and/or one bar/sweets on a Saturday . I never got a Friday lunchbox treat as a child in school.
Now she wants to give DC shite all the time
It's so hypocritical

I will never understand why some people feel it’s appropriate to give babies junk food! My MIL gave my daughter haribo sweets before I had even started weaning her! I only found out as she started choking on one! I’m a nan now and I would never be so disrespectful to my children but giving their children something they didn’t want them to have!

It can go either way. I was very careful with my first, to only let him eat wholefoods and healthy stuff. Tried (unsuccessfully) to wean him on pureed broccoli, as read it was better to do bitter veg first, for some reason. Followed all the health visitor advice. He ended up with such a complex about food he wouldn't eat ANYTHING, to the point he would get weak and lethargic. It was absolutely awful. Eventually we turned it around, and now I'm so grateful that he eats well - lots of wholegrain, fruit, veg, dairy... but also chocolate, sweets, crisps... he is three, tall, slim and very active.

The second we weaned on fruit and white breadsticks, and never had an issue with food (please God, let it stay the same!). He's one, and does have a small treat after lunch and dinner, along with getting all his healthy foods.

I guess my point is, you might be lucky and have a child who eats well, but with other children you can do all the "right" things, and still end up with major issues. It's a bit annoying when people undermine your efforts to feed your babies healthily, but ime if you make it into a big deal it can backfire. Or, it might not! They're all different, after all.