To give toddler snacks in the morning

[juicepeese]

Bit of a debate going on in our house.

I'm the one who gets 3 year old DS up every morning as DH leaves for work early.

DS can be very full on in the morning so in order to get some time to brush my hair and put on some makeup we have a routine where he watches some cartoons in his PJs and he's allowed 2 things out of the "snack box" whilst he waits for me.

These are not things like chocolate etc.. I try and get healthy snacks for his box. 1 of the pieces has to be fruit and the other can be something like a lunchbox maltloaf or a yoghurt.

This gives me the time to get ready and we all go to nursery/ work happy.

Sometimes DS will get some cereal too if he wants it when we get to nursery, however, a lot of the time he says he doesn't want any when we get there.

DH thinks shouldn't be giving snacks so early in the morning (usually about 7), I think it's easy to say when you get to waltz out the door with no responsibility for getting DS dressed (and yourself) and to nursery on time.

Am I being unreasonable to give toddler two snacks in the morning?

Isn’t that called breakfast? It’s absolutely fine.

I think you've missed the point.
It's not about cosy family breakfasts. The OP needs to buy time for herself.

My DD gets up stupid early. On nursery days, She always has a banana and maybe a yoghurt or some other fruit whilst I get ready for work and watches peter rabbit. Sometimes she eats some cereal at nursery, others not. They have their lunch at like 11am after a snack at 9.30.
The alternatives are: she screams the house down cause she's hungry and wants feeding. Or me losing the plot cause I'm trying to get ready with a crying miserable toddler tripping me up. You do what you gotta do. You're not letting them play with scissors. Your DH is a knob.

That's not a snack, it's just breakfast!

@MissyB1 only one of them is questioning the current system. So he can sit and have breakfast if he wants to. She doesn't.

When he’s the one getting child up, dressed and to nursery, he can have am opinion

Mornings are tough @juicepeese. As far as I’m concerned, you find a system that works for you and you go with it 👍🏻 When DH is doing it, he gets an opinion!

My DH works offshore so for weeks at a time it’s just DS and I needing to leave the house at 7.40am for nursery drop off and work.

I don’t allow screen time on nursery days personally as it just doesn’t work for us and causes DS to go 10x slower 🤦🏻‍♀️😅 so I make him breakfast (he doesn’t get it at nursery) and then I do my hair/makeup in the lounge with him while he eats breakfast and we chat and listen to stories on his Yoto player. Then it’s teeth, dressed and out the door.

Whether it’s called breakfast or “snack”, it’s all the same IMO. Kid needs fed, kid gets fed 👍🏻

Well DH has 2 options, get the toddler ready himself and take him to nursery or shut the fuck up.

Exactly the same here. If my DH after going to work tried to tell me what and when I could feed our 2 year old he'd get told to fuck right off. Bloody hell it's not like your feeding him crisps and cake ffs

I think the issue here is around the vocabulary. Using a phrase like "allowed to choose a snack" is completely different to (and sounds much worse than) "eats fruit and yoghurt for breakfast". Does your DH realise what's really going on?

My 3 year old gets similar. She wakes anytime from 6.30 and breakfast at nursery isn't until 8.20 or so. She gets 2 snacks usually something like raisins, soreen, blueberries, or maybe if we're feeling lucky on a Friday a belvita bar.

My 2 year old wakes up starving so always has something to eat and then has breakfast in nursery. Totally normal.

We do exactly the same otherwise it would be mayhem and toys being pulled out etc. It's CBeebies and a jam or peanutbutter sandwich here. if your DH wants to look after him while you perform the basic task of getting yourself ready for the day / personal hygiene then he can start work a little later 🤷‍♀️

Sounds like a good set up to be honest, works for you and DS which is the important thing, and it's not like he's eating freddos and wotsits first thing in the morning.

Young childrens' metabolisms don't tolerate fasting as well as older children/adults. The last thing they ate was at, say, 5pm the night before, 14h before a 7am waking - they need something to eat! You've got a good system going there, meeting both peoples' needs

I wouldn’t call fruit a snack and think that lots of cultures eat fruit and yoghurt for breakfast - just look at hotel breakfast buffets. As long as you do his teeth, I would call that breakfast.

I wish my toddler would sit and eat nicely in the morning!
How helpful for your spouse to make comments about the morning routine when his routine is to just get up and leave the house 😏

Fruit and unsweetened yogurt plus a bit of unsweetened granola or dried fruits sprinkled on top is fine, it's breakfast. But not packaged snacks like malt loaf before breakfast

I do the same thing and I wfh so can't imagine trying to get out the house for work, I get ready as though I am though but it's not as stressful

How old is he? I’d feel uncomfortable leaving a young toddler eating alone.

It sounds totally fine - is your husband usually such a twat?

When my dd was very little, I think about 18 months, she used to have blueberries (just what she liked at the time) and milk every morning pre nursery so that I had a few mins to get ready. Then actual breakfast at nursery.

Yours sounds more like a breakfast so maybe it’s the word snack that’s causing the issue?

PS - she’s almost 16 now and very slim with great healthy teeth so hasn’t caused any problems!

Ours always have fruit while we’re getting ready. Tea at nursery is at 4pm, they get fruit/toast/yogurt when we get in at 5.30pm. I wouldn’t want them going from 5.30pm to 8am breakfast the next day without anything in them.

This is the sort of small parenting decision I get the other person doesn’t get a say in when they aren’t there.

Isn't that just breakfast? We recently visited relatives in the UK and my daughter had malt loaf with butter for breakfast some days (treat since she was on holiday). At home she mostly has banana on toast. At nursery they have a snack at 9 a.m. which varies wider each day - could be anything from a second breakfast (scrambled eggs, pancakes) to fruit or vegetable sticks and cream cheese.

Surely this is just breakfast?