Nutella for toddler breakfast

[FanofLeaves]

This is not a food bashing thread, I don’t care who wants to eat Nutella for breakfast in their own households 🤣

More just to canvas opinion.

Currently have a 3.5 year old who is pretty much refusing to eat meals. Nothing wrong with his appetite if offered crisps and biscuits, naturally, but I’m getting really stressed out that he’s not being adequately nourished. Seems to eat ok at nursery but he’s only there three days a week and they probably give them pigeon portions and almost certainly say he’s eaten more than I suspect he has. At home it’s mostly a shit show, I can’t seem to get anything proper into him. I’m trying so hard and doing everything I can think of and it’s really getting me down.

anyway so I’m having a crack down. Today we were supposed to be going out, nothing special just a trip out to the woods to mess about with his toy dinosaurs and an ice cream on the way home but it’s a beautiful day.

He should have woken up ravenous as he ate about 5 pieces of pasta for tea last night, so I asked him what he wanted for breakfast. Egg on toast, great. Make it for him and he won’t even look at it. I take it away, give him half an hour and try again. Same. So I’ve says until he eats either that or cereal or natural yogurt and fruit for breakfast we are not going anywhere. So he’s flinging himself about on the sofa sighing but refusing any offers of breakfast.

DH gets up, I briefly fill him in. Come back to him offering DS Nutella on toast which I have said no to and DS is now crying because he wants that. On the one hand, great, it’s food and we can crack on with the day but on the other, it just proves my point that he’s happy to eat what I regard as ‘treat’ breakfast items (and have no problem with but not in place of adequate nutrition) and is refusing regular food.

So would you just give in and make the bleeding Nutella on toast 🤣 I’m sticking to my guns but just interested.

And yeah it’s not a very exciting thread, but I have time on my hands now we are in a stand off trapped inside 😅

I’ve taken a lot of the advice on board from this thread and a lot of it has been very useful and I have said I do need to change my approach to mealtimes. If you read my posts, you will see that. Can I respectfully ask you to please stop maintaining that I’m traumatising my child, it is untrue and unhelpful. I can assure you there is nothing ‘poor’ about how my child is parented, some things I could do better, like ALL of us as parents. That’s why I reached out on the thread. There is no need for you to take the line you are insisting on currently purely because I haven’t agreed with you.

I think you were right not to get him an ice cream after refusing breakfast and lunch. Obviously OP didn’t say to her child “You are not getting an ice cream because you didn't eat breakfast or lunch”. She just went a different way home to avoid the ice cream van. I doubt her child even remembered about the ice cream.

I think it’s telling on threads like these why our very young children are fed such shit and it’s normalised. As parents the only time we can fully control our children’s diets is before they start school. Why are we falling over ourselves to offer chocolate, ice cream and McDonald’s as “treats” before they are even old enough to be fully exposed to them?

I understand once a child reaches a certain age it can be difficult to stop them having certain things but whilst they are so young it’s our responsibility to feed them well.

Totally agree. Cant believe flack OP is getting because a child doesnt have an icecream

That's not what's happening - it's the idea that ice-cream was appearing to be used as a reward/punishment that people were objecting to, not the lack of ice-cream in general.

Thats your take on it

I didnt view it as a reward punishment and OP isnt using it that way. Its a fairly simply thing, if your child's only intake that day is ice cream or cake or whatever because no wholesome food is going in, thats not great, so a parenting decision is no ice cream. Hopefully to prompt eating of other meals at other times in the day

Completely acceptable, no punishment, no reward, no guilt, no disordering

Again, there's nothing wrong with a parent deciding not to buy ice-cream for whatever reason. But it shouldn't be linked to whether the child did (or didn't) eat their breakfast that morning.

Also, if you read the OP, she originally said that if DS didn't eat breakfast, he wouldn't be allowed to go to the park. If that's not using food as a reward or punishment, I don't know what is...

Look we all say things in the heat of a parenting moment don’t we 🤦🏻‍♀️

Yeah, I hold my hands up, I said ‘if you don’t eat your breakfast we won’t be able to run around in the woods and have a nice time, so please eat so we can go!’ And I didn’t want to go anywhere until then. Because I KNEW I’d be dealing with a grumpy lethargic child who didn’t want to walk anywhere. As I said, he didn’t eat dinner the night before, it wasn’t just breakfast.

I didn’t say ‘right you wicked child no fresh air and playtime for you, until you consume every last morsel of the food I put in front of you!’

I didn’t even mention the ice cream to him. We simply didn’t have it. Yeah he did ask in the morning if he’d still get one and I said we’ll see. As it is, he didn’t eat any of the healthy lunch I had on me and I wanted to try again at dinner so I didn’t feel like plonking a Mr Whippy with a flake in his hands. Plus if he didn’t want to eat that either after all that’s £3 wasted. I stand by the fact that that’s a sensible choice, not a harsh punishment.

Hell of a lot of projection going on on this thread from certain posters who perhaps grew up with their own food issues.

Thats right because if you're not fuelled up properly, you cant go out and play and run around, thats a basic to be honest.

But to a child your first 2 paragraphs amount to exactly the same thing, if you don't eat your food you'll be punished.
You've made food into a battleground and I think you'll be fine again once you remove the emotions from it.
And don't have any food in the house that you wouldn't be happy for your child to eat.

No, that's using food as a punishment and is an awful way to behave.

What next? If you don't eat your breakfast you can't go to school?

Food is food. It should never be used as a way to persuade a child to behave a certain way or to do a certain thing. If he doesn't eat it, you just pack a banana or something for them to have later. No need for any drama or threats.

Exactly. A three year old won't get the nuance. They'll just hear "no food means no fun".

Hell of a lot of projection going on on this thread from certain posters who perhaps grew up with their own food issues.

The irony - you're doing exactly the same thing!

I think OP has said multiple times she’s going take the advice on board going forward.

She’s already said there wasn’t a drama, he just wasn’t offered the ice cream.

I agree there’s no need to make threats around food but there’s also no need to offer very unhealthy food with little nutrition if they don’t eat the good stuff.

Hell of a lot of projection going on on this thread from certain posters who perhaps grew up with their own food issues.

Agree with you @FanofLeaves !

Food is always an emotive issue on MN because so many women have issues of their own.

I’m not, I’m trying to find the way forward, but I won’t be taking advice from you, as I’ve already said.

A thin layer of Nutella is fine, my daughter eats this for breakfast every single day. She would go to school hungry every day otherwise and to me Nutella on toast is better than nothing at all.

Good luck, you're going to need it 😏

as will you 🤣

Nope. No kids or breakast dramas here 😂

But just to add, I don’t know how many three and a half year olds you know but they’re perfectly capable in most cases of understanding the link between food and energy, and differing explanations their parents give them as long as explained with age appropriate vocab. You should try it, they can understand much more than you appear to give them credit for. And I’m sorry but if you don’t actually have kids, I’m going to give even less credence to your ‘advice’.

3 year olds are definitely not capable of this! Adults aren't! They are capable of parroting a parents views tho, and internalizing them as they get older. But there is no way a 3 year old is capable of modifying their desires for sweet stuff in order to regulate their energy levels. That's madness. Your expectations are way off.

I mean, my advice is based on actual scientific research and papers, all of which have shown, time and time again, that food shouldn't be used as a means of reward or punishment.

But as you say, you're free to ignore me (and everyone else saying the same as me) if you like. No skin off my nose - I'm not the one who's going to have to deal with the consequences 🙃

I wouldn't waste your time, lol.

I wouldn't give him Nutella unless he was sick. He's never going to want to eat ordinary toast again..

It's relevant if he's on a steady trajectory with his weight.

I would certainly not be creating a link between a lovely activity and having to eat. He can retaliate my using food to control you endlessly.

I would not ask him what he wants to eat. It's too much responsibility for him right now.

I would offer a greater that of healthy snacks regularly, including high protein snacks.

I would eliminate all sugar so his palette can taste natural sugars again .