To be shocked by this government dietary advice for babies and children?

[fourfoxsakes]

from the government in Northern Ireland that is published online? Surely we don’t do these things any more such as mixing baby rice with milk and advising people to feed their very young children rice crispies and cornflakes for breakfast and advising people to give juice with meals! Surely this is bad advice, I am honestly surprised that the government have been allowed to publish this crap. I have no doubt people still do these things which is an individual parenting choice but surely the government shouldn’t be advocating for this?

Responses on this thread are very much highlighting the need for better nutritional education. Make your own choices, fine, but don’t assume they’re helping your children thrive. The advice is contributing to general ignorance about what constitutes a healthy diet and I agree it should be revised. Empty calories for breakfast should not be highlighted as a good example because it’s not.

Juice is unnecssary. if you give babies water they will drink it. If you give them squash or juice they'll likely refuse water til they are a lot lot older.

Little baby teeth need protecting from unnecessary sugar as much as possible. I have no clue why ppl pick squash and juice over water to give to babies.

Most primary schools ban juice abd squash in bottles now. The amount of moaning I hear about it is crazy

That’s clearly not true though, is it? Because loads of kids are raised on diets just like the one posted here and they all manage to drink plenty of water as well as juice and other liquids.

FWIW was raised on a good, wholesome MN diet of milk and water to drink and as an adult I absolutely can’t stand plain water. Hated it as a kid too so often just ended up dehydrated and miserable 🤷‍♀️

dioralyte tastes grim- I’m really not convinced that liking squash or juice would help get that stuff down as a drink- made no difference to mine. Whenever I’ve needed to get it down my kids I’ve had to syringe it in small doses or try and mix with juice but the taste is still there. I’ve never understood why they don’t make more paediatric medicines taste nice. I’m still a bit traumatised by trying to get a particularly foul set of antibiotics into one of mine when they were a baby. I ended up tasting it myself and it was awful- very bitter and like taking a spirit- not like the magic banana stuff that seems more common.

This isn’t true. Breakfast cereals aimed at children are fortified.

Well it's the same advice as is given in the NHS, and it's bad advice either way. Could you elaborate on your point about culture? I'd be interested to hear more.

Eh, I was raised in a “water and milk only” household and hated drinking plain water. I would rather go without a drink altogether than have it.

I agree OP. But then all government/NHS dietary advice is shocking and massively out of date

The thing that alarmed me was popcorn. I thought it was meant to be one of the major choking hazards for children.

From the pampers website:

It’s perfectly fine to include some rice cereal in your baby’s diet as long as this is not the only food that they are eating. You will have heard experts recommending limiting a baby’s intake of rice; this is because of the naturally occurring levels of inorganic arsenic that there is within it (“inorganic” refers to arsenic’s specific chemical compound bound with carbon).Arsenic is a naturally occurring element that can enter the food supply (including cereal crops) through water, soil or the air. Rice can absorb more inorganic arsenic from its environment than other crops.As a baby’s body weight is much lower than that of an adult, their intake of inorganic arsenic through rice cereal could be up to three times higher than an adult’s, so if a baby eats too much rice it could cause long-term health problems later on.

Artificially fortified. Which they have to do because everything good is stripped out in the manufacturing process.

I agree, they should not be advocating for juice as a drink for kids, nor ultra processed, high sugar cereals like rice crispies. Porridge and water or milk are perfectly fine and far cheaper.

I think that some people are missing a point here. a lot of people have to rely on food banks, etc, and things like cereal are often part of the items people are given out. to have cereal is probably all that some people have to give their children and are better than nothing at all. Ditto juice it may be sugary but the guideline is to have with meals to minimise the sugar impact. the juice will at least give children vit c

This, in spades. Any public health body has to come up with something realistic and achievable for the skills, education, beliefs and budget of the people they are trying to reach. (Disclaimer: I know nothing about NI specifically).

If they put 'homemade buckwheat pancakes' on the breakfast list, people will just put the whole sheet in the bin and carry on buying coco pops.

One glass of well diluted juice for kids that aren't necessarily getting their five a day through whole fruit and veg is probably no bad thing. I grew up having diluted fruit juice with most meals and I have no fillings.

it wouldn’t even cross my mind to feed a baby or toddler ultra processed breakfast cereals, things like Greek or plain yogurt with fresh berries/jam/fruit puree or scrambled egg with toast or omelette or porridge are much healthier and less processed.

It's packed full of sugar (especially if not freshly squeezed), bad for teeth and doesn't actually keep you full. Same with rice crispies.

The fact that so many posters don't understand why they're not a healthy choice explains why the obesity rates in the UK are where they are.

I find MN boggling at times. I am old, and yes advice changes but...... My DD's had cereal or (shock) biscuits dunked in milk for breakfast. They also had Nesquick added to the milk (faints). Both are slim healthy adults with no teeth or healthy issues.

Side note.... Biscuits with milk is very normal in Europe for children's breakfasts.

They were weaned at four months on baby rice with formula. Then on to veg and fruit purees. Then just ate what we ate.

I have never cooked a breakfast or eaten protein in the morning..... Just vom inducing.

We have however, never eaten ready meals or takeaways. Not a particularly juice drinking family either. So swings and roundabouts.

Lots of people are not going to want the faff of making bowls of porridge before work in the morning. A bowl of cereal with some chopped up banana and some diluted fruit juice is not the disaster posters are making it out to be.

Just a warning to those that are restricting certain food/drink. Your kids will gorge on everything that’s forbidden as soon as they have a choice, I’ve seen it happen so many times. This can result in rapid weight gain as teenagers.

I fed mine whatever I was eating from weaning. If that meant they had sugar occasionally, or god forbid a McDonald’s, so be it. The result is 2 children (one now an adult) who play a variety of sports to a very good level, lovely teeth, excel academically. Never been fussy eaters, or had any food issues.

Out of the friends they’ve had since toddler groups who we have stayed in touch with, the ones that had food restrictions have all had issues with food in one way or another.

And yet children in Europe eat bars of chocolate in buttered baguette for a snack, or chocolate croissants dipped in hot chocolate.

Children in England are not obese because they have rice crispies and diluted apple juice for breakfast 😂

I think the meal plan is not too worrying- one portion of rice krispies a week is not going to hurt anyone. The baby feeding advice is very outdated though. Most of the evidence now supports a BLW approach, with purees never offered or only offered for the first day or two. Baby rice is entirely unsuitable for anyone.

It's not a disaster for an otherwise healthy baby. But it's not the ideal choice and so I agree with the OP that it shouldn't be the top government recommendation.

I'd much prefer being given the truth - the ideal is no processed foods - and then I know where I stand when I make choices for my baby. Misinformation doesn't help anyone.

We've never done cereal in our family, partly because my husband and I don't like or eat it so it's never around.

Breakfast here is either porridge (which is of course technically a cereal but is more nutritionally dense than rice crispies) with fruit like banana or raspberries, or toast with boiled or poached eggs. I make my own bread and it's usually wholemeal and seeded but sometimes white if that's what I've made. Sometimes a bagel with cream cheese or peanut butter. Usually this will be supplemented with yoghurt and / or fruit if the kids are hungry. We tend to stick to Greek yoghurt but it's sometimes a fruity one, and I sometimes make fruit coulis to have with it, which is sugary but much less so than the bought stuff. The kids usually drink milk with breakfast, sometimes ask for water. They never have juice (neither do we, except for Christmas and Easter where we do big breakfasts as an event).

All of which is to say, there is balance. Some sugar, lots of not sugar. I'd rather they have their sugar as food than as drinks, and as something which also has protein etc, such as in a fruit yoghurt. Juice is just a totally unnecessary sugar addition which wouldn't benefit their diets.

But I also think there's an important caveat which is that 'health' means different things to different people. If you have a child who suffers with constipation or who needs to take medicines hidden in drinks, fruit juice might be your best friend and in those cases it IS healthy to have juice if it's the thing that means your child is taking necessary medicines. So while I think it's bad advice generally to tell people to give kids watered down juice, I also think there are a lot of circumstances where the advice is very different when tailored to an individual.

@vanillalattes why are UK children obese?

@BeWiseTurtle - yep. My parents were super restrictive and very focused on whole foods, healthy eating and not allowing anything like crisps, chocolate etc. They basically fed the ideal MN diet.

As soon as I had access to my own money it all went on snacks, fizzy drinks and fast food. As an adult I have had to work really, really hard to sort my diet out and not see those foods as a treat or reward.