Okay, I'm going to buck the trend here, because there's lots of research out there which shows early exposure to sugary foods etc affect the taste buds of a child (possibly for life). With a child under the age of 3, when their taste buds are still developing, and it is easy to avoid such sugary foods, it is better to do this as the child does not know what it is missing, and so will develop a better sense of taste, not affected by sugar. So to blatantly give the child sugary foods (and against the wishes of the mother) is madness in my view. At that age, there is no need for it.
I followed this with my dd. We tried to avoid sweet foods when she was under three (our rule was never to say no to her, but not to give her chocolate / sweety stuff either...and having never had it, she didn't even know chocolate existed until she was almost 3). Now at almost 5, she likes her chocolate, but the avoidance of chocolate/ sweet foods in the formative years of her taste buds has really affected what she eats. She will happily munch on broccoli as a snack, hates petit filous yoghurts and other such yoghurts - she finds them too sugary, similarly she also hates chocolate mousse etc. She simply does not like that much sugar. Chocolate / sugary foods are not banned, but she does not have a huge desire for them because they were not part of her diet when her taste buds were forming.
All the research backs up this view... This is just a quote from a research project by Dr Frans J Kok into food preferences in children.
"The findings from the present study also indicate that, at least for cereals, it is possible to relate sweet preference as measured in a laboratory setting to preferences for sweets in everyday foods such as cereals, as reported by the child. That experience influences sweet preferences is suggested by the finding that children whose mothers routinely added sugar to their diet preferred higher levels of sugar in apple juice and cereals when compared to children whose mothers reported never adding sugar. Such findings are consistent with previous research demonstrating that experience with sweetened water during infancy resulted in higher preferences for sweetened water at 2 years of age 15;20 and that preference for sweet taste, as assessed by psychophysical methods, is related to carbohydrate intake in healthy adults 42."
This isn't one of the articles I read when I had my DD and decided to avoid sugary tastes in her diet in her formative years, but I think it adds academic support to my point.