to be annoyed at what my mil cooks when we visit?

[2luvlyboys]

Yesterday we went to pils for dinner. We had a roast chicken dinner and it was lovely! She is a great cook tbh. So far so good. She also did a lovely homemade raspberry and blackberry pudding. Again lovely. But then she had to spoil it by producing vanilla or CHOCOLATE icecream to go with it and a home made rice pudding. Whats wrong with that you may ask? I saw her make it she put sugar AND a whole can of evaporated milk in it!!! And she bought in a jug with more evaporated milk!! Dh's family has always made a big deal over puddings. I always thought it was really great until I had my dcs. When I saw her making the rice pudding I did comment that she needn't of done that as well as the blackberry and raspberry pudding. Thats all right she said its a plesure! I made sure I dished out ds1 his sponge pudding straight away but then mil produced the chocolate icecream and ofcourse he went on and on about wanting it. Ever tried refusing a 2.11 year old chocolate icecream? MIL gave him some and I made a comment that hes never had chocolae icecream before! Then ds1 spied the rice pudding and wanted some. I reluctantly as I didn't want a scene game him a little bit. Ofcourse he quickly polished it off and wanted more at which point mil gave him more without even checking 1st. She even asked if ds2 wanted any and I said no way (he's 9 months). My dcs don't have food like this usually and she knows it. I think if you give them used to sweet things now you give them a hard to break sweet tooth (my dh has one for sure)!! AIBU? My mum surprised me I must admit when she pointed out its not an everyday occurance or even a weekly thing (monthly if that). Seemed to be implying that I'm making too much of it which I thought strange as she would never cook things like that for my dcs. What do others think?

Isn't the whole point of nanna is that she does spoil the grandkids? it's not like they're having it every day :D

fgs.

When DD was 2 my mil had her for a weekend, when I asked what she'd had to eat she told me

breakfast - cocopops
lunch - chicken stirfry, but blended in case she choked (pmsl) jelly for dessert
Dinner - mash sandwiches (they had sausage and mash but she thought DD wouldn't like the sausages) ,chocolate cake

breakfast - cocopops with a banana
lunch - half a block of feta cheese, bread and a quarter melon
dinner - a scraped out baked potato with (gasp) normal beans, not the low salt variety.

To drink - formula milk (poor girl), coke 'diluted' with Lemonade, and fizzy water

I found it hilarious, but of course live in fear that DD has been irreperably damaged.

Sounds like my ideal meal, to be honest.
My mum cooks great stuff too. I am nothing other than truley grateful.

YABU - your poor MIL was trying her best to be a good hostess - rice pudding made with evaporated milk is yummy and my Mum used to make it. I think it was popular with the older generation.

I'm sorry but I think that you are being ungrateful and just a little bit up your own @rse over the ice cream too!

At least she cooks for you! My MIL sends us out to buy are own lunch when we visit, but she is the MIL from hell.....

And that wasn't to OP. I appreciate she came back and said she had been a bit ...... fussy.

I think people are flogging a dead horse because although OP has decided that she was unreasonable, there are many more parents out there with her attitude to food.
I get terribly saddened by the diets some children endure. Some are given the wrong foods completely, I saw many obese children on the beach this summer. However others are fed a diet that is alright for an overweight adult who is trying to lose weight but not for a healthy, growing child.
There has been the mother upset because her toddler DC was given one triangle of dairylea cheese. Those who begrudge a DC the joy of giving out sweets to the class on their birthday because their DC will be eating sweets (it might be so bad they have to exchange it for an acceptable sweet!)There has been the woman who shuddered with horror because her DD sat next to children eating custard! (I was under the impression custard was nutritious).
There has been a 2 year old party with rice cakes and raisins!! I could go on.
The other week on TV adults were reminiscing, with pleasure, about the sweets of their childhood. Many of todays children wouldn't have the experience of a sherbet fountain or gobstopper. Children's book are full of references to sweets, Harry Potter in particular. It is only a problem if they eat too many or have them every day.
Children need foods from everygroup. It is like a triangle, sugars and fats are the top tip and they only need a small amount, but they are part of a healthy diet.
If you have a healthy everyday day diet then extras when visiting do no harm at all. I cook meals from scratch. (if I am sometimes lazy and get a take away or ready meal it doesn't matter because it is rare).
I have upwards of 50 cookery books, I like cooking and you can be inventive. I have my slow cookpot on now, the bolognaise sauce has all sorts of things in that my DSs don't eat, like celery, but they won't know!
There are all sorts of ways that you can make healthy food exciting. For example you can peel bananas, freeze them. Defrost them for about 15 mins and whizz them up in a food processor and you have banana ice cream (you can add plain yoghurt if you want it a bit sloppier).
Elkat thinks she has made her daughter dislike sweet foods but it is early days!
If you want your DCs to eat healthily then you need to do it as a family. If your DC gets plain water while you swig coke, and rice cakes when you tuck into choc biscuits you are giving the message that as soon as you are old enough you don't have to bother!
I don't think anyone should be putting their DC onto a diet regime that they can't manage themselves!
My DSs are teenagers, they don't eat much sweet stuff at all. They are on the skinny side and do lots of exercise. If we go to my mothers and she has done her favourite pudding of pavlova, with lashings of cream,they tuck in and have seconds! It doesn't make them fat!

My DDs schoolfriend has NEVER been allowed to have sweets, fizzy pop or any kind of party food.
She will be 7yrs old this year and she repeats her mums words against sweet things like a mantra and tells other people off.
Don't think she will ever get a craving for that type of food.
Suppose that is a good thing.
My MIL loves doing puddings and her rice pudding is always done with evaporated milk and fresh cream and it's delicious!
Actually, in the 1970's lots of mothers used evaporated milk to feed babies (watered down) as they could not afford formula milk.
Well that's what my Mum told me and my brother was fed on it and it never did him any harm.

That food sounds wonderful. I wish my MIL would cook anything half as delicious.

AbbeyA... I agree it is early days... but at least my DD is off to the right start! I know that taste buds do change throughout your life, but I still think it is easier to start them off on the right foot if you can. And I'm not making this up - there is a whole ton of academic research which shows that giving a child a good diet in infancy can and often does have a lifelong impact upon diets in the long term. That's the research (even if many people do seem to want to forget it!). Given the alarming rates of childhood obesity in this country, I just think that the OP should be applauded for her efforts in trying to give her child the best start rather than derided. Whilst her approach might not suit everyone, I think it is a sensible approach and good luck to her.

Its also important to remember that her child is only 2 - and there is a whole world of difference between how we treat a child in infancy and how an older child is treated, so many of the points made about children sneaking off to eat sweet foods behind the parents' backs are totally irrelevant to a two year old - although it would be relevant if such foods were banned for a six or seven year old (which is why many of the foods I didn't give my two year old, I would now allow her to eat). I think there are two issues here that shouldn't be confused - you give infants their food, they (by and large) have little choice, except to eat what is in the house... but older children do have choices and want to exercise their choices... and so a change of approach is needed once the child gets older., as that is when food issues can and do arise. But I think we do need to distinguish between the two and not fall into the trap of assuming that what foods a two year old eats is going to give them some kind of psychological complex. Older maybe, but not at two.

What have I started!!! Never dreamed my thread would provoke such response. I never meant even by implication to critisize other mums netters - everyone parents differently and this is my choice! (Although sometimes I do feel I'm fighting a loosing battle one reason I didn't make to much fuss is my dh wouldn't have agreed with me!) As I said before he has a sweet tooth and I do wonder if it was because of the diet he had as a child! He thoroughly enjoys his mother puddings I must admit! Also my mum lost all her milk teeth before the age of 5 and I would be devastated is this happened to my dcs! I'd always thought that small children shouldn't have much sugar in their diet as it shapes their taste buds etc. I've read it in several baby/toddler books such as "yummy baby" by Jane Clarke.
Although I said that we will go round for a meal about once a month we actually see them about once a week but not always for meals etc. The whole family (including dh) have a very different attitude towards food especially puddings. Perhaps I am being abit hiprocritical in this because before the dcs were born (we've been married 10 years) I used to relish her puddings and always made sure I had room for them. Although evaporated milk with everything (yes EVERYTHING) took some getting used to!! Also I do think she is getting the message. THe last time we went round we had strawberries and icecream (always icecream as she has come to realise ds loves it I think she feels he's deprived!) I emphasized that ds was not having sugar on his and she served them without and everyone had to add their own. FIL found this very strange! Although we did havve the obligatory jug of evaporated milk which I duly hid from ds1! He also always seems to feel the need to offer a detailed explanation and apology to my bemused ds1 as to why he can't have coke!!! lol! Something he has never ever asked for. If we go round for tea rather than dinner she always produces loads of cakes and ds1 again thinks he in heaven but only ever eats the icing and leaves the cakes!! You are all right she is a very nice lady despite some boundary issues and I am incredibly lucky compared to other peoples mils!

dont worry, you obviously touched a nerve on mn !!

Also I do have other issues with mil see this page. She is still holding ds2. As soon as she picks him up I immediately and pointedly take him off her. My mum is always telling me that if she was to fall with ds2 in her arms it would kill him and its worrying me sick.

I so want your MIL. If you don't want her, please may I have her?

LOL

I think your mil sounds lovely ( having read only teh op). I can just imagine her putting in all that effort and relishing the sight of her grandchildren poslishing it off. Actually I thought this post must be a joke intially. What is so wrong with ice cream? My 2.9 yr old ds has lived on practically nothing elose the last 2 weeks on holiday. It won't spoil yhour chil,drne's teeth or appetite for savoury food and to be honest and very vbery blunt you don't sound very appreciagte of pils that many people would love to have. How I would hate to have gone to such effort for ds and his future wife to have her post something like this about me afterwards. And for what it is wroth the reoast chikden and pudding sound great with the ice cream - just the evap milk sounds a bit odd .

OP, I once posted that I was cross with my FIL for "forcing a chocolate button" down my poor 7 mth old daughter... I was almost laughed off mumsnet.

One thing I want for my daughter is for her to have a healthy relationship with food. I went through some very bad times with my relationship with food, from throwing up, taking laxatives, hiding my food etc. It took me a long time to get over it, even though it was never really that "serious". So it is important for me that DD has a good relationship with food, and that means that she gets to have treat food.

She quite likes chocolate spread on crumpets for breakfast. Which I found out that she'd had one morning at the childminders, and rather than flipping out, I thought of all the healthy meals that she has, the healthy snacks etc. She loves fruit and vegetables (she'll be three in October), she loves cheeses and yoghurts, she eats really well.

So when we go to my mum and dads and they give her puddings, or we go to the inlaws and they give her sweets, I remind myself that they are a small % of her actual diet.

HTH!

Oh dear. It sounds as if your MIL is trying really hard to be a lovely granny. I'm sure your DCs will remember her with real affection when they're grown up. TBH I had issues with my (now dear departed) MIL when DS1 was born, as like most new mums I was a bit OTT about wanting him to eat the 'right' foods. Looking at it with hindsight 8 years on i can see I was making a lot of fuss over nothing - he only saw her once a week and anyway that's the whole point of being a granny, to spoil your grandchildren! I am just glad my 2 boys still have one granny left to spoil them.

I try to ensure they eat healthily on the whole but kids will always like to eat 'naughty' food and once they get to school and start going round to friends; houses for tea it's all out of your control. You can't be responsible for every bit of food that passes their lips. My eldest loves chocolate, but he also loves bananas. He hates fizzy drinks. My youngest (4) likes coke, but we never have it in the house. If we're out for a meal or at a party and he asks for a sip of coke, I let him have it, but her knows we don't have it at home and it wouldn't occur to him to ask for it. They both love McDonalds but only eat there once in a blue moon. But they both also love homemade bolognaise, risotto and sunday lunch - so what does that tell you? (Mind you since DS2 has become a coeliac I'm just happy to find food he likes and is allowed to eat. The fat/sugar content rarely enters my head!)

As a child the best thing about going to Nana & Pops was having biscuits we didn't have a home. Having treats. At my other nans she used to sneak me into the food larder for spoonfuls on conensed milk straight from the tin.

It's an important part of the relationship between grandparent and grandchild. Your not supposed to approve. Aren't they the rules? They should be.

As a mum I don't give my children sweets etc.
As a grandparent I fully intend on making sickly rich chocolate cakes and letting my grandkids eat them with their little hands and not asking my DD's permission!

Just read the op and I think you are being unreasonably worried and your mum is right - those pudding treats are not an everyday occurance so don't stress about it too much.

However as your dc are so little, make sure they have tiny portions. Can't you say to your MIL that they are prone to sudden and violent vomiting if they eat too much and they have eyes bigger than their stomach, so you will have to judge this for them and will tell MIL if you think they are eating too much as you don't want to risk an accident in her home.

I think it is great that your children eat what they are given. Just wait till they start bringing friends home and you will see how difficult and annoying it is when they dont like this or dont like that.

I grew up having pudding every day. In fact twice a day because of school dinners (the only edible bit of them really). My mother was very surprised that none of us did puddings much when we left home, as she thinks of them as being very economical (which they generally are). All our food was home made and delicious, but generally quite high in fat (butter/cream). We all had to eat a good main course first. We didn't have sweets or snacks much (only apples, digestive biscuits or peanut butter sandwiches with milk). We did all go through a stage of craving McDonalds/fast food, and as a teenager I used to steal money to spend on Mars bars etc. But we have all grown up healthy and love all sorts of food. I don't think puddings are a bad thing at all. In fact I wish my children liked them so I could make them more often!

I don't think puddings are a bad thing.
Fat people tend to eat portions that are way to big.
I don't know why snacks are necessary. If you eat 3 good meals a day you can cut them out-or just have fruit.

You are so lucky, your MIL sounds so generous. I have been married for 37 years and have never ever had a meal in her house.