Fruit smoothies for 16 month old. What do you think?

[Walkingbunny]

So I tried to give my LO an Innocent kids smoothie during a time she was very poorly with high fever and recovering from tonsillitis. She was only taking a small amount of water so we had to force it with a syringe, but she’d really enjoy the smoothies, which was a huge help. She’d have about 2 a day for a few days until her fever stopped.

Now she fully recovered and I’d like to give her a smoothie every now and then, maybe one every 2-3 days, I was wondering are they that bad for a small toddler? She doesn’t have anything that contains sugar apart from her weetabix in the morning, never had ice cream or cakes or chocolate.

My son has them every now and then. Why don't you make your own? It's a lot cheaper.

Why does she have sugar in her weetabix?

in your situation, a small child recovering from illness, it's absolutely ok.
they are full of sugar, though, so best to have not too often.

@nespressowoo weetabix contains in bit of sugar, I don’t add anything to it.

A bit

It's ok for a recovering child but not as a regular thing. The sugar content in fruit smoothies is very high and not conducive to good dental health.
Extracting teeth under General Anaesthetic for young children is traumatic for all involved.

Also weetabix is a presumably a meal ? Breakfast ; therefore that is fine. The fruit smoothie is not a meal.
Just stick to fruit in it's raw natural state.

Thanks, I agree with you all.

You are clearly not the mums that we are seeing in restaurants and pubs who are ordering fruit juices and ice creams off the menu for their 12 month olds :)

Could you make your own with some veg in not just fruit so it’s less sugary? I have a great little smoothie blender from amazon for £20... much cheaper in the long run and you can control the amount of fruit.

I use small handful of frozen blueberries, a bit of milk, teaspoon honey and a banana and it’s really nice.

Sorry meant to write I also add kale/spinach but you can’t even taste it

Water it down and give it occasionally rather than all the time and it’ll be fine (and I’m pretty controlling about my DDs food).
We have watered down fruit juice about once a week.

The sugars in smooothies react differently on teeth once blanked. Only learnt this last week so bear that in mind

She loves fruits and I give her a few different ones every day, but I thought on a day that we don’t have enough I’d give her a smoothie.

@Starlight456 yes, I read that the other day too

But surely it can’t be as bad as ice creams or cakes or chocolate? We have a relative with a child that’s 6 months older than my DD and he’s been having ice creams and cakes almost every day since he was 9 months and now at almost 2 he’s bingeing sometimes on cup/cream cakes and chocolate. Each to their own, but it makes me feel a bit less guilty that my DD has the odd smoothie.

If she drinks water happily and enjoys fruit to eat then I would stick with that.

However you are right there are many things that damage the teeth and you have to decide what is right for your child