Breakfast cereal struggles

[GOGOROO]

What are your current breakfast time struggles with young children. My niece and nephew seem to love cereal one week and then its eggs and pancakes the next week!

Do you allow a chocolate cereal at the weeknd for a treat or is there always a box because that's the only thing they will eat?

Fruit and yoghurt only in the week - they have cereal and toast available at nursery/breakfast club.

Two kinds of plain, low sugar cereals in the cupboard, or porridge, on the weekend. Fruit and toast as well on a Saturday; we have more time on Sunday so then usually eggs or baked beans on toast. Very rare to have pancakes or similar.

No real struggles as it's just a rule. At one point I did a little chart for DD2 when she was 2, with a picture of what was available each day, to head off any complaints

My kids mostly have cornflakes, they have never asked for any other cereal, I know it's not the healthiest but it's not the worst either.

They will sometimes have toast or pancakes but that's only about once a week or less.

What are their favourite toppings, unfortunately my niece and nephew love nutella which though they are also happy to eat plain sometimes too. When it comes to toppings I can't really think of any healthy toppings that a child would like on toast. I do always try to smuggle some banana into the pancakes at least.

@HeyMicky really good idea to set boundaries early on. Do you look out for plain style yogurt or go with childrens one?

No struggles

Porridge with cut up dried apricots and prunes
Greek yoghurt with strawberries
Left over roast chicken, baked beans and toast
Cream cheese and salmon bagels
Fruit salads

@GOGOROO Just plain. Too much sugar in the others, even if its in "natural fruit" form

@Amibeingdaft81vSounds delicious, and really great to be able to get decent protein intake at brekkie time.

We have shreddies, Cheerios, cornflakes or rice crispies. Then fruit and natural yoghurt, and toast or crumpet with nut butter of some description. Sometimes croissants on the weekend, or egg and beans. He's not a big fan of 'wet' cereal like porridge or weetabix, try as I might.

@saywhatwhatnow sounds like a varied selection of cereals, I think its always good to have a choice. I know there is always some evenings when only cereal will do for dinner and having something different than what they had is a big help. Can I ask do you choose the cereal or do your children when shopping?

That’s my approach

I stuff them before school with good stuff and then - however day pans out food wisest school, at least it got off to a good start

@weightquery yes I firmly believe that if children have a good start then it sets them up for the day. I was reading some research last week that mentioned a significant number of school children are not having breakfast with reasons from not being hungry to not getting up early enough - surely this can't be conductive for active learning.

Cheese on toast with marmite or Lee & Perins always goes down well. Added bonus being cheese hides the fact the bread is wholemeal. My personal favourite is tinned tomatoes on toast with balsamic and black pepper.

If you are looking to cut down the less good cereal try mixing (2 types in one bowl) with a better one.

I mix up branflakes, cornflakes, shreddies and cheerios and my DC don't even realise they come separately 😂 they have it about twice a week. Other days they have boiled or scrambled eggs, porridge, fruit, toast and at weekends they have a chocolate brioche first thing and then it will be either bacon sandwiches or pancakes and fruit with yoghurt

yes mixing is a great idea especially if they have gotten used to sugary cereal. Mixing alpen and corn flakes was a favourite of mine when I was younger.

We have Cheerios, rice crispies and shredded. He picks himself or he has a mix of two. Then always a banana and sometimes a brioche. He loves fruit.

Other times it might be toast and bovril but that’s usually a weekend when I’m not dashing about in the morning!

Mine used to have a weetabix or shredded wheat with a sprinkle or two of crappier cereal on top. Always had a few to choose from. We invented the cereal cocktail long before that poncy cafe in Shoreditch.

These days we are healthier and go more for porridge or granola or eggs and fruit.

We only have weetabix and bran flakes because they're the only ones I ever ate before I had kids anyway. They eat them with strawberries, blueberries, banana, prunes etc, usually only once or twice a week. We never have chocolate cereal as a treat, yes a nice treat but utter crap as breakfast. Usually breakfast is scrambled eggs and toast, toast with banana and Peanut butter, porridge in winter, pancakes and fruit when we've time.

Cereal cocktail sounds awesome! I find porridge can be a great way to let them choose their toppings and encourage new types of fruit etc. I haven't had much success with overnight oats though.
I find granola to be tricky because they tend to have a lot of sugar.

@Falafel19 agree eggs and toast a great combo though need to be organised time wise. Agree that the chocolate cereals are really poor in nutrition and have way too much sugar. I do enjoy making pancakes at the weekend and again I find its a great way to get my niece and nephew tasting new toppings that they normally might not eat.

Scrambled eggs on toast takes us about 2 minutes max to make, not remotely time consuming.

Toast, pancakes, porridge, ready brek, sometimes crunchy nut cornflakes. No Nutella midweek, we have Jim Jams which is low sugar or plain peanut butter. Pancake topping is usually banana or some other fruit.

Anything goes on Saturday morning breakfast - current favourites are a bacon bap for ds2, pain au chocolat for ds1 and cinnamon rolls for dd. (They are all old enough to cook them) I like scrambled eggs atm. Weekday breakfasts are things like toast, cereal bar, banana (they eat while walking to school)

Cereal free house here.

Porridge, eggs of all kinds, French toast, toast, cheese on toast, Greek yoghurt, fruit, leftovers, bread with ham and cheese, beans, loads of quick and easy things really.

I'm a child minder, I feed at least four children breakfast every morning, without ever having Nutella or cocoa pops.

Lots of children are fussy when they first start with me, but they soon get used to what I offer and eat it.

we grew up on cereal for breakfast.and with some sprinkling of sugar heaven forbid!neer did us any harm.our other meals were good too though so this amkes a different.balance and all that.
we grew up on cornflakes and branflakes and it was always there.we sometimes had porridge.and on the odd occassion mum would allow us to pick our fave "treat"cereal but it wasnt a given so we enjoyed it when it came.frosties golden grahams etc.and by having that choice and no limits we just naturally were better at guiding ourselves to good stuff i think.the more you deny or think cereal is unhealthy the more they crave shit.