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Sugary food for DGD

6 replies

KikiShack · 06/02/2014 18:39

Hi, mum here posting to get some advice from grannies!
DD will be on solids soon, and I'm very nervous. Specifically I'm nervous about my MIL buying tons of sugary crap as a 'treat' for DD. DH and I are moreorless agreed we don't want DD eating sugar while she's small, certainly not lots of it like sweets, choc fudge cake etc. This goes beyond sweets at nanny's house every few months, I don't want her being brought up to think that unhealthy rubbish is a treat and something to look forward to fullstop.
So...how to approach this with MIL? Firstly am I correct in guessing DH should discuss it with his mum, not me as the DIL?
And I am worrying that since DH's parents can be a touch passive aggressive, there will be lots of 'do you like your fruit salad dgd? Well I hope so. I wanted to give you a nice sticky toffee pudding with icecream, but your mother won't allow it so we've all got to have this instead'
I'm ok with a bit of homemade pudding with a sprinkle of sugar when necessary, but tbh it's rarely necessary. Make peach crumble instead of rhubarb! Have cream instead of icecream!
In summary, any advice on how to do this tactfully and keep everyone on side would be much appreciated.
Thanks.

OP posts:
RubyGoat · 06/02/2014 20:17

Bump. (watching as I've yet to crack this with my MIL. DD has been weaned well over a year...)

dotnet · 05/03/2014 18:33

I think you're probably worrying too much, TBH. I tried to keep my DD mostly away from sweets when she was little. My own mother was hugely amused when she had her to stay and bought her some sweets. She said to my DD something about her mother (me) eating sweets, and DD said 'Mummy doesn't eat them.' Not much I didn't... out they came as soon as she was in bed.
Sweet tooths (teeth?) are inherited I think. If you were scoffing away at them when you were pregnant, probably your DD will like them too.
That being said, what with fluoridation of drinking water since the late 1960s, children's teeth are LOADS better than they were when I was a child. Dentistry, too, bears no comparison to the butchery of the 1950s and 1960s. And in the 1950s and early 1960s... well, ordinary dental care wasn't something people bothered with anything like as much as they should. I grew up in a middle class family, but was only made to clean my teeth ONCE a day (at bedtime.) Dental floss was unheard of.

My DD is 22 now, and she's a sugar addict, like her mum. She has four or five fillings, I think.
That's not great, but at her age I'd already had four extractions, a crown and ALSO four or five fillings. I'm 60 now, and still don't have dentures or a bridge, despite the crapness of my teeth as a child. I do regret not having been made to care for my teeth better in those days, though.
Get your child to clean their teeth after eating sweets whenever possible. You'll probably find your child's teeth will be absolutely fine... especially if neither you nor your husband is a sugar junkie!

KikiShack · 07/04/2014 16:44

Bump in the hope of some more answers as DD is 6 months now and eating.
dotnet it's the general health/sugar addiction stuff I'm worried about, not teeth. It's also the general point that I'm in charge of my daughter's diet and want tips how to manage grandparents tactfully!
Thanks.

OP posts:
Sneezecakesmum · 07/04/2014 20:24

I think you just need to sit down with them and talk as though they were adults! It's not a case of you laying down the law as though they were naughty schoolchildren who will buy sweets instead of everything else but of having a parent/grandparent partnership where you both agree with whats healthy eating.

I have a DGS and wouldn't dream of feeding a diet of sweets and treats. In fact it's me saying as tactfully as I can to DD that giving DGS2 sweet biscotti and chocolate is possibly cultivating a sweet tooth which may come back to bite her! He eats plenty of pasta and oranges and fruit etc so I think it's not a bad thing in the long run.

I am well aware of the obesity epidemic and the dangers of a sugary diet (the new fat apparently) so maybe your ILs are on the same page as you? I was very 'no sweets' when my children were young and was undone by my MIL giving chocolate and sweets. My 2 didn't have sweets until they were 2 so maybe that's why one hasn't got a sweet tooth and the other does!

KikiShack · 08/04/2014 19:55

Thanks sneeze, that sounds sensible. I think the current no sugar fad is really good timing actually and will give me something to refer to in explaining this. I wasn't allowed any sugar until I was 10 (!!) and I don't really eat it now, though I'm not militant about it, so I'm certainly not leaping on the latest fad myself but I can see the benefits of it becoming a more mainstream view.
For the record I have yet to meet anyone healthier than me at the age of 34 - I've only had 2 sick days in my entire working career (admittedly I studied a long time so I only started at 28) and both were related to minor bleeds when I was pregnant with DD. I know anecdotes aren't much use but going by my own upbringing I think the sugar ban has to have made me healthier. It gets pretty annoying when everyone else is off with norovirus but I'm the only one in work evey day, but it does make me pretty smug Grin

OP posts:
Sneezecakesmum · 08/04/2014 22:30

A friend of ours is a doctor who has a doctor friend (confusing) who is on TV with a program called the fat hospital or some such and he is always banging on to us about the risks of sugar and how bad it is for the system. I secretly think he is right as there is not much apart from honey in nature that has the same type of sweetness as processed sugar, and I don't often eat sweet things either, but i do sometimes love a bit of dark chocolate!

DH keeps bees but they have all gone wings down this year with a dreaded bee disease Shock

I'm think maybe your good health is also to do with the rest of your diet? Someone brought up with forward thinking and very health conscious parents who were anti sugar surely taught you to eat lots of antioxidant rich fruit and veg! Grin

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