No pudding until main course is eaten up?

[Wallace]

Ds (4y7m) was at a friends house yesterday, and when he came home he was upset because his friend's mum wouldn't let him have any ice-cream because he hadn't finished what was on his plate.
Now I know a lot of people have this rule, and my mum used to say this a lot (but not enforce it extremely strictly!), but it does seem a bit harsh, especially as ds was at somebody elses house, and he may not have even liked the food he was given.
At home ds and dd eat what they want of what is on their plate, and then when they have had enough they get a piece of fruit (usually) for pudding...I don't see the point of me with holding their fruit, just because they didn't eat every single thing in front of them. I suppose I feel that they will eat enough to fill themselves up, and as long as they are being offered a healthy range of food, it doesn't really matter.
Anyway, that is my view, but the reason I am posting this here is to get the "Mumsnet wisdom" take on this...

PS I have posted on mumsnet before, but have changed my nickname because my previous one was far to close to my real name, and I was starting to worry that people from the Real World would recognise me

I've just read this through, and am surprised at the range of view here ... which makes me realise why having guests for dinner can sometimes be a source of friction.

We have a 'no pudding' rule, which we enforce pretty strictly, and always have. We also have no snacks between meals. The boys (4 and 6) just accept it. They are very good eaters, not faddy, choose to eat healthily, and are certainly not overweight.

We don't enforce the rule for visitors, though we do try to encourage them to eat something.

It also tends to happen that the children who are invited back again for meals are the ones whose families have similar approaches to food and meals that we have.

We don't have any rule really - as long as all the food is healthy, it makes no difference to me if ds eats all the savoury before the sweet. We decide what will be offered in the meal, and he has it in whatever order he likes, or as much or as little as he wants. Because he is a very small eater, I really wouldn't want to limit his food, because I know he will only eat a bite of sausage.

Interesting range of views and ways of dealing with this one!

I think that "no pudding" and "finish your plate" are different though. "no pudding" means the child can decide she is full, and stop eating now. I think thats quite reasonable although you'd have to always stick to it; personally I give fruit or plain yoghurt and fruit if dd didn't eat much, and save the "treat" type desserts for when she's eaten well. I'm hoping she might notice the correlation

But "finish your plate" is not a good idea, IMO. It can produce adults who subconsciously feel that they have to eat everything on their plates (rather than stopping when full).

We have fruit after a main course, so that's part of the meal.

At nursery, the children are given pudding even if they haven't eaten the main. At least you are guaranteed they have eaten something!! But they don't get seconds of pudding if they didn't eat their main.

We go for the "try at least a little of everything on the plate before pudding" approach in our house - and ds has to wait for mummy & daddy to finish their dinner before he moves on to desert or gets down from the table too.

If he eats all his dinner (or a very sizeable amount) including all his pudding then we'll reward him with a (very) small chocolate bar or a mini pack of smarties - we try and keep this as a positive reward rather than a "you can't have chocolate if you don't finish your meal" - although it doesn't always work like that if he suddenly demands chocolate! It's a reasonably rare achievement & treat.

I think ds (2y 9m) eats pretty well as a result. We don't make a fuss if he doesn't want to eat - he can leave as much as he wants, just doesn't get anything different offered until next snack/meal time. He's prepared to try new things most times, and he's even started liking things he's always said he's hated before which is rather nice. He has off days but overall he gets a reasonable diet.

Wouldn't dream of enforcing food rules to a visiting child though - that's just unfair.

Zerub, research into obesity backs your theory up. If children (or in the studies, rats) are made to eat everything in front of them they gradually loose sensitivity to their "Full-up" signals. As we live in a society which tends to overload plates etc. this is quite risky.

TBH DD has picked up on the pudding notion from nursery and uses it to mean "additional food" rather than something sweet, so last night she asked for "pasta for my pudding".

Personally I think that most children can be "fussy" and it's up to the parents how they deal with it. trying to enforce your eating regimes on a visiting child (without finding out whether they will eat the meal) is asking for trouble. Also, I think that by the age of 4 or whatever when kids start to come round unaccompanied by parents your own kids are much more likely to understand that circumstances are "special" that day.

Never force DD to eat anything - I would hate it and I am sure it would just cause us to fight - she eats everything except mushrooms (I couldn't when pregnant) and olives but other than that there is nothing that she won't eat.

Sometimes I don't feel like eating so much or I don't fancy something and so don't force her - she eats a balanced diet and doesn't have too many sweets or treats and if she doesn't eat her dinner because she doesn't fancy it she gets some raisins and apple and a plain yogurt.

There are too many battles to face in this life and too many arguements and rules I feel you can enforce which you would feel appalled if they were enforced on you - I am not lilly livered at all and DD is terribly well behaved (I think for a child of her age) - eating is just not a battle I am prepared to go into - my parents did and I ended up with a whole range of eating disorders!!

I woulod have just told DD that other people have different rules at their house and given her a yogurt when she got home.

I have 2 friends (sisters) who both have horrendous weight problems, and they KNOW it is because they were made to clear their plates when they were children. Now they can't leave food on their plates, and tend to eat up anything leftover at the end of a family meal, AAAAAAARGH.

I never force ds to eat up, but I tend to change what might be for pudding if he doesn't finish all his mains. I would never ever give one child ice-cream or such without giving it to another child at the table, that is just cruel.

Wallace, I'd not say yes if your ds is invited to tea there again. Let him go to play, but collect him at teatime. Rotten woman (I'm so protective of my ds )

TWinkie, that's my view exactly. Which isn't to say anyone else is wrong, except the horrid woman your ds went to tea with, Wallace

We don't tend to eat pudding as such, so not really an issue in our house. Ds's rarely eat everything on their plate, but we do tend to give them too much, as you never know if it's a hungry day or not.

Actually, can I just add something.

I hardly ever give ice-cream as a dessert anyway. I tend to stick to fruit, yoghourt or mousseas puddings, and ice-cream is a special treat very occasionally mid afternoon, especially if I know that tea is going to be a bit delayed for some reason. So I use ice-cream like sweets, a surprise treat on good days

Fussy eating often has very little to do with how a child is weaned etc anyway. I watched ds1 go from eating anything and everything and enjoying every morsel of the organic home made dish of the day to refusing to eat pretty much anything (at one stage he was eating just bread although that has expanded a little now- and anyway now his bread is home made it has lots of extras hidden in it) . We've seen a nutritionist who says that his diet isn't that bad - even though he only eats the list below. A lot of his eating issues are sensory.

If it was as easy as just saying "eat up or you won't get pudding" then he would have been eating properly 2 years ago. At some stage I am going to have to tackle his eating problems but at the moment we have bigger fish to fry. We have done some desensitisation bits in the past - and we did manage to get him eating chips and scrambled egg with that.

To get over the next hurdle (so eating food that doesn't look like packed lunch (!) ) is going to take some serious behavioural work, but we need the basics in place first.

So long winded but basically I can't bear smugness over food. So I'd do the same as easy and pick him up before tea.

Totally agree Jimjams - I know I weaned my ds1 the best way, but he's now really fussy with food - and is skinny, but ds2 is much chubbier and has much more comprehensive tastes.

DS1 likes all his food plain and separate, with no sauces of any kind, ds2 loves everything covered in gravy. Sunday lunch is interesting - ds1 will eat the veg and potato, and possibly a morsel of meat, ds2 will hammer into the potato and meat if covered in gravy but won't eat the veg. Don't you just love 'em?