Do you give 'treats' (of the not-so-healthy variety) to your toddlers? How often? What are they?

[pipkin35]

Wanting to know how often and what you give your toddlers (under 5's) - food based treats?

Do they have sweets/chocolate? What are your views on this kind of food?

Do you think those (expensive) Goodies/Organix things (crisps, biscuits etc...) are better/worse/OK to give daily?

Our youngest is one and a half and she eats everything being the youngest of three has probably got something to do with it, as long as they eat a full and varied diet with plenty of fruit and veg it'll do them no harm, she'll probably have a couple biscuits a day and maybe a packet of hula hoops with her sandwich at lunch time and when the ice cream van comes by she gets a mr whippy cone too, I think these days we make too big a thing of children having no sweets, chocolate or sugar. A balanced diet including a bit of the not so healthy stuff teaches them that everything in moderation will do no harm!!

mrsmusic I think things are getting so complicated these days!! Our girls take a packed lunch to school and have pretty much the same kinda thing usually a sandwich or roll, few sticks of carrot, babybel, few slices of cucumber, fruit, yogurt, box of raisins, and a piece of homemade cake though not all of that!!
Seems to me we're all expected to produce gourmet meals for our little darlings these days or we're given extra helpings of maternal guilt!! Keep it simple and you cant go wrong.

Not yet really (18 m.o.) - things aren't forbidden, just not offered. DS will have a biscuit e.g. hobnob if we're having one and he notices that they're not oat cakes, or we'll give him a bit of one of our (homemade) cake if he kicks up a fuss about not having what we're having.

Other than that, raisins and tinned peaches are about as exciting as it gets (although he does get very excited about them).

My DS (3.5) has sandwiches in his lunch, what else would they take on a packed lunch!

He takes to nursery for his lunch, cheese sandwiches (occasionally jam as he loves them), 2 small yoghuts, a pot of strawberries (the only fruit I can guarantee he will eat), if he has jam sandwiches, then he has some cubes of cheese, a pot of breadsticks and occasionally a jam tart if he has been really good (its his new favourite thing). He is fussy and pretty much has the same thing at home for lunch every day. Sometimes he goes through a grapes phase so I can cut some of them up for him with his lunch and he now likes golden delicious apples that are pealed and chopped up so he has that for a snack sometimes.

He has only just started liking sweets, he used to spit them out, so he has them at parties of if my nan has some at her house. We give chocolate as a treat and thats after tea if he has been well behaved. If he is on a roll and is being very good then he will get it most days after tea but it is a few buttons or chocolate stars from a pack, not much. Sometimes he will have a mini milk after tea or a jam tart or if we have been baking, then some buns or cake if he has been to a party. He rarely has crisps, he would eat them more but I don't given them often and then its usually half a pack on a plate unless we are out and I give him that as a treat. MacDonalds fries are a rare treat, they are the only chips he will eat and sometimes I can't be bothered to cook tea so we go to MacDonalds.

Luckily, he has taking a liking to bread and butter and thinks this is a great thing to have with or after his tea! He also likes cracker bread which I will give as an inbetween meals snack. Breakfast is always cheerios or shreddies, its the only cereal he likes. Sometimes will have toast and jam for lunch and Saturdays often has a croissant if DH has been to the shop with him.

I thought he wasn't that healthy and we give too many treats but actually looking back at that, it isn't bad.

I have a 3yo and a 1yo and we get through loads of the so-called healthy snacks. Current favourites are humzingers, the heinz biscotti biscuits(though they do have sugar in so not that healthy), organix animal biscuits, and the 3yo loves those little packets of fruit string-like things cleverly packaged to look like sweets (stupidly expensive though for what they are).

As for what I'd call 'real' treats, the 3yo probably has something once a day such as a gingernut, an ice lolly when it's hot (she likes the sainsburys kids lollies, mini milks, things like that), occasionally chocolate buttons or magic stars if she's been good at the supermarket or caught me at a weak moment! I think my 1yo is too young for that kind of thing, and she is too young to know the difference yet.

I think some people are a bit too hung up on what their kids eat. I think I have a balanced diet and that includes sweets sometimes, so that's the attitude I want my kids to have. Better than a friend of mine for example who is v strict with treats, and her kids are so scrawny while she is very overweight. She confessed recently she hides stuff from the kids and eats it late at night when they are in bed. Far better to all enjoy a biccie together after a runaround in the park imo!

I have a 3yo and a 1yo and we get through loads of the so-called healthy snacks. Current favourites are humzingers, the heinz biscotti biscuits(though they do have sugar in so not that healthy), organix animal biscuits, and the 3yo loves those little packets of fruit string-like things cleverly packaged to look like sweets (stupidly expensive though for what they are).

As for what I'd call 'real' treats, the 3yo probably has something once a day such as a gingernut, an ice lolly when it's hot (she likes the sainsburys kids lollies, mini milks, things like that), occasionally chocolate buttons or magic stars if she's been good at the supermarket or caught me at a weak moment! I think my 1yo is too young for that kind of thing, and she is too young to know the difference yet.

I think some people are a bit too hung up on what their kids eat. I think I have a balanced diet and that includes sweets sometimes, so that's the attitude I want my kids to have. Better than a friend of mine for example who is v strict with treats, and her kids are so scrawny while she is very overweight. She confessed recently she hides stuff from the kids and eats it late at night when they are in bed. Far better to all enjoy a biccie together after a runaround in the park imo!

I give my 19mo old Organix gingerbread men or animal biscuits as a snack. He'll have between 1 and 5 of these a day, depending on how hungry he is. If we are having an ice cream when we are out we will always give him some. He will also have a bit of cake if DH has made one, but that's only once a month or so. It is difficult to hold out against pressure from some of DH's older relatives to let him have biscuits, etc but again this is not very often.

He eats more sugary things than I would prefer at nursery (i.e. cereals and puds with sugar in) but that is the compromise I have had to make to be able to work.

He eats loads of fruit and veg, lean meat and dairy. He has an absolutely voracious appetite but is a healthy weight.

DD is 22mo and does have a little of everything. She occasionally has a handful of crisps if we're eating them, she doesn't really have chocolate with us at home (usually because I've eaten it!!), but she does have biscuits and fromage frais. She also has Organix biscuits and childrens cheesy biscuits etc too as treats. She does have chips and we've been known to give her Maccy D's chicken nuggets in a service station emergency

She has more treats than I'd like at the PIL but they do a fair bit of childcare for us. My only issues is that they're not so hot on teeth cleaning - which is something that needs sensitively addressing. It is absolutely non-negotiable with us.

Our hope is that she grows up content with one biscuit and doesn't develop a need to scoff several when she gets the rare opportunity. I on the other hand, accept all the sweets DD is offered and then eat them myself as the good sacrificial parent that I am

DS is 18 months. I give him some dark chocolate (Green and Blacks or Lindt) maybe once or twice a week after a meal (but never before a nap). He loves it. Also if I have a piece of cake, I'll give him some.

However I refuse to buy sweets. Granny is barred from giving him anything like that (because I want to control how much he gets). DP really disapproves, but I think a little bit occasionally is one of life's pleasures isn't it?

I also refuse to give him squash on a day to day basis, since it has too much sugar and the sugar-free stuff is full of chemicals.

Organix oaty bars are a good snack to have if you are out and about.

I used to be a dentist (I no longer practise) and used to have to take out loads of children's teeth which was heartbreaking. There is nothing wrong with a treat every couple of days as long as it is not before sleeping (as saliva flow drops when you are asleep and teeth are more prone to decay as a result). Also the treat should be eaten straight away.

The worse things for teeth are sweets that are nibbled throughout the day (rather than eaten all at once) and sugary squash or fizzy drinks (even sugar free ones which are acidic). Too much snacking generally is also bad for teeth. The reason for this is that the saliva becomes acidic each time food is eaten. It takes 30 minutes for the saliva flow to become neutral each time. When it is acidic it attacks the teeth causing decay.

Enough of my preaching!

I really don't worry too much about my children's diet only because I have a healthy system in place and know that whatever treats they get is part of the bigger picture. My toddler is still BF and he was BLW so has pretty much controlled how much and what he likes to eat. As a family we eat 90% healthy meals and have treats several times a week but I do limit the amount of treats he can have in one sitting for example he loves softmints so I will ask him how much he wants, he will usually say 4 out of the packet, I say how about 2 and he usually agrees. I give him what I eat so I don't usuallygo for the organix baby foods et al as they are usually overpirced and frankly tasteless!

He might get a couple of packets of crisps during the week but he isn't really one for biscuits/chocolates/cakes and sweets so it makes giving him a treat quite difficult! I really don't like rice cakes/bread sticks because they are totally pointless- hardly any nutritional value unless they accompany a dip such as hummus, and they don't fill you up.

My DD is 6mths old and I am weaning her partly BLW partly pureed jars and she is breastfed also so I don't worry too much as I know she is getting all her nutrition from my breastmilk. As she gets older she will eat exactly the same as we do. If we have some chocolate then so will she. I don't see the sense in giving children a different diet to the one that you eat unless it's a very unhealthy diet to begin with. I dislike it when people don't allow young children to have chocolate/sweets. Why not? So long as it's in moderation and you are taking care of their teeth, what's the problem? It's not going to stop them from liking it when they are older, it might even become even more appealing because it's forbidden. So everything in moderation, nothing seen as 'bad', and practice what you preach.

i nearly bought my 3yr old and 2yr old a pack of chocolate buttons yesterday then thought "they don't need them". then felt guilty hiding away the stash of chocolate i bought for myself and dh!

every day at one snack time they get plain biscuits (e.g rich tea, malted milk), rice cake, breadstick or cheddars. marks and spencer do a good range of kids biscuits - they have a small bag of little animal biscuits which went down very well the other week. i try and stick to just juice or milk and raisins if they're really hungry at the other snack time but can also be scones or pancakes (ds2 going through a growth spurt and is starving all day long).

organix cereal bars maybe once a week when we're out for the day. i save their crisps and cereal bars for days out cause they're so expensive! small chocolate every now and then, maybe once a month.

I am pretty meh about the branded snacks, they're expensive and not much better than a lot of options.

DD is 2 and lately she has been allowed sweets/chocolate/crisps more often.

Still not terribly often though. We made some brownies at the weekend so she has had one a day since. She shared some popcorn with me at the weekend too.

That's it this week!

I bought Annabel Karmel Disney branded snacks today (they were on offer). I feel so dirty

dd1 is 4. we have a sweet treat both days at the weekend. this is whatever we see and fancy - ice-cream, sweets, a cake. I know this sounds really anal, but i realised i was slipping from eating these things in moderation, to having them too often. i have to make an effort to keep dd1 at a healthy weight, so we have a clear rule that everyone understands and that's easy to stick to.

we don't really snack much (we all prefer gargantuan dinners with pudding ) so i don't buy any of the organix type stuff. there's always fresh fruit, dried fruit, oatcakes and cheese knocking around if anyone does want a snack.