How much sweet stuff do you children have in a week?

[AppleJac]

Im really hoping I can get an idea of what people feed their children here.

Dd is almost 4 and is obsessed with crisps, chocolate, biscuits etc. She is constantly asking for them and it driving me mad.

I do buy some sweet stuff in for everyone to eat during the week (there is me, dh and dd in our house) but dd is mithering for for the sweet stuff before you have even unloaded the car with the shopping! It starts off by saying shes hungry (she has an obsession with saying she is hungry and must say it around 15 times a day!) but when proper meals are offered to her she doesnt want them. When her food has been thrown as its clear she isnt eating it and its now cold she will ask for rubbish straightaway.

So i then started a system with her that she had to eat her meals before she could have anything sweet so now shes forcing food down her that she doesnt want and you can see that she doesnt want it as shes eating it very slowly and quite often does a fake coughing noise when eating it!

Yesterday she was very sick and i ve told her its because shes eating too much rubbish like chocolate, crisps etc.

Today i have been shopping and bought nothing sweet at all. I want to start a new thing with her where we dont have anything like that in the house and i take her to the local shop once a week for one sweet thing.

I want to offer only fruit or yogurt in between meals.

If she cant see the rubbish then she doesnt seem to mither as much as what she does if she knows for certain its in the house.

I ve struggled with my weight all my life (currently 5 stone overweight) and i remember always been obsessed with sweet stuff as a kid. I know if i never let her have it then it will become even more the forbidden fruit and i dont want her to then gorge on it as a teen or adult.

Is the best option to just allow her something once a week and take her to the shop for it?

My sister looks after dd around once or twice a week and she is obsessed with feeding dd rubbish. When i pick her up she hasnt eaten any proper food yet she has had 4 biscuits, 2 packets of crisp and so on.

Shes going to my sisters tomorrow and i ve asked her to hide all rubbish in her house as dd knows exactly were she keeps it and tell her she hasnt got any and only offer fruit or yogurt. She thinks im being mean.

Dd is 100cm in height and 2 stone 9lb which puts her on the 85th centile.

I think there's a fine line where banning it all makes them see it as a big forbidden secret! My ds has a friend who is allowed nothing sweet at all and if they have anything at a friends they will say "oh mummy won't like this" even chips or pizza are banned and I actually don't think it's a sensible way to bring them up...

The amount of sugar being given to young children on this thread is horrific. But when I look at ny own kids I know they also have too much.

Many parents on this thread are wondering why 4 year olds ask for sweets. Are you kidding ? Sugar is addictive and sweet stuff tastes great. That is why we have a natio wide obesity and dental catastrophe.

Why keep sweets and crap like biscuits in the house at all?

I find fruit as a snack doesn't fill me up, and it's still sugar.

How about just having savoury snacks for a while? Breadsticks, crackers. Dull, yes, but I think my children will eat them if hungry and not bother otherwise, which is what you want from a snack. If they had the option of strawberries or yoghurt they'd want them every day and have no "off" switch. We limit yoghurt to one a day, and it's a pudding.

My children are older (7 and 9) and they have officially free access to the snack cupboard. If there are yoyo bears or penguins they'll be in there every day after school, so most weeks we don't have them. Oatcakes, plain popcorn and nutrigrain bars (which are admittedly sweet) they regulate themselves on.

Im am very surprised at how much sweet things peoples children eat. I thought it was just my child that are too much!.

I dont rely on my sister for childcare, she has her because she wants her and dd loves going. Im sat at home whilst my sister has her.

I just dont want her to have this obsession with sweet things and end up with issues as an adult.

DS is 4, DD is 15 months. I find she gets a lot more sugar than he ever did - because whatever he gets, he shares with her!! Always has. She never would take purées because he'd just dump bits of food on her tray that she could pick up and munch. I call it brother-led-weaning!

I try not to regularly buy sweet stuff as both DH and I struggle with our weight and have a massive sweet tooth. I don't buy crisps as I don't like them. I'm still 8lbs off my "regular" weight (a size 12-14) since having DD. But there are occasional ice lollies or ice creams when out and about, I don't keep an eye on the haribo intake at parties, and raisins, fruit, breadsticks and yogurts are regular treats at home. DS would eat sweet things forever if he could, as would DD, but luckily they both eat everything else too.

Yougurt isn't that sweet. If your buying kids fruity sugary yogurts yes, but actual Greek yogurt like 'total' is very good for children as contains healthy fats and high in protein

I try not to buy too much , we are currently trying to cut back even more after a trip to the dentist.

My DC tend to know that they're less likely to get sweets etc from me and target dp who is less bothered about sugar consumption

Yesterday 3 year old dd had a small pack of crisps and two cups of dilute juice. 7+8 year olds had an ice-cream each, a Capri Sun and a cup dilute juice

I buy the M&S childrens organic yogurts. No idea of the nutritional info as i havent got the packaging but i will check next time

Mine are 11 and 9. We don't often have sweets as such (the occasional mini bag of Haribo makes its way into the house after a party or something but that's it), but there is often sweet stuff in the house because I bake quite a lot.

Mine will have whatever pudding they get with their school dinner. They won't then have pudding in the evening after their meal on a regular basis - maybe once during the school week. They will sometimes take a snack to school which is sometimes fruit but perhaps twice a week might be a bag of crisps or a homemade cake (mentioning homemade only because it means I know how much sugar is in it).

At the weekend we will have pudding with the evening meals - generally a fruit crumble on sunday and a cake on saturday and they might also have some crisps (generally a handful or small bag) or popcorn or a couple of squares of chocolate over the course of the weekend.

No fizzy drinks unless its christmas or a birthday. Diluted fruit juice with breakfast, water throughout the day, milk with their dinner.

DH reckons they have far too much sugar. I think we're not too bad after reading this thread.

In general mine eat quite a lot though (although they're as skinny as rakes). They have a cooked breakfast in the morning, a cooked school meal and a cooked dinner at home. They don't really get hungry for snacks.

I have a friend who does the whole, no junk whatsoever. I heard her telling her 4 year old that 'chocolate will kill you.' It's extremely weird and I wouldn't be surprised if the mum has an eating disorder and will no doubt pass it on to her child.
I saw said child at a party and she was binging on all the cakes and treats, so much so that it was quite disturbing to watch.
My son is very skinny...he might ask for a nesquick chocolate cake or kids yogurt but I often offer and he says no. They're not 'special treats' to him, he's always allowed one after a healthy meal and thus he's the kid at the party not stopping playing to eat and never 'binging' on crap because he doesn't feel the need to.

Oh and my kids have pizza party Friday night and I'm chuffed if my picky boy asks for an ice cream, even though he has a couple of licks and says 'finished.' Everything in moderation, as long as they're healthy and not overweight at all

When I was younger our sweet intake was one sweet after dinner - like literally, mum would buy a small pack of dolly mixture, put it in a jar, and it would last me and my brother a fortnight! One bit every day! Plain yoghurt or fruit for dessert. I have a terrible sweet tooth and do wonder whether it was related to barely having any refined sugar as a kid, but probably not... My mum didn't work though, made all our meals from scratch, always homemade biscuits, never bought those, etc.
Anyway my DD - only 22m - doesn't have that much sugar but I still beat myself up about it! She will still eat plain yoghurt but sometimes if the taste is too sharp I put a tiny bit of honey in - tell myself it is still less sugar than in the little yeos yoghurts we buy, which she has after dinner. Snacks include raisins and dried apricots, those goodies oaty bars which are ridiculously sugary, but at least they fill her up too. She doesn't have chocolate but I wonder sometimes why, it probably has less sugar than the dried fruit! She shares cake with me when we go out. Drinks only water during the day, milk before bed. Tooth brushing is sporadic which bugs me the most. Generally she seems to be a grazer which I know is bad for her teeth regardless of what I feed her.

But I can see that it's a slope down as they get older. Until I went back to work the only sweet stuff she had was fresh fruit - she didn't even have raisins until she was about 15m.

I know fruit has it's own problems but at least it's one thing I can give her in it's natural state, not out of a packet like most of the other snacks she has.