WWYD? Grandparents and Sugar

[Sleepysaurus2]

My in-laws sometimes look after my 3 year old DD. It isn’t very frequent and it’s usually when they want to look after her, not from a childcare standpoint. I suppose on average it would be 2 or 3 times a month.

Every time DD goes to their house, she is only fed sugar. I honestly wouldn’t mind the odd treat or two but the whole day is just sugar. They have a cupboard full of ‘toddler’ snacks e.g things like mini gingerbread men, crispy tiddlers, those yo yo things and other similar items. Given the frequency that she goes to their house, I do find it unnecessary for them to have a whole cupboard full of these snacks. DD just asks for constant snacks when she’s there. She is a pretty good eater for a toddler but understandably she finds these items a big temptation when she is there. My DH has previously asked them to only offer her one of these items when she is there and to otherwise offer fruit or similar. They agreed to this but I am not confident they’re following this. There always seems to be a new snack in the cupboard. I find it unnecessary and a bit strange that they keep buying these expensive and nutritionally poor items.

DD was with my MIL today. When I picked her up MIL said she’d eaten all her lunch. I asked what she had and she told me DD had a jam sandwich on white bread (she’ll happily have cheese, ham or peanut butter), a yoghurt ‘and some other bits’. Then when we went to get her things I saw an open pack of French fancies and DD later told me she’d had a chocolate cake (presumably one of the French fancies). She does have bits of fruit when she’s there but every single thing she has is sweet. MIL was very happy to tell me that DD had really enjoyed a yoghurt mixed with jam…DD simply doesn’t need all of this. She isn’t a fussy eater! I used to send her there with a lunchbox similar to one she has at nursery but MIL has told me she prefers to make her lunch herself. This doesn’t make any sense!

It's stressing me out a bit and making me not want to send her there. I let her go there as it’s nice for our in-laws to be included and DD does have a nice time playing there. However, when she goes to my parents she’ll have homemade vegetable soup, veg lasagne or whatever with the odd biscuit which I’m fine with. I really don’t mind the odd treat but this feels a bit extreme.

I'm not sure if I (or maybe DH) should speak with them about it or whether I should accept that the occasional day there with lots of sugar isn’t the end of the world or worth potentially making things a bit awkward. I suppose I’m worried about the future incase she does end up going more frequently and it’s become habit to just eat these snacks. We also have DS 6 months and I don’t want this to be his experience there in the future either. WWYD?

Try and take a longer term view. This is not frequent and your mil wants to spoil her. Keep educating mil but don't become too difficult and limit contact. Love is important too

As she is your daughter you are perfectly allowed to have a preference for her diet. You're allowed to feel discomfort at someone ignoring your requests.

And anyone who thinks that they'd rather not see a grandchild than change something as simple as one item of food per visit, is a bit controlling.

I'd be very clear - max two treats (or whatever ) or it will need to change to supervised visits only.

I'd go back to sending DD with a little lunch box. I'd put cucumber and carrot sticks in it and a ham sandwich on wholewheat bread with a baby bel. There really is no excuse in the world to give a child a jam sandwich. If she had given DD a cheese/ham sandwich I could excuse one fondant fancy. I sympathize because my MiL always puts two tea spoonful of sugar on her strawberries. I have told her many times not to give dgc sugar in anything but especially not on their strawberries as fruit has natural sugar and told her instead they like a splash of cream but she always did it. My DC would rush to tell me when I got back to collect them. It just made me take them less often until they were old/sensible enough to turn it down when she offered it.

Can you suggest some simple swaps to the GPs instead? E.g. my toddler loves peanut butter and 'jam" tortilla wraps - the 'jam' is mashed raspberries or mashed strawberries...

Two extremes here: sugar is a killer, bin the grandparents or let them feed them all the sugar. IRL surely people sit down and talk it out diplomatically?

MIL is the same. Food = love, I think. I don't worry about it. It's not that frequent. Their diet is healthy over the year.

Sure, lovingly prepared home cooked food is love.
3 for £1 “cakes” don’t even qualify as food, everything is ridiculously processed now, compared to 20 years ago.

@Garman

How ghastly
I feel sorry for your children

So I think the problem here is OP has tried to "talk it over diplomatically" and has been ignored.

I wouldn't go directly against what people have said re their children, if I'm looking after them, whether I think it's a bit batty or not. They're their children!

My in-laws were like this - used to visit once a week with enough sweets to sink a boat. Often I used to just put them straight in the bin as soon as they'd left. I'd constantly ask mil to just bring one treat each, or strawberries (which my kids loved ) but to her, buying a mountain of sweets was how she expressed love.

Having just read 'Ultra-Processed People' I wish I'd not given my kids so much of this stuff when they were younger. They did eat proper meals but they did also have too many Pringles and sugary cereals and chocolate bars. I think it set them up for bad habits in adulthood.

Ultimately it's your child and your choice and it's not unreasonable to ask that they give her cheese and veg sticks to snack on instead of jam and cake.

@Lilacshade i am not for one minute suggesting not allowing DD to see her grandparents!! That was a comment from another poster, not me! My options were to either have a chat with them about the excessive sugar or not mention it if it’s not worth potentially making things awkward for the sake of a few days a month.

bet your MIL is glad to not see you too .

For all of you slating me this was just one of her ways of exerting power in her fucked up toxic narcissist world, over half her children have disordered eating and had childhood dental issues from the crap diets, I wasn’t having the same happen to my kids. She was given plenty, plenty of chances to stop it, but instead chose to cry in front of the dc because of it because mummy and daddy were being “so mean” and she “hated to see the dc upset”. Well we would hate to see them used as pawns by her and have the same food and teeth issues she caused the last generation so we weren’t going to let it happen. For us it was a slippery slope, it’s rarely isolated behaviour, it’s a control thing.

And when the extreme sugar givers refuse to sit down and talk about it diplomatically what’s the next option?

One of the ways I got around my FIL was to say that DS actually had a really bad sugar headache that night. I knew what DS had been given that day and it was one of the worst days for treats that I had ever known. This seemed to hit home a bit more than the usual bad for their teeth argument.

By going down this route and saying I was a bit concerned about the amount of sugar, he did rein it in a bit.

At the end of the day, you can't control what they are feeding your children if you don't stay with them. Like many others have said, managing the rest of the diet at home will go a long way.

Or you could mention how much your DC loves being treated with a book/magazine/craft pack rather than sweet treats.

I remember my dad telling my gran to stop giving me so many treats. She would give me a fancy chocolate mousse, some m&ms and a packet of crisps as well as tea and breakfast most weeks when she looked after me for a sleepover. It was one part of our lovely routine and our "thing" together that we shared. She also used to buy a toy each week from the local market and put it in my very own special cupboard in the sideboard for me to find. Amazing grandma.

After my dad told her to stop the treats, I remember she appeared with a bag of m&ms in her hand, she looked a bit thoughtful and said "don't tell your dad" and then carried on as normal for about 5 more years. Haha!

I don't think it's your mil that's toxic tbh.

That post is worse than your first one.

Giving grandchildren treats is not child abuse, isolating them from their extended family however....

Op imo it's not worth mentioning, let her spoil your dd and don't make things awkward.

😂 love it!

That was like my Nan, she used to keep chocolate bars like a whisper in the fridge and cut it in half one for me one for you dear'

I miss my nan so much.

I don't think it's worth mentioning. She's small now, when she's at school she will probably not spend so much time with her grandparents. Let them have their thing. All she'll remember is that they loved her so much and had this magic cupboard with treats they got for her especially and uou just didn't know what it might be....

It’s ignorant to keep feeding young children highly addictive UPF.

OP, trust your instincts and don’t listen to randoms on the Internet that it’s totally fine. Your children won’t thank you that you didn’t show some backbone and let lazy grandparents compromise their long term health because buying cheap junk food is apparently love.

I'd try and ask for a limited amount of sugar provided, even 2-3 times a month. As adults they shouldn't be eating those things a lot anyway. But for a few times a month, I'd let it go.

OP, trust your instincts and don’t listen to randoms on the Internet that it’s totally fine.

you aren’t a random on the internet then?

I’m saying “trust your instincts”, not “trust me”. 🙄

ok. I didnt read anyone else saying "trust me op" either. So not sure what your point is really. As someone saying, do talk to the grandparents though dont worry too much about 2 days a month op, I guess am also saying trust your instincts op. 🙄.