5 year old ate my Mother's Day chocs

[fishstiks]

Just found DD has sneakily been getting my Mother's Day box of chocolates from my bedside drawer and has eaten 3 out of the box. We only allow sweets once a week and never have dessert. Obviously the temptation was too much! A few weeks ago she found a large bar of chocolate belonging to DH and ate more than half! When we found it she owned up straight away and we banned all sweet treats and chocolate for a week (no chocolate spread, no sweets or chocolate, no biscuits and no milkshakes)

Should I punish her for the latest chocolate stealing? Are we too strict overall with sweet stuff?

She's a really picky eater she survives on crumpets with sugar free chocolate spread (we only introduced the chocolate spread as she won't eat butter and then will eat no toast or crumpets etc) berries, tofu, rice, pasta and cucumber mostly.

Any advice on the picky eater stuff or appropriate discipline would be appreciated

@Reugny I'm just using the word treats as a grouping term for desserts and sweet food so I don't have to keep writing desserts, chocolate, candy, sweets etc

Pls read the updates, we're having desserts but then had to stop because she was eating nothing but dessert, refusing all dinner foods and only eating the dessert

@fishstiks

With every post, as kindly as possible, your own obsession and yes, hang ups about food, and calories, and weight, and BMI are showing through.

It's perfectly normal for kids to eat everything put in front of them until one day they say no. Mine was like yours, at 9-12 months was eating curry, chilli, roast dinners, everything. Then from about 3 till about 17 she lived off pasta and sauce and pasta and pesto. And sometimes she'd not eat that either.

She didn't die of hunger. She wasn't malnourished. Or fat. Or too thin. No hang ups around food.

Actually cross posted with your further comments about climbing because other things were on top shelves. She’s not too young to start to learn these were a gift and they are just for one person, but just organise your kitchen in a sensible way rather than there being secret stashes.

^ This. She's already a picky eater, and you're very much helping her along the eating disorder route by making her feel guilty about certain types of food.

Excellent post by @Ilovelurchers

Op, your parenting methods of feeding your child and restricting her diet are diabolical.

Eating should be a joy not an obsession and you have damaged your child's mind by putting restrictions on what she can or cannot eat.

Seek professional help so that your daughter doesn't develop an eating disorder or behavioural problems caused by your making her feel anxious about food.

You say you think you had ARFID when younger.
I'm wondering if you're projecting.

That you have stashed 'forbidden ' foods away is awful. Either have them occasionally or don't have them in the house at all.

Why should you get to have a box of chocolates in your bedroom and a bar of chocolate for your partner in a high up cupboard?
Are they just for you and your partner to have? Sounds very mean.

It sounds like you may have, inadvertently I'm sure, created an issue around 'forbidden' foods hence the refusing of usual healthy food.

I don't have a problem with her eating just the plain foods she wants to eat. That's fine with me if she wants to eat pasta with no sauce every evening, but if we offered her dessert she would eat no pasta and only eat custard or ice cream and surely that's worse?

OP I think you’re getting way too hard a time on here!
I can see why you were concerned about her eating and tried to limit high sugar and potentially less nutritious foods but I think the mistake is that it sounds like you stopped offering the balanced options and just accepted that you were going to succumb to her pickiness? Possibly because of your own background w pickiness it felt normal?

Anyway, please read sr nutrition, she has loads of useful info on picky eating and ways to approach it, as well as an online course. Wishing you luck! https://www.srnutrition.co.uk/advice/

Finding it hard to believe a mother is even contemplating punishing a tiny child for eating such a HUGE amount of chocolate.
It can’t possibly be real. God help us all if it is.

My 3 year old son eats wherever we have for dinner and gets fruit and yogurt after his dinner.

We all sit at the table every night and eat together. Up until a few weeks ago we were having some sort of dessert after dinner. She would be served her dinner and then either eat it not eat and then ask for her dessert. And I would give her dessert. But it got to the point in her lunch box she would only eat her chocolate bar and berries nothing else. And then would have biscuits as a snack after she got home, and then Skip dinner and eat dessert so the only foods she was eating in a day were high sugar foods. This is what my husband and I discussed and wanted to stop. We wanted her to eat more carbs and protein and fat, and less sugar

I definitely raised my kids a bit, differently and not saying what I did will work or not...I was blunt as hell and said if you don't eat you'll become malnourished and end up going to need medical help, it's not nice but thats a you problem. I also spent the time to explain what vitamins are in mushrooms (we'd do a little Google together) and why we need those vitamins (another google) and which parts of our bodies benefit the most from those nutrients. Or whichever food wasn't going down well. I also just explained the order of eating food etc. They're big on food and will eat and try anything and I don't have to watch their sugar intake as they know boundaries. Tbh dd7 will ask me if I'm on my period if I am binge eating chocolate 😂I get told off 😅

I started from age 3 explaining. Then again, neither have been fussy eaters as we are a family who LOVE to eat (but we also love our sport) so they're brought up knowing the importance of our fuel.

I'm very aware this may be a form of trauma being so blunt idk I feel like we're all mostly learning on the job 😂

I wanted to address the stealing rather than the chocolate eating

Maybe I'm old fashioned but why not say no desert if you don't eat your dinner?

I don't do desert every night so my kids don't expect it. If they are refusing to eat something they normally eat but asking for ice cream, I say no way. I don't make them finish their dinner but they know it has to be a good attempt on their part.

There was a stage where they both refused dinner most nights, but I would always give them a piece of toast before bed so they weren't going to bed hungry.

Do you also get her to help you cook? Her involvement with food shopping and making meals may help? It didn't for mine but she does love being involved - can only be good in the future.

op does her brother also miss out on desserts and treats?

and you still can’t see they are inextricably linked?

When we found it she owned up straight away and we banned all sweet treats and chocolate for a week (no chocolate spread, no sweets or chocolate, no biscuits and no milkshakes)

a little girl immediately owned up

and look what her parents did in response 😔

3 words op

The Bigger Picture

It's funny how it's now zoning in on my weight and bmi and food choices. I'm one of those rare unicorns that eats whatever they want and stays the same size. I'm 37 and still fit in my school shirt from year 11. Sorry to say it but we do exist, I've just had my third baby and am back to my previous baby weight already. I have an incredibly fast metabolism and my body just isn't able to or doesn't know how to keep fat on. I wish it was different as my natural weight is considered underweight to doctors and even to myself I would love to be able to keep more weight on. You're right I have been counting calories recently in desperation to keep some weight on, I eat whatever I want all day and seek out high calorie high fat foods in the hope I can keep my baby weight on. All my babies weighed over 8lbs, they've all been breastfed and all over the 75th centile for weight, my 4 month old is my chunkiest baby yet!

YOU brought your weight up.

Ok what would have done in this instance?

My 3 year old son eats wherever we have for dinner and gets fruit and yogurt after his dinner.

I hope everyone in your family sat down to eat had the choice of having that same dessert or nothing.

All I can say is don't make a huge issue & telling off with it. Make it light hearted. If you shame her on it, it may stay with her. Just keep it light. The stealing food isn't great but what is her behaviour telling you here. Maybe you could have shared the mothers day treat with her instead of hiding them at the back of a drawer? That would have been a nice thing to do & she probably would have liked that.

said how impressed i was that she didn’t fib and the next sweet treat she got (which wouldn’t be until a day or two) she’d have to go halves with her daddy

He's almost 3 and has yogurt after dinner every night. She is offered yogurt but refuses. If we have dessert everyone gets a bowl, I make a great sticky toffee pudding which we all love, he's not bothered about pudding really and I think prefers his yogurt