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[AnnMumsnet]

We've been asked by the team at Organix to find out your views on food at Christmas.

Are you the sort of parent who allows your children to have more foodie treats at Christmas-time or do you attempt to spread out/avoid the scoffing of selection boxes? What about offering healthy alternatives? Any tips you can share on managing this? What sort of foods have you found work well as healthy alternatives?

If you have a child aged 3 or under, how (if at all) would you adapt your Christmas dinner for them? Do you have any general food tips for Christmas with a little one?

What's your favourite memory of your DCs first Christmas meal?

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MNHQ

The children eat the same as us over Christmas. I'll help my youngest by cutting things up for him if he asks.

One of my sons is very good at saying when he's had enough chocolate or sweets for one day. The other one would eat chocolate all day if we let him. So, we keep them out of reach.

My favourite memories (helped with the aid of photos) are the dc's in little reindeer outfits my brother bought for them. Another one is my youngest at Christmas dinner - he demanded everyone give him the hats from crackers. He has about 5 on his head in one photo.

3 year old DD will have the same Christmas dinner as everyone else including cake, pudding but apart from the odd advent calendar chocolate, she won't be eating loads of junk. 1 year old DS will also eat the same - no chocolates - and everything chopped up nice and small!

It's a little bit early for us. We are expecting up first baby this Christmas so it will be a very special time. I think we will have to adapt our Christmas dinner this year because of this. I have ordered some ready to go Christmas food so that when ever the baby makes an appearance we can still have our Christmas dinner. Next year will be different though. I don't intend to change our plans, our child will have to learn about the way we do things at Christmas. And a few treats at Christmas never hurt us as children!

I let the kids eat their chocolate selection box all in one go (when its gone its gone) but apart from that we dont go mad over food at xmas

I remember xmas day meal in a restaurant with ds1 aged 1 and ds2 aged 2. we kept them amused through the whole meal but it was haaaaard work. lovely memories though

Are you the sort of parent who allows your children to have more foodie treats at Christmas-time or do you attempt to spread out/avoid the scoffing of selection boxes?

Yes, I probably don't try and manage this, but I do hide chocolate

What about offering healthy alternatives?

Maybe - they mostly just eat what is around

Any tips you can share on managing this?

Only buy food you are happy for them to eat

What sort of foods have you found work well as healthy alternatives?

Tinned peaches, grapes, breadsticks

If you have a child aged 3 or under, how (if at all) would you adapt your Christmas dinner for them?

Well they probably won't eat the veg, but I can live in hope. So no adaptions here ...

Do you have any general food tips for Christmas with a little one?

Yes. Search their bags for random chocolate that they may have been given and hide it or eat it

What's your favourite memory of your DCs first Christmas meal?

my DS sitting in a bouncy chair with a christmas hat on!

hadn't thought of this but we will have to adapt chritmas dinner this year because ds2 (2) has gone completely off potatoes

My favourite memory of my son's first Christmas meal (in 2012 aged 8 weeks) is that he slept through it and I was able to eat mine holding both knife and fork (a rare occurrence). This year we have already had a mini-Christmas dinner for visiting relatives and he ate the lot - smoked salmon starter, turkey, ham, sprouts and potatoes. He loves his food!

my little one is 20 months and she will just have Christmas dinner chopped up as finger food. She loves roast dinners and Christmas dinner is just like a big roast dinner.

Last year we took our hand blender to granny's where we spent Christmas and she had Christmas dinner pureed up with a bit of gravy. Again she loved it!

I keep little snacks to hand as she can't always wait until the same time as us for Christmas lunch. And she often prefers an organix fruit pot for pudding rather than any of the main puddings we have.

I do let mine all have more treats than usual - things like advent chocolate treats and chocolates from their stockings but i do think it does make them a bit more hyper but that could just be the Christmas excitement! xxx

1. Yes, Christmas is a celebration so if DS (3) eats a few more treats then that's absolutely fine. It's the only day of the year that chocolate is allowed to be part of breakfast.
2. Our DC love fruit so I don't need to offer any healthy alternatives.
3. Cutting up fruit and veg into bite size pieces and making funny faces helped get DS into fruit. Making smoothies and naming them pixie and elf juice also helped.
4. Aged 3, DS just gets smaller portions of what we're having. DD (under 1) will get some of ours as finger food but also some mashed up.
5. With so much food about, Christmas is the perfect time for little ones to explore new flavours and textures. Having DD in the kitchen with me in her high chair, I offer bits of what I'm making.
6. Favourite memory of DS first Christmas was that he first tried solids on Christmas Day.

We do have more foodie treats at Christmas. Though DS1 can no longer eat chocolate or citrus, so that rules out most of what you can buy. I've still made DS1 friendly Christmas puds and cake, though and will probably make him some mince pies - I must get around to making some approximation of mincemeat that he can safely eat, since most of the shop bought stuff has lemon juice in (or glucose-fructose syrup - yuck!)

My boys are a long way past 3, but they just had what we had, at Christmas, same as any other day. Christmas dinner was the first meal we ever got DS2 to accept - almost 8 months old and a bit of parsnip, carrot and turkey whizzed up roughly with a tiny amount of gravy proved to be the breakthrough that persuaded him to try something and not gag before it even touched his lips.

I take a pretty laid back approach to treats around Christmas and allow them to eat a fair amount but make sure that it doesn't impact on meal times too much otherwise they go a bit loopy!

And for Christmas Lunch (we eat at about 1pm) I just put out exactly the same as everyone else, just less of it. But sprouts get a huge thumbs down every year from both the DCs, despite me putting them on the plate!

Apart from allergies we are not adapting Christmas dinner at all for DD1 (10) and Dd2 (1). They both love roast dinners and so they will just eat as usual. The only concession I might make to Dd2 is that I probably will feed her something snacky before we sit down to eat as we will likely be sitting down outside of her usual mealtimes.
DD1 will have more chocs etc but she tends to self regulate with snacky foods, eg we still have sweets in the cupboard left over from Halloween!
DD2 may have more treats etc as there will naturally be more about than usual and also I think because of her age, I would probably have been more cautious about letting her have things like Christmas cake if she was younger.

Are you the sort of parent who allows your children to have more foodie treats at Christmas-time or do you attempt to spread out/avoid the scoffing of selection boxes? What about offering healthy alternatives? Any tips you can share on managing this? What sort of foods have you found work well as healthy alternatives?

My kid is 1.5 so easy for me to manage. No chocolate advent calendar, occassional sweet treat if we're out and everyone is having one. If she gets any chocolate for christmas it will be spirited away and 'shared' with mummy

If you have a child aged 3 or under, how (if at all) would you adapt your Christmas dinner for them? Do you have any general food tips for Christmas with a little one?

not at all

What's your favourite memory of your DCs first Christmas meal?

an unprecedentedly long nap on xmas eve whiche nabled me to get all teh food prep done

Christmas is a time for eating what you want! We let the kids off with treats, within reason! I encourage them to eat more healthy stuff but they definitely get more treats then usual. I really dont mind when its only for one day.
my youngest is almost 2 and she will get exactly the same as us. Last year was her first proper christmas meal. She loved it! She even started pinching stuff off my plate :)

I have got a colouring-in table cloth for my 3 who are aged 3 and under. I think I'll not adapt the dinner for them, just let them eat what they want from what's available. There'll be so much food around, they won't starve!

We haven't relaxed 'the rules' at all really. My LO's, 5 and 18 months, have their advent calender choclates after their breakfast, not before. But they know that so it's not a problem for them. Then Xmas day, I don't actually give them selection boxes, that sounds a bit boring, but I buy them a chocolate xmas themed treat on a stick (lolly) and Santa puts one in their stocking, then thats it really. I would rather put toys and puzzles in their stockings than fill with chocolate.
They eat a normal xmas meal full of veggies and the usual, with the family, the only thing I do relax on is sitting up the table after diner. Usually they sit until we've all finished but xmas day is way too exciting to be sat at a table, plus the adults sit for ages chatting, so they can get down and get on with playing with their new toys as soon as they've finished (or at least eaten a decent amount)
Then if anyone else has brought them treats they will probably have one or two in the afternoon.

My toddler is 2 years old. She could eat the same as the rest of us but we would need to hide the gravy as she absolutely loves it as well as ketchup, mango cutney -any condiments in general!

Christmas pud without the brandy for her too of course!

We don't adapt the meal for our 4 and 5 yr olds. We don't use salt much and they just eat the same as us. They have chocolates and treats like the rest us and they do tend to know when they've had too much!

I do allow my dd(5) to have more treats this time of year - I do, so I can't very well say that she can't. However, it's all about moderation. It helps me be a little more controlled when I think about what I am teaching her. Selection boxes etc are discouraged from relatives - I'd rather they put money into an account. If she does get any (and she usually does) then I take them and put them in a box on the top of the kitchen cupboard and I will make sure that she can't binge on them. She has a treat when we do. It can take some time to finish them all.

My dad did take on board what I said about healthy treats rather than sweets (he is the worst offender imo) but he has now switched to giving her cereal bars. Probably worse than chocolate with all the sugar and additives - but his heart's in the right place. Anything too awful finds its way into the bin - she doesn't remember.

Fortunately dd thinks that exotic fruit is a treat - so every now and then I'll bring something new and exciting home from the supermarket - recently we had persimmon and she loved that.

If you have a child aged 3 or under, how (if at all) would you adapt your Christmas dinner for them? Do you have any general food tips for Christmas with a little one?

My one year old son loves roast dinners - frankly it makes ideal finger food - the veg is in hand sized chunks and either boiled steamed or roasted and the meat is tender and you can shred it for them. I don't adapt it at all - the only thing I don't do is cover everything in gravy as the mess is bad enough and also the gravy is a bit salty for him.

The best Christmas meal memory was dd's third Christmas when she could eat it unassisted and really took part. This is ds's second Christmas but he was only 5 wks old last year so I'm looking forward to him eating with us.

We have a fussy 3yo DS so I will probably be cooking pasta for his Christmas dinner We also have a 1yo DD and I always cook with her in mind so she has whatever we are eating. I'm quite strict about junk food but DH is more relaxed so they'll probably both have had more chocolate than is good for them by lunchtime anyway! DD is getting baby crack (blueberries) in her stocking so hopefully that will fill up some space before she spots DS' chocolate coins...

DD was only a tiny newborn last year but my favourite memory of DS' first Christmas is a family meal at my parents' house where he munched his way through a lot of beef and looked most confused when we laughed.

My 15 mo will be having the same Christmas dinner as us. Including trifle for dessert. It will be messy but she will enjoy it. She has been eating pretty much the same as us since she was 6mo as we did BLW.

We've even allowed her a chocolate advent calander (brought by Grandparents). Actually if a baby food manufacturer had done a toddler advent we would have got one (think mini star shaped treats like the Organix gingerbread men which she devours). She isn't keen on the white chocolate one but likes breaking the foil and fishing out the treat. It normally gets sucked and discarded though.

Ds aged 17 months ate anything - I kept him away from most sweet stuff but being mobile he tracked down all the mince pies and Christmas cake at ILs and scoffed loads. Sadly he became a hugely fussy eater shortly after that so last 2 years he's had Yorkshire puddings for Christmas dinner.

I put no more candy in the stockings than I'm happy for the kids to eat at once - about half a packet of chocolate coins or similar - most went in the morning but they do save some. We only bring out the boxes of chocolates after the kids are in bed! We tend to have dinner, then a walk, then pudding, and a mince pie or cake later, so it's not like there's huge amounts of sweet temptation all the time for the children.

This year we have no kitchen but as ds just wants Yorkshires and dd will eat lots of any meat and not care what it is, we're having a simple meal with lots of pre-prepared bits. Toddler dd will have hers cut up more. We tend to have dinner, then a walk, then pudding, and a mince pie or cake later, so it's not like there's huge amounts of sweet temptation all the time for the children - running in the park means there's no reason to restrict their food.

I think my daughter will probably sleep through her first Christmas dinner! As many others have said when she is older I don't envisage adapting it.

I have grand plans about my daughter not eating sweets or chocolate until she is much older, but we will see how that lasts when reality kicks in!

If treats are on offer i let ds 13m try a bit, but that's a general rule not specific to Christmas. He reacts to caffeine in breast milk still so won't be having chocolate for a long time yet.

He'll eat what we eat, i don't know why you'd need to adapt the food? Timings yes, he eats at 4:30 for a 6:00 bedtime. But the actual food, no. Just leave off the gravy!

I don't think there's ever been an issue with our DCs and the Christmas lunch. When they were toddlers they ate loads of turkey, yorkshire puds and veggies...now they eat everthing.....It's one of the few meals there were never foodie issues with!