A rant about the stepkids' diet...anyone else feel helpless

[SteppedOnStepMum]

Want to preface by saying I have become very fond of the kids aged 8 and six. They have called me mum from the beginning and I have been in their lives for more than three years. But I have no control over what they eat and it annoys and upsets me. They get cans of cola after school and eat only processed food and then they fart-disgusting smells that shouldn't really come from such small people. Their mum and also my husband's mum think it's normal to give them this much crap.
My husband makes them try new stuff but we are living with our in-laws at moment so it's even worse. My MIL is lovely but eats crap too and thinks its her right to 'spoil' them. They get ice lollies and crisps at 9am. Please someone tell me this isn't normal.

Would it help if they watched healthy eating cartoons/programmes? My DD6 loves those informative cartoons.
Also, Would they be into making their own pizzas with you and DH? What input does their school have about food? It must be hard to watch them eating badly.

TBH while you are living with her theres not much you can do .She loves them and its her way of showing it! When you move out you can feed them your way .

Are you planning on having kids with DH, Op?

If so it’s going to be tricky enforcing that your DC have one thing (ie healthy food) whilst DSC eat crap.

I don’t think there’s much you can do ATM but I would gently raise with your DH and say you’re worried about their health. Not much else you can do.

No I won't be having kids, I'm older than DH and have an adult son who had a very different diet.
I suppose I'm selfish in wanting them to eat better because I don't want to have to deal with the consequences of their poor diet.
It's bad enough the smells that come out of them, never really heard of kids emitting such toxic fumes. Also the time and money to deal with bad teeth and other health issues.
Gran just thinks diet plays no part in health and DH is terrified they won't stay with him if he is strict over their food.

Why shouldnt they call her mum

Children do whats comfortable and they are capable of understanding one mum and another mum

Lots of children with foster carers call the carer mum and their mum mum as well

I would be very put off my husband if he was this lazy with his children

One of the many reasons I split with my ex is that he seemed to find fun in feeding the kids stuff directly in opposition to my way of feeding them. He still does it now on the weeks they are with him. He has no clue what's nutritious or good for kids. I just have to fill them with home made good food when they are with me. It's just one of those things.
One thing I will say though is that the ages your SCs are at, is well known as the vile and profuse age of gas emssions. It does calm down

I suspect your Dh doesn't really know better himself as his mother has a poor diet.

Once you are in your own home I would limit canned drinks to once a day only on weekends, desserts on weekdays are yogurt and/or fruit and vegetables served with every meal even if they get left - use hidden vegetables in things like bolognaise and chilli. Get them to start help cooking, this can really help eg at that age my youngest would make her her versions of hummus by blitzing canned chickpeas in my blender and adding different flavours, let them experiment, play around with food in this way to get them interested. Lots of different raw veggies to go with the aforementioned hummus plus breadsticks went down well.

Getting the older one to make pasta sauces is age appropriate too - all about sparking an interest and pride in what they eat

How do you know what they eat at their mom's house? You mention this a few times, but unless she is sending you or your husband an itemised list, you presumably only have the kids' version of it that they tell you, which at such a young age may well not be accurate.

Their grandmother is not going to have such a big influence over their diet going forwards either - that has only happened because she has kindly let you live with her for a while for whatever reason.

So rather than worrying a) what their Mom feeds them (because you cannot control and cannot know this) or b) what their gran feeds them (because this will become a much more occasional thing) I would focus your attention solely on what their dad feeds them. This is the only aspect you can know about and have an impact on. Agree with him what constitutes an appropriate diet for his kids, if he is open to this discussion .

I suppose in brief I am saying, it's nice that you worry about these kids of course, but only pick the battles that are winnable and yours to have... (If that makes sense). Good luck.

Your DH could do some responsible parenting and tell his Mum that this is way too much sugar, and ‘treating’ them means once when they visit, not all day every day when they live there.

Honestly: this is your DH’s issue to address.

But will become yours if you are planning for a child of your own.

Anyway, keep up the fresh food alongside the junk, so that they are used to it once you can move out from ILs.

Oh I know I can't do anything about it I just wanted to vent and to see if anyone else was in the same boat. I know what they eat at their mums because my DH told me what she would give them when they were younger. He loves cooking and has always done it as his mum can't cook/ won't cook. He has a sweet tooth but majority of our food is from scratch.
I'm not averse to cakes and treats myself but its definitely in moderation.
Maybe it's a phase and they will grow out of it and I will wonder why I thought it was a big deal. I think the younger one would like to cook alongside me and i have a fab smoothie recipe using veg and banana that tastes sweet. As PP said, baby steps

Of course this has to turn into husband bashing even though the problem lies with two women

OP, as others have said, bide your time, you'll soon be out of there. Lots of people have problems with their own parents dismissing and disregarding their requests for feeding their child good food, largely your husband could manage this when you live away from his parents but while you're under their roof, you both have less control.

You’re not being selfish OP, it’s an admirable concern but you won’t succeed if that’s not shared by the parents.

I love the idea of fitting in a small box, is he part cat ?

Can you and your dh plan to teach them how to make a meal. But start with known wins- homemade pizza followed by a dessert (fruit based).

Not healthy but the idea is to engage them in the task first and by degrees take one piece and make a healthier version. Slowly this hopefully will appeal to them.

I had this with my step children many years ago. Told them they could have whatever they wanted. If they wanted pizza, i made one from scratch, if they wanted chicken strips then i would make them from fresh chicken breast. If they wanted sausages they had to be good quality from the butcher. It took months but eventually they started to help and except new tastes and textures. Within a year they ate everything we ate. One is now a great cook and won't allow highly processed foods such as chicken nugget, potato waffles or crap sausages in his house. Stick with it and get them involved in choosing, shopping and preparing.

The thing is that healthy food is delicious. I wouldn't push things like carrot sticks on them unless they came with hummus or at least a nice dressing.

Homemade chips and hamburgers are at least much better than frozen stuff. You could substitute smoothies and fruit drinks for at least one can of coke a day, even if the fruit drinks start off with lots of sugar.

Good luck, OP.

It's sad your MIL thinks that food is unconnected with health. Ask any vet how important proper food is for animal health. My cat had two surgeries until I changed her diet and has been fine ever since.

I was in the same boat for 3 years but we separated in the end. I just couldn't take that I was trying to help these children and no-one else gave a monkeys. So I gave up as I was fighting a losing battle and it was affecting my own child diet.
The children ate so many sweets and in large volumes. The youngest, 4, had to have 11 rotten teeth removed after drinking sweet drinks since a baby, I took him for the operation and it was horrendous. He was inconsolable afterwards for 6 hours. The family thought it was ok as all the children had gone through this tooth removal at pre-school age. Shocking.
Mt attempts were: I would put a plate of sweet alternatives, strawberries, apricots, satsuma segments and they would be gone in a flash. I managed to find out what each child liked in terms of healthy stuff: cucumbers, scrambled eggs, bananas then they would be happy eating those for breakfast. Then I set about turning their favourite junk food into homemade maccy d's, southern fried chicken, etc.
Couldn't get any of them near a piece of fish though, as 'daddy said it was rank', or cheese 'mummy hates cheese'.
Parents/grandparents have a lot to answer for.
It should be a crime to give children long term health conditions and rotten teeth.

forgot to add - none of the family cleaned their teeth either. It took me 18 months to get the 4 year old to use a toothbrush

I think you’ll have to try and gently move away from it in your new home. Like try making home made chicken nuggets or put a couple of chicken nuggets on their plates with normal food too. It’s very hard - when kids get a taste for highly processed, high sugar, high fat foods - they are really going to push back at normal food.

If your husband loves cooking and you guys always cook from scratch then it will be fine, surely, as soon as you have moved out from gran's house? He can cook with his sons, you can both agree what snacks they have, etc.

He split up with their mom more than three years ago I think? So things may well have changed in that time in terms of what she feeds them - anyway you can't know and certainly can't control it, so why worry about it?

I think one of the hallmarks of successful co-parenting is not sweating the small stuff - one of the MOST important things for these children"s emotional, and therefore their overall health, is two parents who maintain a positive and respectful, cooperative relationship with each other despite not being together any longer.

This would be an excellent thing for you to support your husband in providing for these children you clearly care for - it matters even more, I would say, than her feeding them too much sugar (if she does).

I found this really difficult about being a sp op as you feel totally powerless and you are forced to see children you care about not being taken care of properly. I used to cook with my step children and found they if 'they' had made it they would be wanting to try it. We would also smell the jars of spices and see if they could guess what it was.

They did also like fruit so I would buy a vast amount of it for when they were at ours to at least get some vitamins in them and just leave them out for them to have. If you're wanting to cut the sugar intake down berries are best.