This isn't something we've really dealt with much since we don't do dessert, really. (At least we don't do it for Austin!
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) He gets treats sometimes but they're not really associated with meals.
Tonight we got take out from a place with a nice bakery and Austin went with DH to get the food. They picked out a couple of cookies to take home. I think this was when Austin learned the word cookie!
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He was all excited about cookies when he got home.
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We sat down for dinner and he was pretty rapidly playing with his food, throwing food to the dog, and other such signs that generally end a meal. I said dinner would be over if he kept throwing food and not eating nicely and he threw some more food. I wanted to just end the meal and forgo dessert but DH felt like we'd talked about the cookies so much that we couldn't not give him some. At this point, Austin is screaming about the cookies since I've said dinner is going to be over. So then I say that he has to eat some more of his dinner to have cookies (I don't like the idea of making them eat when they're not hungry but they can't just eat cookies and not dinner so
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). This is met with more screaming. I try to get down and talk to him about eating more healthy food before cookies. More screaming. Baby starts screaming. DH and I look at each other with the 'what the hell are we doing' face. Then we give Austin cookies.
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Screaming promptly stops, of course. Not our proudest moment.
Aside from sticking with my original plan, which was that we just don't do dessert, how do you handle dessert? Especially when they don't eat or act up at dinner? Should I have just dealt with the screaming and said no cookies even though DH got him all psyched up about them?