For those of you who allow treats...portion sizes and rules?

[Tweakster]

So of course F has been exposed to all things refined and nasty.  There's no doubt about it, it's part of life and it is considered a treat by many.  I know the forum is very - diverse - when it comes to food so I hope this doesn't raise hackles    I know the stuff is bad.  I'm not a perfect mother   

DH questioned me offering F a Kinder Egg tonight (he got a 4 pack for Christmas and it's the 2nd one) because F 'didn't ask for it'.  He thought we should think about instituting a rule...maybe once a week or something.

So there are times where F WILL ask for stuff and I may or may not give him something - frankly we don't have that much in the house so there's not much for him to ask for.  Usually I will deflect with 'nope but here are some strawberries' or whatever - he rarely makes a big fuss about it.  He really doesn't get it at daycare because I told her not to.  She does her own baking and occasionally he'll get a muffin or a scone.  Then there are times when I just surprise him with a treat...just because.  Tonight was Friday night and he ate well at dinner and I felt like he might enjoy a bit of chocolate.

So what are the rules you have and what is a 'treat' in your house?  How big is a portion size to you?  Like is one Kinder egg too much...would you normally only allow half?  Just trying to get a sense of what other 3yos are getting for treats.

[Mashi]

Kinder eggs are a food group over here.      

Food wise, we approach everything about eating in balance.  About 80/20 is our aim.  Sugar, treats, candy, baking, fried stuff .... it is all an acceptable part of life for our family, in moderation.  If we are eating healthy 80% of the time, then I don't worry about the other 20%.  Life is for living! 

One of the websites I often turn to for eating issues with DS is mainly focused on picky eaters but it has a basic philosophy of 'how to feed your child' - ie not just the what but then when and how as well.  This is the approach DH and I generally take with what she calls 'forbidden foods'
http://www.ellynsatter.com/using-forbidden-food-i-51.html
We don't do dessert on the plate at dinner but when lunch includes yogurt or quark then it is given to him with his meal. Sometimes he eats it first and that is okay.  And I do sometimes put out something sweet for his morning snack, on days when he is home.  A bakery item, as we don't keep packaged cookies and such in the house so perhaps on a day when DH picks up a pastry or bakery cookies for instance.  And we don't make a big deal of it - here is your snack, with no oohing and making a big deal of it being a treat.  We don't have soda at all in the house, neither of us drink it.

I have found that rules with treats are really hard to implement unless they are the same rules as you have for the entire family.  I can't bake a cake and then tell DS that he gets one small piece per day when he looks and sees half of the cake gone, kwim? So for us he just has the same rules as DH and I...when it is there we eat it in reasonable moderation.

[Tweakster]

Yeah the interesting thing is that he never sees us eat 'treats' and I say treats meaning stuff that isn't a fruit, vegetable or part of our meal.  Unless it's a special event, like people are over for a meal or a party or we are somewhere else.  We really do try to keep it from him.  And from ourselves lol

It's definitely not something that we have with our meal normally.  We don't do 'and now time for dessert'.  Occasionally when we are having family chill out and we have time between dinner and bedtime (rare), I offer him a cookie or a chocolate Santa or a small mini Smarties or whatever - I don't make a big deal either, just 'would you like x Finn?'.  He asks quite a bit for chocolate or cookies or cake.  He's got a sweet tooth.  But it's not something he knows we have or can locate them in the kitchen.  I simply say we don't have any.  Down the road, when he cottons on to where stuff is kept, we'll have to have a plan.

[koe2moe]

i just want to share that i am the worst junk food eater in this family, hmm ok.. DH and I are both AWFUL!  I would eat half a bag of family sized chips and DH half a marzipan tart easily in one setting after DS is in bed.

What do we do with DS?  He gets a coconut ring every time i cut his hair, which keeps him still with a movie for 1.5 h.  That I consider bad treat but makes life easy.   We dont feel that chocolate is so bad for him as opposed to just plain sugar, like chuppa chop.  Over Saint Nicholas, his birthday and Christmas, he got way more chocolates just because it is the time of year but I ould think one kinder egg is fine, it doesnt really have that much in it.

What are the reasons you want to restrict or set rules to?  If you think about why you want to do, perhaps it will help you and Tom set the rules or guidelines rather for your family. 

[Mom to M&M]

Every night my kids get offered "dessert" but most of the time that is fruit or cereal (and the cereals are healthier ones, not total junk). But on Fridays we do special dessert for Shabbat so we either go out for ice cream (ices for Matthew since he's dairy free) or I bake cookies or the like. Occasionally during the week they will have a treat too - which for Matthew (2.5) is usually 10 or so chocolate chip animal cookies (I buy Barbara's brand which is rather impressive ingredient-wise relatively speaking), or something like that.

What is a kinder egg?

[koe2moe]

oh lol it is a thin chocolate egg with a toy inside... 

[barbaraz78]

Hummm.. I'm a junk food eater too ...
We also don't have rules about chocolate, cookies and candies, at least for now. As long as F eats healthy things during the day, if he asks a cookie or a candy because we are out and he sees those, or he sees us eating them, I simply give him some. Of course, if the time of the day is the right one and it does not have effect on the subsequent meal. In that case I tell him he has to wait until after meal, and then if he asks (and he ate well) I generally give it.
I would probably give him half of a kinder egg (never given before, but DS is younger and ate the first chocolate not so long ago). Ice cream is another thing, I LOVE ice cream and consider it not really bad food, so we give him it as afternoon snack once a week during summer.

[Mashi]

What is a kinder egg?

Contraband stuff in the USA!!  Someone in Canada got arrested at the Can/US border a couple of years afo (made worldwide news) because she had some kinder eggs in her car and was taking them as gifts to the States!  One of my friends here who is from the US has sent them home regularly to her friends and family over there and 90% of the time the parcels do not arrive because they are seized by customs!!!  Which of course only makes them even more prized and valuable.   (The issue inthe US is that it is illegal to have anything inedible inside something edible hence the ban...)

They are thin, hollow chocolate eggs, coated on the inside with white chocolate, and then inside the hollow part is a plastic egg that you break open and there is a miniature toy inside. They are about the size of a real egg, but thin hollow chocolate.

[barbaraz78]

Contraband stuff in the USA!!

I didn't know that! They were really an event when I was a child and my parents bought them for me
so, I guess, in the US easter eggs (chocolate eggs, usually much bigger than the kinder eggs and with a surprise inside) do not exist either for Easter! Or maybe they exist only here in Italy...

[~Sara~]

Contraband stuff in the USA!!

I know, it's sad  We got them a few years ago, but now they've said the toys are too small and alas, no more *sob*

Over the holidays, Aaron got more treats/goodies/cookies/chocolate than he normally does.  Now that that time is over, we're back to less dessert kind of stuff.  He gets a couple of M&Ms every now and then, and he gets Nilla Wafers for part of his snack a day or two a week.  He loves fruit, so he gets that a ton and I think that makes up for anything else.

[Katet]

From an early age we had a 2 sugar foods rule - sugar foods included jam(jelly) on toast, juice/cordial, chocolate etc. Because IMHO from reading fruit juice is actually as evil or worse than chocolate.  my children were allowed a pick of what they wanted for the day.

Now they are older I have the "treats" for the week & if they all go in the first day... well they are gone. DS1 loves coke, we have an agreement that he can have it on occasion, as long as his teeth are really well cleaned & the dentist tells me he is looking after his teeth... he also has to accumulate enough exercise before/after to use up the huge amounts of sugar. Being older he is able to use an app on my phone to work out balance of the foods he eats so he is getting better at working out what the true value of foods are in terms of exercise to burn off the calories.

I am pretty bad about sugar foods so having the '2 sugar foods" rule really did help all of us work out the foods we would enjoy the most.

[squeakersmum]

Mmmmm. Kinder Egg Yum

My idea of treat portion size and DHs are vastly different. Case in point - today DH bought some shortbread biscuits in a cafe when we stopped to feed A. I said no thanks as we'd had lunch less than 2 hours before. He gave B 2!!! Excessive in my opinion. BUT I figure I have total control over what he has normally

TBH I would usually give DS half a kinder egg because he would have it at the end of a meal.

Also, DH and I are both clinically obese and lack portion control. I'd love for our children to see a treat as just a little thing.

We don't have a rule but we could do with implementing one! (I think that much is clear!!!) So I'll be reading along

By the way I had to LOL. It is indeed diverse

[Roseii]

I can't believe that about kinder eggs, crazy!!!
My girls get treats but so far rarely demand them and consider raisins and yoghurts treats so that's good

[Tweakster]

Well the interesting part is that DH has ZERO sweet tooth, to him bliss is a Marmite sandwich and a pack of crisps.  Although to him lunch is a Mars bar and a bag of crisps - and used to be a litre of Coke a day...until I came along.  I myself have hormone swings that make me literally want to kill someone for chocolate pretty much all the time...I fantasize about it (the chocolate...not the killing lol).  But I am working on that whole aspect of my life and I'm doing much much much better.  But I still have very little willpower.  

Growing up dessert was revered in our house...my grandma was a baker.  Meals at Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas were more about what pies and cakes we would be eating...and what junk I would get in my stocking.  Up until recently my mom always bought me a Laura Secord egg for Easter.  My mom is a hopeless junk food fanatic...cakes, cookies, I always had a Vachon cake in my lunches.  I have come a long way from those days of tinned ravioli and Jos Louis but yet, eating a whole chocolate bar is completely normal to me.  These people that eat half and put the rest away have my total respect...in addition to jealousy lol  Mind you I have bars of dark chocolate still in my cupboard because I really can only eat a small strip at a time...but my passion is milk chocolate, dark is only because I am desperate.

Finn is showing signs of being a chocolate gobbler like his mommy  but in reality, he eats so well even 90% of the time...so an 80/20 or even a 90/10 rule suits us.  Whereas DH would prefer a zero tolerance rule.  So culturally we differ...we're DIVERSE (that's for you Steph lol)

I would rather not have a rule but just do it on a whim so F doesn't think that it's a 'treat' for any real occasion but just a chance happening on a particular day.  DH wants to keep me in check.  

I had no idea about the Kinder Eggs!  Yeah, the toys really are small and flimsy.  So definitely a choking hazard for the younger kiddies.

[squeakersmum]

I had no idea about the Kinder Eggs!  Yeah, the toys really are small and flimsy.  So definitely a choking hazard for the younger kiddies.

It's only fairly recently that the inner egg that houses the toy has had the two halves attached. When I was growing up there were two separate halves and you used your teeth to separate them!

We have a treat box in the cupboard for DS who got an OBSCENE amount for Christmas but so far only DH and I have eaten any!

Also, as an aside - Abi was given chocolate for Christmas by several different people. She's 8 months old!!!!! Why people? Why???