Sugar

[Sarah O]

Hey guys!

I've been following Super Baby Food for my two 10 month olds.  I had the idea to start making them muffins as a finger food/portable food.  There are lots of nutritious recipes for baby/toddler muffins (I don't mean muffins that contain babies  ) but even the most healthful ones have some sugar.  How bad is it to introduce (refined) sugar and am I being unrealistic in trying to keep it out their diet at this age?  How strict are all of you about sugar, especially those of you who do Super Baby Food?  Is there an age when it's suddenly OK?  Mine have had zero other than natural sugars in fruits.

Thanks!!

Sarah

[notenoughshelfspace]

I would think it is OK. I have been using very small amounts  since she was about 12 months old. In muffins, a little in her tomato sauce etc... The minuscule amounts given i the recipe books will not do any harm; if you feed your babies any jarred food, rusks etc... they all have sugar. I am not fighting the battle to totally eliminate sugar. As far as I am concerned it is unrealistic and I also do not want to make it so forbidden that she craves it even more.

[Sarah O]

Thanks!  Yeah, I've managed to avoid rusks, jarred food, etc.. so far but I know this can't go on forever...they're going to encounter sugar at some point I just wasn't sure if there was a particular age that you were supposed to get them to (ideally) before introducing it.  With a chocoholic mama like me they're definitely bound to encounter it sooner than later, LOL!!

Thanks again..

Sarah

[daisymelan]

I think the ideal age is on their first bday when they dig into their first cake!  That's my plan anyway.

LOL  LOL

 

[Marisa's Mom]

With a chocoholic mama like me they're definitely bound to encounter it sooner than later, LOL!!

LOL, hey that's me!

We would like to minimize the sugar in DD's diet, but we know this will be a challenge as she gets older. If she sees us eating anything, she wants her share of a nibble too. So eating sweets in front of her sets a bad example. Sigh...   I'm a bit more lenient than DH though. My thinking is that if we hold back and make a big deal about having no sweets, then she'll be conditioned to want sweets even more. So I'm thinking of offering her sweets sparingly so they're nothing new to her, and hopefully she'll just view it as a normal part of her diet, somehing that she can have in very small amounts.

I've seen some moms give their younger toddler a big serving of ice cream at a restaurant, stuff like that. Well that's not what I plan to do. That's way too much, I think. I just let DD nibble a few spoonfuls off mine, and that's it, no more. When I ate a snack size chocolate bar (halloween candy size), I gave DD 2  pea size nibbles and that was it.

[Marisa's Mom]

I think the ideal age is on their first bday when they dig into their first cake!  That's my plan anyway.

I guess I was a meanie at DD's 1st bday, since we didn't set out a slice in front of her in her high chair to take that quintessential photo of cake smeared all over her hands & face. We did give her a few bites of cake though.

[tylersmommy]

I had a lot of the same issues when Tyler was younger (and still do!). I followed Super Baby Food as well and I was super paranoid about sugar, especially as he approached 1 yr old. When we'd go to playgroup, everyone would get out their kids' snacks...a bag of Cheetos, a chocolate bar, or cookies. I'd get out Tyler's fruit and wonder if I was being realistic. Seriously, the only food he ate that had ANY sugar in it was Yobaby.

He got his first taste of sweets on his 1st birthday when he got birthday cake, and I seriously couldn't watch him eat it! Since then, we make it a point in our house not to eat junky food in front of him, which has actually resulted in us having less of it around. And if he chooses not to eat the healthy meal that's in front of him, we don't give him something sweet just for the sake of getting him to eat. He goes hungry until he's ready to have a healthy snack later. As he's gotten older, he's gotten more curious and wanted to try new things, and we've let him. He can have a bite of a cookie I'm eating or share an occasional ice cream, but his treats are spread few and far between so he doesn't think to ask for them day to day. If we're at a friend's and they offer him a cupcake, I'll let him have it or we'll share it, but we don't have them at home (not that he knows about, anyway!). We don't make a big deal of it or label any kinds of foods "good" or "bad," he's just figured out that treats aren't an everyday thing.

Now that Tyler's 2.5, I feel good about the way we've chosen to do things. I doubted myself a lot along the way and wondered if we were weird, but I love that he happily fills his tummy with healthy foods and gets more excited about raisins than he does about cookies. So for those of you hoping to minimize sugar...go for it!