Mom Feeds Child Junk Food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you paying her to watch your child? If she is essentially your employee, then you have every right to say what she can and can't do during that time.

If you don't pay her, then she is doing you a HUGE favor by providing you with childcare 2 days a week! Don't accept the favor, pay someone else to do it.

Very easy.

Op here. Yes, we are paying her, and she we pay MIL even though she rarely accepts payment. We often provide MIL with a spa day or a nice dinner when she refuses to take the pay or just uses it on DS. MIL is more understanding and agrees with our form of parenting. We are thinking of hiring a sitter ( DS will go into daycare in 2 months). We had to end this babysitting before when my mom thought it was okay to let him watch hours of tv at only 2 months old.

Your 2 month old was not capable of seeing the TV. You sound overbearing.

[Anonymous]

Grandma spoiling with tons of junk food is cute when Grandma rolls into town for short visits 2-3 times a year. It doesn't work when Grandma is a regular caregiver.

I would not use her again as a babysitter. Let her do her thing on occasional special outings at a frequency with which you're comfortable.

[Anonymous]

Put your foot down and sternly tell her, she needs to feed him the healthy food he is used to, or you can't let her babysit any more.

I have 4 kids, all very picky eaters, and twins with severe allergies. I can tell you once they get the taste for sugar and junk food, it is almost impossible to get them back to a healthy diet. Sugar is like cocaine for little kids. The highs and lows affect their moods terribly.
I would get rid of all sugar and sweets in my house entirely, but my DH is like your mom and keeps bringing it in. Constant battle

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Put your foot down and sternly tell her, she needs to feed him the healthy food he is used to, or you can't let her babysit any more.

I have 4 kids, all very picky eaters, and twins with severe allergies. I can tell you once they get the taste for sugar and junk food, it is almost impossible to get them back to a healthy diet. Sugar is like cocaine for little kids. The highs and lows affect their moods terribly.
I would get rid of all sugar and sweets in my house entirely, but my DH is like your mom and keeps bringing it in. Constant battle

I completely agree. Some might call me crazy, but we eat zero junk food in our house. That doesn't mean DC doesn't get snacks -- she gets yogurt melts, Annie's bunny grahams, things like that. but I always make sure her meals are balanced, with foods she enjoys from every food group.

I would have a serious problem if my daughter was eating mcdonald's and other junk food on a regular basis.

we're lucky to have the financial ability to afford to healthy food. to me, choosing to give our kids junk is neglecting basic parental responsibility.

[Anonymous]

The typical two week childcare trial period is up mom. We gave it a go, but find you are not a good fit for our childcare needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like my diet and I grew up to be slim, perfectly healthy (just had complete blood work done!) and a Division 1 athlete. I’m actually getting McNuggets for lunch. Live a little.

I love you common sense. I really do.

Just want to add, Grandma does what Grandma wants. We have no rules. Don't like it, find another crunchy to sit for you. Kids need pampering. You all sound like mean mothers denying your kids of life's greatest moments.

Grandma does what parents permit her to do. She has no legal entitlement to time with grandchild. Overstep yourself, you don't get shit. Know your role.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Skip ahead- child is now 16 and has an "eating disorder" in which she will only eat junk. I am not making this up - mom says "at least she's getting calories"
This is my neighbor. I witness this weekly. I don't know how to hold my tongue any more. This girl is skin and bone, and for "dinner" ingests a Coke and a bubble tea. ! "at least she's getting calories"

Nope. I just use it as a teaching moment for my own DCs, who also witness this joyous scene.

I mean, before you judge, why not try a little compassion? She is likely really struggling. When I was deeply anorexic I lived on candy because for a weird disordered reason it was a "safe" food. Took a lot of therapy and work to break out of that. You never know what someone else's path looks like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you paying her to watch your child? If she is essentially your employee, then you have every right to say what she can and can't do during that time.

If you don't pay her, then she is doing you a HUGE favor by providing you with childcare 2 days a week! Don't accept the favor, pay someone else to do it.

Very easy.

Op here. Yes, we are paying her, and she we pay MIL even though she rarely accepts payment. We often provide MIL with a spa day or a nice dinner when she refuses to take the pay or just uses it on DS. MIL is more understanding and agrees with our form of parenting. We are thinking of hiring a sitter ( DS will go into daycare in 2 months). We had to end this babysitting before when my mom thought it was okay to let him watch hours of tv at only 2 months old.

Yeah, your mom is not an acceptable babysitter, period full stop. End this, and be glad you have a daycare spot waiting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Put your foot down and sternly tell her, she needs to feed him the healthy food he is used to, or you can't let her babysit any more.

I have 4 kids, all very picky eaters, and twins with severe allergies. I can tell you once they get the taste for sugar and junk food, it is almost impossible to get them back to a healthy diet. Sugar is like cocaine for little kids. The highs and lows affect their moods terribly.
I would get rid of all sugar and sweets in my house entirely, but my DH is like your mom and keeps bringing it in. Constant battle

I completely agree. Some might call me crazy, but we eat zero junk food in our house. That doesn't mean DC doesn't get snacks -- she gets yogurt melts, Annie's bunny grahams, things like that. but I always make sure her meals are balanced, with foods she enjoys from every food group.

I would have a serious problem if my daughter was eating mcdonald's and other junk food on a regular basis.

we're lucky to have the financial ability to afford to healthy food. to me, choosing to give our kids junk is neglecting basic parental responsibility.

You sound like a pompous a-hole. Aren’t you and your financial ability special? The “poors” will just have to stick to their twinkies.

[Anonymous]

This doesn’t work, and I’m the grandmother who taught the littles the joy of frappes. 95%of the time, the kids get real food. The rest, well...their parents are fine with it, and encourage me to spoil them rotten. Rotten is a new toy, a vanilla frappe with whipped cream, and helping make nuggets from scratch for dinner. I don’t do Twinkies or McDonald’s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Put your foot down and sternly tell her, she needs to feed him the healthy food he is used to, or you can't let her babysit any more.

I have 4 kids, all very picky eaters, and twins with severe allergies. I can tell you once they get the taste for sugar and junk food, it is almost impossible to get them back to a healthy diet. Sugar is like cocaine for little kids. The highs and lows affect their moods terribly.
I would get rid of all sugar and sweets in my house entirely, but my DH is like your mom and keeps bringing it in. Constant battle

I completely agree. Some might call me crazy, but we eat zero junk food in our house. That doesn't mean DC doesn't get snacks -- she gets yogurt melts, Annie's bunny grahams, things like that. but I always make sure her meals are balanced, with foods she enjoys from every food group.

I would have a serious problem if my daughter was eating mcdonald's and other junk food on a regular basis.

we're lucky to have the financial ability to afford to healthy food. to me, choosing to give our kids junk is neglecting basic parental responsibility.

NP. We don't have any junk in our house either. And Annie's bunny grahams would be included in that. Snacks here are fruit, nuts, seaweed snacks, things like that. We cook our meals from scratch, every day, with no gluten and limited legumes and grains. In our case, we aren't rich but sacrifice a lot in order to have the money and time to do this. It's a huge time and money suck, but we feel that the benefits so far to the kids' health and wellness, concentration, energy, behavior, etc, is worth it.

OP, someone like your mom would not be minding any child of mine, unless there was a serious emergency. It's not even about the junk food anymore - it's a blatant FU, and that wouldn't fly with me. How do you expect to raise kids who respect you (and other people, for that matter) when that's the type of example they see and the type of thing they know you tolerate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Okay I am not an anti junk food person. The McDonalds as a treat does not really bother me.

Bu5 twinkies and pepsi for a toddler? Nope. Nope. Nope.

You have to draw the line somewhere and it is way before twinkies.

+1.

[Anonymous]

OP when you say grandma is giving your son Pepsi, is she buying your son his own cup of Pepsi to drink? Or letting him have a sip of hers for taste? When you say she is giving him Twinkies, is it at the same time he is drinking a cup of Pepsi or on a different day? I dont condone Pepsi or Twinkies for 18 months old but trying to get a frame of reference here.

[Anonymous]

Can you spin it to your mom that when little Larlo eats all that fried food and sweet stuff he gets constipated the next few days and it's really hard to deal with (or something similar)?

Maybe that'll be more convincing and it will make you look less like a bad guy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like my diet and I grew up to be slim, perfectly healthy (just had complete blood work done!) and a Division 1 athlete. I’m actually getting McNuggets for lunch. Live a little.

Sure. You remember drinking Pepsi and going to McDonalds at 18 months.