Oh and I also stress that I'm much too young to become a granny.

FD that outs it all into perspective really. food regimes really take a back seat compared to all the problems that can arise. I just try and make sure they have some food lining their stomachs before they go out drinking copious amounts of alcohol and try and persuade that beer or wine is preferable to spirits

I enjoy the anti-fruit shoot threads and the constant discussions as to what constitutes juice.

DD2 [2] would sell her soul for chocolate buttons. DD1 [12] would sell her soul for Edward Cullen. Not really comparable.

Sorry sunburntats but that wasn't really in the light hearted spirit of the piece was it? If I wanted a serious discussion I'd be adding my bit to the weaning pages. This is for parents of teenagers who are more concerned with weaning their children off alcopops and keeping them away from the opposite sex until they're old enough to buy the said alcopops. Sweets and chocs are not the sort of threat my children respond to. They turn their noses up at carbs or fat now. Think more mobile phones, MSN, grounding, withdrawal of funding, threats to show their form teacher a photo of the state of their room etc. I would agree that revolting food is more available than previously, but it was always there at the bottom of a freezer in a shop near you if you looked.

I know what you are all saying but out of desperation i conducted an experiment with my 5 year old when he was about 2.
gave him water or milk to drink, dont buy organic, too expensive. but just spent 2 weeks concentrating on what he ate.
he was considerably calmer. saw it with my own 2 eyes.

now as long as he has fruit and veg every day, i allow him to have a flump, or something of that description.

for want of a better bargaining tool, sweets and chocs are great for curbing bad behaviour and for using as a threat.

I think that it is also the readily available junk that is every where you look nowadays.
there were no macdonalds in the 70's, there were sweet shops and i could get a large bag of them for 10p, but i dont remember having them willy nilly iyswim.

common sense tells me that some foods are just not good. although dh lives on spam (bowk) and are not serving as a healthy future for my child.
i want him to live a long and healthy life, if i set him up well now, then i think he will be alright.....then when he is able to make his own choices and he grows an ass as big as mine, it shall all be in vain...sigh

I am rather enjoying this. I can look back now at the bringing up of small children through the rose tinted spectacles mists of time. I don't remember worrying about party bags and I don't think they'd even invented mother and child parking spaces. There was no issue about vaccinations- you just got on with it. Boden was not available and designer labels hadn't become mainstream so there was little pressure to dress babies in fancy gear. One pretty dress with smocking was enough to please Granny, Laura Ashley was still affordable and M&S still stocked stuff that wouldn't look at home in a lap dancing club. Those were the days.

"over analysed"

Actually I think that sums up Mumsnet perfectly

Ironically because I have health issues and have been at home a lot ds has been mainly fed a fairly organic healthy diet just because I quite enjoyed cooking it.But he has no idea and it was never discussed just something I did a bit of and more so if we had the money.But school lunches paties weekends etc were a bit of a free for all!Ds has no idea really what he had and most of his friends all eat the same rubbish when they're out.It all seems so stressful now ond over analysed!

no the Moon, I've done birthday parties for my 3 over many years (and that would be a bit later) and have never been told of any food intolerent child. I know there is more prevalenc now (althpugh I think MN is a distortion of real life, so it's not that bad ). I do wonder how it's all ome about.

I feel so so sorry for new mums these days <<old gimmer alert>>

I remember being told to feed DS mashed up cauliflower cheese at 16 weeks - in fact I was told to give him little bits of just about EVERYTHING we had. I do recall taking his bit out before adding salt to ours though.

And quavers were the thing to keep em quiet in the buggy.

And mini cheddars were always served at toddler groups!

My two are thin and fit and have hardly ever suffered illness.

Oh... and does anyone remember under fives birthday parties in the late 80s and early 90s? I never met one single food intolerant child. Was I just lucky?

Then you're welcome

PS, I'm a bit of an interloper too as ds will be 13 next week

I know I don't belong here as DS is 5 and DD is 3 but I feel I am pretty similar on a food front to the people on this thread

Not just the eating either is it (she says sounding soooo old ) it's where they sit in class, the parties, what one child said to my child, and don't get me started on the offence MiLs - or even strangers in the street - can cause by a non-censored comment

agree totally

ds1(14) is a rake ds2 (10) is a plate rack dd (5) will be when she finds the out doors!

I will also admit that ds1, ds2 and dd were spoon fed our dinners mushed up and ds1 has his first solid at 8 weeks old ( really runny baby rice!)on the advise of an HV !!!

I like to nurture a bit of healthy eating.. but a little bit of everything is fine.

Absolutely agree too. Mine are 22,20, 13 and they ate sweets, sugar, full fat milk, meat etc and I drank wine two or three times a week whilst pregnant (and I, too, ate what I wanted). They are fit, healthy, thin, above average intelligence, still have their teeth, and are absolutely fine. They all eat anything now with no food hang ups at all.

All the teens/ young adults I know who were fussy eaters when toddlers, or were the offspring of worrying parents, all eat perfectly normally now.

I do think all this information is a bit of a double edged sword. I would have been a gibbering wreck had I had to contend with all this 'advice' . But, on the other hand, sites such as Mumsnet would have been a godsend to me in those awful early weeks of having the first baby, when I had never even held a baby.

yes totally agree

the world has gone mad when it comes to child rearing-or maybe it's just on mumsnet

My ds is 15 and has been fed a healthy but varied diet which I didn't really analyse and certainly never vetoed any party foods or sweets from grandparents etc etc.There is a lot more pressure now to discuss it all ad infinitum rather than just get on with it.My ds skates 2 hrs a day after school and all day sat and a bit sunday so is skinny minny.He has a varied group of friends rich poor fat thin home schooled etc etc and now they all eat the same left to their own devices-crap!

I agree.

I have a 14 yo and a 12 yo.

I never micro managed what mine ate. Infact I can remember giving them Skips from an early age as they melted on the tongue.

They have always had a varied diet. I am of the mind set that a little bit of what you fancy does you good!

They are both stick thin and very sporty.

I believe that being too controlling over what they eat causes more problems.

My biggest nutrition concern these days is persuading eldest DD that if she insists on drinking alcohol, it should be beer or wine rather than alcopops or vodka!

Although my brother is the same age as me, he has a baby and three year old twins. Spent a day with them last week and found the whole thing traumatic. His GF has just been persuaded she doesn't need to measure portions any more and was horrified that we had white bread and full fat milk in the house. The conversation seemed to be entirely about food intolerances, what they're allowed to eat etc - makes me realise how slapdash I was feeding my two prawn buhna!

in our house we aim for a healthy diet, but certainly no micromanaging..

on route to work i pass a corner shop, it is usually crammed full of teenagers spending their lunch money on sweets .. i bet they go home and tell their mums they had lentil soup for lunch at school

DS (14) is not too bad on the diet front.. although on a day out with friends he did once eat a whole 'family bucket' from KFC. its not somewhere we ever go (dh, and dd are veggies and i don't really like chicken) so it did make me think that maybe having been 'denied' KFC had made him covert it more? also he is a greedy sod has a healthy appetite but is very sporty/skinny

I used to worry about what my toddlers were eating (10-15 years ago) until a paediatrician very wisely infomed me that he had not yet come across a malnourished child in NW london and to chill out.

I admit to taking them to macdonalds about once a week for a time and using lollipops to stop tantrums!

They eat everything now as teenagers and are probably more concerned about a healthy diet than me.

One story comes to mind when we were on holiday and they were about 6 and 9. DH and I wanted to go for a pizza, but they insisted on going to the local fish restaurant!

lol at relaxing sphincter. Our toddler groups were about ignoring the toddlers as much as possible (I had 3), drinking tea and eating biccies and nattering. Occasionally you'd seperate a fight. And the toddlers all had biscuits. Although there was one mum with rice cakes. Sort of pre-cursor to todays mums. I did get to know her and we were friends as her kids grew up. they'd eat sugar like mad when they were out of her sight!
Didn't get the internet till number 3 turned 5.

I remember my PFB years - I joined a new toddler group, and I asked the girl in charge of drinks that week (who went on to become my best friend) to put the kettle on.

"Oh, does she want cozy juice?" she asked, looking at DD.

I fingered the fennel teabag in my pocket, and had an epiphany - DD had cozy juice, my sphincter relaxed by several degrees.

Agree Maureenmlove - I remember being pregnant and there were some vague mentionings about not drinking a lot - remember the midwife saying a few pints of guinness would do more good than harm! Also remember reading something about avoiding pate. But that was it - avoiding. Now there seems to be an absolute blanket ban on eating so much stuff whilst pregnant.

Also some friends who have babies now are so fraught about the whole weaning thing -when to do it, ow to etc. And I have read emotive threads on here about people who dare to wean at 20 weeks or whatever - a couple of weeks early. And if you wade in and say 'well back in the day everyone weaned earlier - I weaned dd at 13 weeks and she is now perfectlt healthy at 13 years old and a fantastic eater' you will get people quoting guidelines, and how early weaning can lead to digestion problems in later life.

I kind of knew to ignore guidelines when pregnant - at the start of the pregnancy with dd the guideline was to put babies to sleep on their front to avoid risk of choking. By the time she was born it was put babies to sleep on their backs to avoid cot death (I may have got this the wrong way round but you know what I mean!)

Can I just say, as a relatively new mum of a 1.5 year old, that I'm glad to hear you all talk about the food issue. It is stupidly controlling these days, and MaureenMLove you're so right about all the pressure to get things right can drive you barmy! I must admit though, I did seek out ALL the info I could, as I'm a bit studious sometimes, and freaked myself out. I have, however, gotten over myself now, and am relaxed about food. I don't buy my lo sweets - she is only wee after all, but I don't want her to miss out on lovely foods either, like cake, biscuits, the odd chip, a bit of chocolate. That's what life is about. Everything in moderation, is so right.

I had an AK book, but I just like cookery books . I don't think I actually ever made anything from it

Looking back, the friends that I had who were overtly food obsessed all had the AK cookbook. Methinks there may be a link.

I may be very wrong and out on a limb on my own here, but I can't help thinking that all these things that you must do as a new mother these days, contribute to PND. It must be so, so hard to be a new mother now. So much pressure to get it right. It must go some way to panic new mothers into thinking they are crap and getting depressed about it?

Even from be pg I remember, I got pg, doctor confirmed it, midwife said I'll see you in nine months. End of. These days, you are doomed from the outset! All these figures and statistics must scare the pants off mums-to-be! No wonder they are nervous wrecks by the time they become mothers!

Sorry Totally of topic, I think!

Everything in moderation, as my Gran would say.

I think if you get to the stage that a glass of Coke is some sort of parental procedural breach you're losing sight of the fun parts.

There are principles that are worth upholding strenuously, and then some, like food, that can be bent.

I agree, I actually think the weaning board should be banned, it just seems to fill everyone with worry and scaremongering. I don't remember anyone really having weaning problems when my two were babies.
I was also thinking this evening about all the micromanaging that goes on in some peoples lives, where nobody else is allowed to have an interest in their children.

mine goes out all the time. all his mates are skinny even though they eat like mad.

anyway i said my piece on that thread

we didn't have that Annabel Karmel telling us to fret back in ye olden days
Nor fancy words for putting finger foods on trays.
Course, no internet.

LOL at 5p puffs. My kids don't have any overweight friends either. They all look great yet the parents vary in their regimes. I wonder if teenagers rebel against strict regimes or whether parents mellow. Certainly they all eat the same sort of stuff as each other now.

I think it was miles more relaxed even just ten years ago. I don't remember any edicts from school or comments from parents about the suitability of food items for distribution.

It does all seem much more stressed than it did when DS was small - maybe it's just because I didn't have the internet then, so I only had magazine articles and other mothers to wind me up about what I ought to be fretting about?

my kids haven't got any fat mates. its becuase they skate, bike, walk everywhere.

they dont stay in on games consoles unless they are grounded

me too - its a culture thing now though isn't it -something that i certainly wasn't caught up in. i remember clearly pouring out 5p puffs onto the high chair tray

I find the frenzy over micromanaging what small children eat strange. This thread here leaves me reeling. Looking at your teens and their friends can you tell which ones had the easy going parents and who had the strict parents foodwise?