Advice

jigglypuffstuff

Little bit of advice needed here guys

Girlfriend has a child almost 2 years old (22months)

He seems to be a pretty overweight child and shes been overfeeding him and shovelling sweets into him like they are nothing. I know filling a child with an awful amount of sweets is not good and ive tried getting her into better habits such as feeding him vegetables.Like breakfast will be some sugary cereal, then after that she'll make him 2 slices of toast ,then a banana 3-4 rice cakes with nutella and peanut butter, then for lunch a panacke or 2 with jam, then an apple and another sweet thing like buiscits. then she will give him a proper dinner and maybe more if hes asking and if she has been out during the day she will keep giving him sweets in the buggy to keep him quiet. he also gets very little exercise and is confined to the house most days

Now im all for giving a child a treat here and there but the last time we were out she'd given him 7 or 8 buiscuts in the buggy. @120 calories a piece thats almost 1000 just in the buggy. He has large rolls of fat on his arms and after checking his height and weight on the growth charts hes in the 99th percentile. Im quite fond of the little fella and I actually sleep trained him for her as before she refused to and averaged 3-4 hrs sleep a night due to constant wakings and now hes sleeping 12-13 hrs per night without waking. Shes knows I have great time as he has no dad around for him but im unsure how to approach her about this in a way which wont seem insulting to her but gets the point across in a way that she may take it on board. Im just concerned for him as i know the health risks of being overweight arent good at all.

At the end of the day hes not my child, but I cant help but feel a bit concerned for him

Thanks

Gee_G

pone2012 wrote: »

Little bit of advice needed here guys

Girlfriend has a child almost 2 years old (22months)

He seems to be a pretty overweight child and shes been overfeeding him and shovelling sweets into him like they are nothing. I know filling a child with an awful amount of sweets is not good and ive tried getting her into better habits such as feeding him vegetables.Like breakfast will be some sugary cereal, then after that she'll make him 2 slices of toast ,then a banana 3-4 rice cakes with nutella and peanut butter, then for lunch a panacke or 2 with jam, then an apple and another sweet thing like buiscits. then she will give him a proper dinner and maybe more if hes asking and if she has been out during the day she will keep giving him sweets in the buggy to keep him quiet. he also gets very little exercise and is confined to the house most days

Now im all for giving a child a treat here and there but the last time we were out she'd given him 7 or 8 buiscuts in the buggy. @120 calories a piece thats almost 1000 just in the buggy. He has large rolls of fat on his arms and after checking his height and weight on the growth charts hes in the 99th percentile. Im quite fond of the little fella and I actually sleep trained him for her as before she refused to and averaged 3-4 hrs sleep a night due to constant wakings and now hes sleeping 12-13 hrs per night without waking. Shes knows I have great time as he has no dad around for him but im unsure how to approach her about this in a way which wont seem insulting to her but gets the point across in a way that she may take it on board. Im just concerned for him as i know the health risks of being overweight arent good at all.

At the end of the day hes not my child, but I cant help but feel a bit concerned for him

Thanks

My God that's an awful amount of food/sweets/biscuits for anyone, never mind a toddler!
Do you live together? (If ya don't mind me asking) could you approach it as if you want to improve the whole households lifestyle and diet? Like you don't want as much rubbish in the house or you are all not eating as good as you should be? Rather than just criticising what she is giving him?

jigglypuffstuff

Gee_G wrote: »

My God that's an awful amount of food/sweets/biscuits for anyone, never mind a toddler!
Do you live together? (If ya don't mind me asking) could you approach it as if you want to improve the whole households lifestyle and diet? Like you don't want as much rubbish in the house or you are all not eating as good as you should be? Rather than just criticising what she is giving him?

I know its a lot but I dont live with her. Unfortunatley Im the other end of the spectrum I eat no bad food whatsoever at all and train in the gym everyday. My girlfriend herself has a great figure its the child where the issue lies.Now of course id never expect anyone to conform to my lifestyle but i see a bad pattern developing here. It seems to stem from her inablitly to listen to him cry or moan, hence the reason I had to sleep train him.

Gee_G

pone2012 wrote: »

I know its a lot but I dont live with her. Unfortunatley Im the other end of the spectrum I eat no bad food whatsoever at all and train in the gym everyday. My girlfriend herself has a great figure its the child where the issue lies.Now of course id never expect anyone to conform to my lifestyle but i see a bad pattern developing here. It seems to stem from her inablitly to listen to him cry or moan, hence the reason I had to sleep train him.

Its a tough one alright! But definitely a bad pattern developing that is just going to get an awful lot worse the older he gets and the more he figures out how to play her!

I don't really know what else to tell you at all so. It all depends on the kind of person she is. How do you think she would react if you brought it up with her? Even if you found an article about a toddlers daily food intake or something and tell her that you cane across it and found it very interesting?? Its really hard to know how to approach it!! Sorry I am not much help!

Synyster Shadow

Maybe when your around them or out and about with them have a supply of grapes apples and bananas handy and give him some before she gets the chance to give biscuits. Then interact with him asking if he likes them and you eat some too. Offer her some and gradually brake it in that way?

liliq

Sounds like an awful lot of sugar

99th percentile for height and weight isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if its not his natural weight it's not great obviously.

It's normal for children not to be able to transition between sleep cycles until they're 3 years old. Sleep training just floods their systems with cortisol and they shut down. Not a good thing, as I'm sure you'll know if you train a lot.

January

Is there any way you could contact the local Public Health Nurse and voice your concerns? I know my daughter got a 2 year check recently and she was flagged as being underweight so has been seen in hospital a few times. I don't think there's any way for you to broach this with your girlfriend without her being offended and possibly bringing up barriers between the two of you.

holding

Just to say, fair play for looking out for the little guy

Polly701

She seems to be using food to distract him - maybe suggest in a nice way that she could give him a book or a toy to distract him when he's whinging. I used to give my toddler food when we're in the supermarket and than I started giving her a kids magazine and she'll look at that as we walk around.
Maybe say something like "my sisters child had to get a tooth out when he was only 3 - the dentist said that young kids have terrible teeth these days because they eat far more sugar than they should". Say it in a conversational way, and be in no way confrontational about it. Also, perhaps you could throw a ball around with him in the garden - get him out running.

eviltimeban

Maybe it should be confrontational? Like, "I know I'm not his dad, but I'm involved..." and lay it out that way. That is FAR too much food for a two year old to eat. The fact that she is fit and healthy herself is a plus, you can say that you would rather the kid turns out like her than *insert overweight person / relative you know*.

If she's insulted then she won't think she's doing anything wrong, which in itself is a problem. And will need a different approach.

On the other hand, she might be grateful for you speaking your mind and appreciate you looking out for him - she'll knows she can rely on you to look out for her kid. That's a major point I think. That could be a turning point in your relationship!

sari

Fair play to you for caring and trying to do something to help that diet is really not healthy at all. Does the mother ever mention anything about her child's health or weight? You say that she is slim and fit but what is her diet like? It's seems strange that she would feed herself healthy food and her child unhealthy. Could you organise activities to do to together so child is getting some exercise?

jigglypuffstuff

January wrote: »

Is there any way you could contact the local Public Health Nurse and voice your concerns? I know my daughter got a 2 year check recently and she was flagged as being underweight so has been seen in hospital a few times. I don't think there's any way for you to broach this with your girlfriend without her being offended and possibly bringing up barriers between the two of you.

Interestingly enough @ 2 year checkup PHN wasnt at all concerned seeing as child was 88cm and 37.5 lbs...putting him in the 99th percentile.which is a pretty serious thing I believe..disgraceful really when all she said was he'll grow out of it?

To be honest ive completly given up getting involved as my efforts are totally in vain and just end up causing conflict. Id rather not have that if possible so i guess that ill just have to turn away and stay quiet on this one!

How Strange

Wow! He's obviously tall for his age but that's quite heavy. My son is 3 and is 84-86cm and around 29lb. I'd imagine a 2 year old should've lost the rolls of fat at that age. My 10 month old who had rolls on top of rolls has lost a lot since she started moving.

It's a difficult situation when you're not the child's parent. It's hard to change a mindset and Irish parents do seem to like over feeding their kids. I get smart comments because I'm not in favour of snacks.

cyning

Anything from 0-100 is fine providing there's not a major disparity between height and weight. His weight might be 99th but his height seems to be 91st? I'm totally open to correction on that by the way.

My little girl is 91st percentile for weight but only 75th for height now at 20 months. At 5 months and exclusively breastfed she was 99th for weight and 70th for height... And trust me she eats healthily! Percentiles are all about following the curve. So if he's always been at those percentiles the phn isn't going to flag a problem unless she's told he's eating sugary food etc all day.

You could always try things like making spinach and cheese muffins and other healthy treats and having them there as snacks instead of biscuits (they are delicious too by the way!) and that way it's not causing conflict but your still helping

pwurple

Tricky one OP. I have good friends and a family member who overfeed children, but I honestly don't feel i can say a thing, as they are not my children to parent. All I can do is look after my own.

ariana`

pone2012 wrote: »

Interestingly enough @ 2 year checkup PHN wasnt at all concerned seeing as child was 88cm and 37.5 lbs...putting him in the 99th percentile.which is a pretty serious thing I believe..disgraceful really when all she said was he'll grow out of it?

I understand you mean well but this is a bit harsh imho. I speak as a mother of a 4yr old boy who was always 99/100th percentile for his weight at those development checks. My PHN and doctor always told me not to worry but i did worry. But they were spot on when they told me he would "grow out of it". He has stretched into a long slender boy - i can't get trousers to fit him because his legs are so long and his waist so skinny - he needs to go up a size in the length but they keep falling off him

They are doing these checks and dealing with toddlers/babies every day of the week, which i'm guessing you aren't.

I accept your concern is for the quality of the child's diet but i don't think it's fair to slag of the PHN - i doubt your GF told her exactly what he's eating. The PHN is only going on the charts and for some babies that can be fine/normal/healthy.

PS. Editted to add i have a 2nd younger boy who's weight is in the 15th percentile and i have fed the 2 of them the same so i'm not an "over-feeding mother" - and i resent any suggestion that having a child in a higher percentil means that i am - they are just built differently.

December2012

All you can do is introduce good foods for you all to snack on. Crudités / hummous / fruit / things that he can eat with his fingers.

Separately - the crying is very hard to listen to - particularly around the terrible two age.

So if she brings up that you could tell her about this new thing you heard about - Dr Harvey Karp - "the happiest toddler on the block" and his suggestion of repeating and empathising with a child having a tantrum or making a demand. It really worked with my kids at that age.

I'll try and find you a link but it works by repeating what the child says as energetic as they say it so that they feel understood. When they are understood they can be distracted by other things.

December2012

http://www.happiestbaby.com/learn-about-your-baby-toddler/faqs/#tht

Here's the link, the book is great.

The toddler-ese technique is unusual at first but when you see how much it works you'll keep doing it.