How to Feed My 4 Year Old Dessert?

I would set some sort of limit with dinner. She needs to eat so much before she can have dessert, to ensure she's not trying to fill up on snacks, regardless of how healthy the snack is. My son tries this trick with me --- tells me he's full at dinner and 10 minutes later asks for a snack. You just have to determine how much dinner is enough to ease your mind about the clean plate overeating and make sure she's getting enough nutrients from an actual meal.

It seems like all of us who had parents raised in the post-Depression/WWII era seem to have been part of the "clean plate club." "Eat your dinner, there are starving children in Africa/China/wherever." I always wondered why we couldn't send the food to them instead LOL.

On a more serious note, it does suck to waste food. Maybe serve your daughter smaller portions of whatever healthy foods the family is eating and if she is still hungry after, she can have a smaller portion of a dessert item? I dunno...when I was a kid most of the time our "dessert" was fruit, but on occasion we'd have homemade cookies or pie or going out for ice cream--we DID have to eat our healthier food first to get that. My mom made very healthy meals, incorporated a lot of "health" foods like sprouts and tofu which were more exotic back in the 70s and 80s, and limited the junk that was kept in the house, which backfired a bit when I went to college and went nuts with all the junk and sugar for a while.

"Thisismeraw" just wrote basically what I was thinking, I just type slow

How involved is she in planning meals? It may be that she would eat a differerent variety of healthy foods and then naturally not want the Fiber One bar.

Alternatively, you could offer fruit salad for after dinner dessert during the week, do a chart and tick off every day she eats veggies..and if she reaches at least 50% of the days eating veggies, then the Fiber One bar for a Sunday night treat.

My parents made me clean my plate...but my plate was soggy veggies, pork chops and Wonderbread. After I went to college, I lived almost entirely on processed foods and it wasn't until I well into my adulthood that I begin to eat veggies daily.

I went through this with my kids. It depends on how much she is eating. If you are monitoring and she is eating balanced, then yes. However if she is not eating enough good stuff and only wants the dessert, then no. That can be just as bad. You need to try to get her onto a routine to eat at regular intervals or she will have issues once she is in school

I always made a deal with my kids, depending on what they had eaten throughout the day would determine how many bites of whatever we were having for supper (4 bites of meat, 2 peas and 2 carrots, or whatever it was). Worked at my house.

Although we rarely have dessert, this also played into their evening snacks as well.

This!
I have a two year old. Our "dessert" is usually just fruit (watermellon, berries). When she asks for it, I assess what she's eaten and if I feel she's not eaten "enough" dinner, I tell her she can have the fruit if she'll eat 3 more bites of a vegetable that I know she likes, which usually results in her inhaling the rest of the vegetable on her plate so she can have unlimited access to the fruit.

When I was helping raise a friend's kid, conditionals worked, provided that it was apparent that we were being manipulated. Sometimes, kids get full. Sometimes they're crafty.

Kid: I want a cookie.
Parent: If you want a cookie, you have to eat (all of the beans / two more bites of the potatoes.)
Kid: No. I don't wanna. I want a cookie.
Parent: (restates "If you want a cookie...") followed by "Do you want the cookie?"
Kid: Yes.
Parent: So what do you need to do?
Kid: Eat two more bites. But I don't want to. I want a cookie.
Parent: Well, you may have a cookie after you've had two more bites.

Or, you can bargain.

Parent: You can have half a cookie if you eat one more bite. If you want the whole cookie, you have to eat three bites.

It worked when we used it and taught the kid negotiation works better than tantrums.

Glad it worked but IMHO you shouldn't negotiate with children and you shouldn't just back down and give into what they want. Let them throw their tantrum.

If I think my kids have eaten enough of the good food (even if the plate itsn't empty), I will give them dessert. However, I don't give them as much as if they had eaten everything. If my son ate 2/3 of a meal, he can have 2 cookies, instead of 3. My kids normally don't eat a lot of "junk" food anyway. They actually like yogurts and raisins over cookies at times. I grew up with the "clean your plate" mentality, so it's hard for me to throw food away, too. I try to save what I can, to eat another day.

I think there are two issues here- Either your daughter is not hungry, but still wants dessert or your daughter is full and wants dessert anyway. Neither scenario will go over very well in my house! I, like you, want my kids to have a good relationship with food. If they are not hungry for dinner, than they are not hungry for dessert. And if they finish dinner, they need to let their bellies "rest" before eating dessert. I never make my kids finish a plate unless I KNOW they're hungry and they're just not eating because they don't like it (salad, veggies, etc) which is avoidable if I ask them to eat their veggies first You're not pushing bad habits on your child if you make them finish dinner before dessert because, like I said, if they're hungry for that Fiber One bar than they have room in their belly for dinner, too! Hope this helps! :flowerforyou:

My children's meals go like this - meal (all of it. I don't give them a plate full of stuff they hate. They get a 4 year old portion), THEN fruit, THEN "dessert." Dessert may be a snickers mini (45 calories) or something like that. They have to finish one course before going to the next -- no exceptions. If they're not hungry enough for dinner, they're not hungry enough for fruit.

I don't negotiate with bed/nap time either.

We work full time and our life is pretty good. No bedtime meltdowns, no mealtime meltdowns. Ever. There's a lot to be said for boundaries.

I was a "clean your plate" mom for years (10 years, and 10 years too many) until, in a shining bolt of lightning, I saw how unhappy it made my son. To equate food and mealtimes to torture, how could I have done that to him? I hated myself for it. We are much cooler about meals now. I make sure he has his fruits, veggies and protein, and he pretty much eats whatever he wants on the site.

By the way, his favorite snack is a Fiber One brownie

Dessert should be only after a complete and balanced meal. It doesn't have to be a lot of food, but she needs healthy nutrition first! I would say there needs to be an agreed upon amount that she is required to eat (to ensure health) before dessert. Always check with her pediatrician to be sure she's getting enough nutrients in her diet. While not forcing the clean-plate-club is a good thing, just a bite here or there is really no better.

this 100%. even if its a bite of the meat/veggies, shes gotta be eating the good stuff. Fiber One bars are pretty much just as processed as a hamburger bun so its not really a win.

OP, my mom was the same way. If my plate wasn't clean by midnight, I got it for breakfast, lunch and dinner the next day until it was all gone. She sent me to school with a bowl of oatmeal on my head in the 2nd grade because I didn't want to finish it. It took me a really long time to get over the "need" to clean my plate, and when I had kids, I told my mom she was NEVER to force my kids to eat something they didn't want. We never made a big deal about dessert with our kids. Usually they would've had a jell-o or something in the middle of the day, but if they had asked for something after dinner, they would've had to have at least made a reasonable effort to eat what was on their plates. It's the one thing I can say I did right in raising them. It actually makes me crazy that they can have candy in the house for months that goes untouched. I envy that in them.

She sounds like she already has a pretty good relationship with food if she is not asking for treats every night after supper. It sounds like you have taught her well. I never really had dessert in my house growing up, but maybe just have her eat her dinner until she is full and then give her a choice of mom approved snacks for a little while after when she may still be hungry. You are the mom and can still dictate what her snacks are and still give her a bit of choice, so if she ate well that day and two hours after supper she wants a treat, make that a choice, if she didn't eat well don't make it an option.

In the end sometimes it doesn't matter what you do environment can ruin good habits. I grew up with no sweets in the house and very little access to them, until I went to grade 7 and my school was across the street from the mall, and I was allowed to go to the store by myself, and then I got a job and had my own money, etc.

Basically what I am trying to say is that is sounds like what you are doing is working and if she wants a treat now and then and it's not all the time, that's great. Keep doing what you are doing.

P.S. You don't have to listen to my advice, I am not a mom, but I spend a lot of time with my brother and his 6 kids and I see a lot of patterns there too.

I think it is a very dangerous idea to tie rewards to eating or not eating. I think that rewarding eating certain items or cleaning their plate sets kids up for an unhealthy relationship with food. Food should really not be a reward, nor should eating or not eating be special behavior.

Agree.

And to the OP - It really sounds like you and your little one are doing WELL with food and she's got a pretty balanced intake. My opinion is honestly maybe kids know best and are still in touch with their hunger signals.

It may sound like a ridiculous comparison, but I've got 2 80 pound dogs. We feed them exactly 1 cup of their exceptionally balanced food twice a day. They get 1 "cookie" or dog biscuit every day. On our active hike days, they also get an extra cookie.

I'm constantly amazed that some days - they leave their 1 cup in their bowls. Don't even touch it. I, for one, couldn't do that --- if you put it in front me, I'm going to eat. I know this about myself. On the days where they don't eat their food, they still eat their cookie.

Maybe nature has it right.... they eat when they are hungry. Most days that's 2 meals and a treat. A few days it isn't. The vet says both are at perfect weights. If I could master the eat-only-when-you're-hungry, I could also probably eat what I wanted - as long as I stopped when I was full. It's an interesting topic for debate.

My kids have to finish their plates to get dessert, but we don't put a lot at all on it. I don't like it, honestly, but it's the only way we got them to eat veggies.

honestly maybe kids know best and are still in touch with their hunger signals.

Maybe nature has it right.... they eat when they are hungry. Most days that's 2 meals and a treat. A few days it isn't. The vet says both are at perfect weights. If I could master the eat-only-when-you're-hungry, I could also probably eat what I wanted - as long as I stopped when I was full. It's an interesting topic for debate.

The problem with that is, nature doesn't always have it right for that specific individual. As a parent, you need to be aware of roughly how much your kid should be getting per day and make sure that they're getting at least close. If they are, then sure, let them pick and choose when and how much they want to eat. If not, then you need to get them to eat more. I was one of those 'failure to thrive' kids from 2-6 yrs old, and my parents were constantly trying to get me to eat anything. If you'd left me to my own devices, I wouldn't have starved, but I'd have stunted my development horribly and been deficient in several vitamins and nutrients.