how to explain my terrible eating habits due to pregnancy?

amother

Thu, Oct 24 2013, 8:46 pm

I try to eat healthy and I try to feed my daughter healthy. For example I'll give ricecakes for snack and potato chips are a special treat. Water or milk-usually water for drinking etc....

Right now I feel nauseous and eating all day helps and I'll try eating anything- so if white flour pita chips is whats working then that's what I'll eat even though usually we are a whole wheat family, if someone suggests gingerale I'll try it even though otherwise we almost NEVER (I could probably even say never in good concious but just in case) have soda..... my three and a half year old daughter sees and she wants to eat it also. I let her have a little gingerale and I've been freer with the white flour pretzels etc... but I really don't want her eating like this!!!

I try to explain to her that it's because Mommy doesn't feel well and therefore food that is usually healthy upset mommy's tummy etc.... but I just feel like it's such a double standard- I wish I could just eat healthy and feel great! I'm a big believe in kids copy their parents eating habits- if I snack on apples and peppers then she does too but if I'm eating junk then..... she says ok when I explain to her but she's only 2 1/2 I feel like it's not fair to her....

zaq

Thu, Oct 24 2013, 9:57 pm

First of all this stage will be brief and then you should be able to go back to your regular programming. Second, it's hardly a "double standard" when you eat differently because you can't tolerate your regular foods. A family, btw, is not a democracy, and adults are permitted to eat, wear, see, and do things that children are not. Because the adults are in charge, or should be, and they paid their dues having to eat whatever their parents made them eat. Now they get to eat what they want, at least until their cardiologist tells them otherwise.

I don't know why you see it as "unfair" to your dd. I think you may be overthinking just a teeny bit. To a 2-1/2 y/o, "Because I'm the Mommy" is justification enough. You yourself said dd is ok with the explanation you gave her. If you really need to pursue the "fairness" aspect for your own peace of mind, look at it this way: the privileges of adulthood are fair compensation for the responsibilities thereof. When your dd supports herself, pays her own taxes, washes her own laundry, cooks her own food, and wipes her own bum, then she can eat whatever she wants. Till then, she eats what you give her.

seeker

Thu, Oct 24 2013, 10:22 pm

My 2.5 y/o DD is very intelligent, perceptive, and inquisitive, but even for her I try to keep things like this simple. "This is what Mommy needs to eat now. [insert favorite healthy food] is better for you. Here, have some [favorite healthy food]." I have to do this at times because DD has food allergies and sensitivities, so I've taught her that some foods are OK for some people and not others. You want to be a little more scientific about it, you could say that Mommy's doctor says to eat this kind of food and DD's doctor says to eat that kind, and we do what the doctor advises for each person. If your DD is the doctor-authority-accepting type.
Or share a little bit with her, tell her that this is a food that is only good to eat a little bit of, and if you're eating more it's because you're bigger so your portion is bigger.

Double standard is when I'm raiding my chocolate stash just because I feel like it, and I would like to start lecturing to my DD about the evils of noshing but that would just be unfair. So instead I preempt the inevitable question by offering her a small amount, finding an excuse for it ("you listened so nicely before! Here's a special treat.") and then stopping to nosh myself. Nothing like having to share nosh with your kids to keep you in line. But of course I know that absolutely doesn't work with pregnancy food moods; I went through a month or so where I could eat pretty much nothing but potato chips (which I don't think DD had even seen before) and if I limited my potato chip ingestion I would have starved, literally. So I ate them whenever I could get them down and simply told DD that this was Mommy's food and not on the menu for her. Life's tough like that sometimes but I was not going to let her eat 4 bags of chips a day at that tender age just because my own body was going insane.