Mum Diary: A toddler’s sugar detox

The big news story of the day is that we should all be eating less sugar. Well, that’s all well and good, but none of these articles tell you how to sugar-detox a two-and-a-half year old.

And that’s what I’ve been doing this week, after giving up the sweet stuff myself. I’ve finally caved in to the news coverage of new research suggesting it’s addictive, harmful and stops us effectively regulating our appetites (check out this Yahoo article for more information).

I saw the benefits straight away; after two days of headaches and short-temper, I emerged feeling great. I’ve lost my final two pounds of baby weight and I’ve lost the urge to snack and graze. I’m in sugar recovery.

But if cutting out sugar is right for me, then it must be right for my boys. Baby Olly is too young to care, he’s as happy eating broccoli as he is eating cake. But I’ve been a bit worried about weaning Harry off the white stuff.

I wrote a list of how often I reward my toddler Harry with treats and was horrified to see that it was far more often than I had thought. In the supermarket, he routinely gets a little chocolate owl if he’s good. When I meet my mum friends for a coffee, we always share a cake. If he gets all the stars on his reward chart, he gets a surprise egg…

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Yet the biggest shock was realising that the sugar he gets as treats is nothing to the sugar he gets in his ‘healthy’ snacks. We mostly cook from scratch, so there’s no added sugar in his main meals. However, I do tend to buy pre-packaged, long shelf-life snacks, the kind that are easy to throw in the bag on the way out of the door, and apparently healthy.

Things like yoghurt-covered strawberry flakes, flavoured oat bars and dried wiggly strings of fruit. I have bought them because they looked natural and nutritious. Once I started actually checking the nutritional information, I came in for a shock.

So many of these products say ‘no added sugar’ that I’ve never bothered checking the sugar content. And then I realised that if the nutritional information on these dried fruit pieces says ‘Per 100g, Sugar: 50g’ then that item is half sugar. Wow.

Now, I know that’s not exactly hard maths, but it genuinely didn’t occur to me to check before – most of these snacks are 40% or more pure sugar. Even if that sugar derives from fruit, it’s too much in one serving.

I’ve been partly misled by the health messages printed all over them. We recently bought some powdered strawberry mix to add to milk (mostly because Charlie and Lola guzzle it all the time, and Harry wants to be just like them). On the front, it boasts ‘For healthy growth and development’. It has big ticks showing it contains vitamins D,B and C, iron and magnesium. On the back, a large nutritional information box lists off all the vitamins and minerals contained within.

All that distracts you from the ‘typical values’ box further down the packet that shows it is 82% sugar. Per 200ml of made-up drink, it has more sugar than Coca-Cola.

And the healthy breakfast cereals I feed them, such as porridge with added dried fruit and wheat o-shaped cereals – these are all absolutely loaded with sugar. No wonder they go down so easily.

So, for the last week we’ve been making changes. We’re now all eating wheat biscuits for breakfast or proper porridge made from oats not microwave-ready bags. I’ve made our own sugar-free tomato sauce and we’re having Marmite, cream cheese and peanut butter on toast instead of jams.

When it comes to snacks, it’s been harder but now the boys have stopped expecting a sugary fix in between meals. We’re off to the indoor market this weekend, so that Harry can choose some vegetables to try – I hope this will encourage him to eat more.

One final thing to say is that I don’t want my boys to be the weird ones at school. I’m not going to be that mum who takes chickpeas to parties so her children don’t have to eat sugar. I’m not going to stop them having slices of their friends’ birthday cakes, or sweeties from grandparents. Those things are normal parts of childhood.

But I am going to adjust my shopping so that sweets and sugary foods genuinely are a treat. I’m also going to look for other ways to reward them for good behaviour and show affection – and actually, I think they’re better ways. Instead of a surprise egg for completing his star chart, Harry will now get a Thomas the Tank Engine magazine. More importantly, he’ll get a good hour of Mummy time to help him do it – which he values far more than sweets and a rubbish toy.

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When I want to reward him for being good at the supermarket, we come home and do his dinosaur puzzle together. And when I want to do baking with him, we’re making healthy snacks or simple toddler meals. He’s probably learning far more than he did making cakes.

It’s not totally straightforward, of course. We went to the cinema at the weekend and Harry sadly asked: “Can I have sweeties if I’m good, Mummy?” My heart winced and I nearly gave in, but then I remembered why we were there. “Harry, we’re at the cinema because you’ve been good.” He shrugged, smiled and said: “Okay,” and I realised that all he really wants is affirmation.