

Sugar free treats for 3 year olds

(16 Posts)
JiltedJohnsJulie Fri 15-Feb-13 13:00:56

Had forgotten about cheese straws, used to make Hesse all he time when mine were smaller. Have a look here

Might make some myself smile

admylin Fri 15-Feb-13 12:20:09

Would they eat plain popcorn maybe? My 2 used to love it when they were little.

AndMiffyWentToSleep Fri 15-Feb-13 12:17:12

I also make pancakes (Nigella's recipe for American ones) but leave out the sugar - I slice very ripe banana into the batter as soon as it is in the pan. Yummy!

JiltedJohnsJulie Fri 15-Feb-13 11:18:30

I also had a similar problem with my teeth, did the dentist tell you to avoid crisps and similar snacks too? The starch can stick to your teeth and be just as bad as sugar.

Thanks guys, been thinking about Greek yogurt with mango purée as they loved that when they were weaning as a sweet treat, and will def get some baby biscuits for incentives (bribery) to behave!

MERLYPUSS Thu 14-Feb-13 21:01:53

How about blocks of cheese with cranberry and apricot. I remember being told that cheese was really good at the calcium neutralises the plaque acid by a dental hiegenist mate. I personally dont like flavoured cheese so dont know if they are sweet enough.
Also some crisps - wotzits, chip stix and skips- are equally as bad as sweets as the mash up into your cavaties and are quite sweet so be aware if substituting with these.

You can get sugar-free ice pops (if you don't mind artificial sweetners). DD seems to like them.

AndMiffyWentToSleep Thu 14-Feb-13 20:53:19

There is a tasty sugar-free banana cake recipe - think it may be on the babyled weaning (mush stops here) website.
It has raisins in but I've made it without (also omitted the nuts too) and it was still tasty enough for me.

AlohaMama Thu 14-Feb-13 20:48:21

You can buy fructose in granules and cook with it as you would do with normal sugar. We used to do this for my diabetic gran. Also if you want sweet treats, a lot of recipes are out there for cakes etc. that use apple puree as a sweetener rather than sugar.

PolterGoose Thu 14-Feb-13 20:14:58

Thanks catkind for explaining. I was going to mention the acid and dried fruit stuff then had to go and deal with ds.

My understanding is that chocolate isn't so bad because it doesn't hang around in the mouth. Another option is giving sweet before savoury. Also really important not to brush teeth for some time after eating fruit or drinking juice. Be wary of diet and sugar-free drinks too as they can be quite acidic. Has the dentist talked about fluoride coatings, sealants and high fluoride toothpaste?

catkind Thu 14-Feb-13 19:57:21

PolterGoose, fructose (fruit sugar) is not quite as bad for teeth - while plaque still eat fructose, sucrose (as in refined sugar) is also used to make the glue that sticks the plaque to the teeth. Perhaps this is something to do with why the dentist wants to restrict it? Fruit juice is bad because of the acid, and dried fruit because it gets stuck in the teeth so the sugar hangs around a long time too.

catkind Thu 14-Feb-13 19:53:12

My 3 yr old loves "special snacks" which are a plate with a selection of little things. Nuts, cucumber, carrot sticks, pepper, fruit, olives, rice cake, bread stick, mini sandwiches. If I'm feeling artistic I might make it into a face or a car shape. I think he tries things he otherwise might not because it's a tiny quantity.

PolterGoose Thu 14-Feb-13 19:43:41

That is slightly odd advice from the dentist confused

Sugar is sugar whether refined or unrefined or from fruit or not, it is the same thing.

CharlotteBronteSaurus Thu 14-Feb-13 18:24:15

do the treats have to be sweet?
could you bake some savoury scones or cheese straws? you can cut the latter into all sorts of shapes with cookie cutters.

AbbyCat Thu 14-Feb-13 18:22:05

Baby biscuits? Like Ella's kitchen and organix. Only sweetened with fruit juices. Dark chocolate? Willies cacao ones are sweetened with raw cane sugar and the orange one is awesome. Are raisins/ dried fruit allowed? Waitrose dried mango is yummy.

Just been told by dentist dt's due to being prem have a calcium thing wrong with their
Back teeth and can't have refined sugar . So no sweets (which they rarely had anyway) chocolate, biscuits, cereal bars, cakes etc. now I do try to get them to eat fruit but they are simply not fans apart from bananas and the odd strawberry . Basically any ideas peeps?
Ps Also we will have to be careful with yogurts. They only like fromage frais as they don't like fruit even in yogurts.

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