The 4 tips to avoid becoming a hysterical healthy mother

What am I so happy with my best girlfriends who already had children when I just started. At the slightest thing, I hang on the line to ask for advice or how they approached something. Also in terms of nutrition, I blindly rely on my role models, who consider ‘healthy’ as the norm with occasionally a sweet exception. This way it also becomes a party when something sweet is allowed instead of sticking to ‘the standard’. But even though I obediently adhere to that rule, it is still quite difficult to maintain this outside the home. The number of times a day that Otis is offered sweet treats by strangers is hardly countable on one hand. In almost every store, they try to bribe Otis with something tasty, to which I very kindly yet irritated try to make it clear that I would prefer not to have this. Then I get a look thrown at me as if I am the strictest mother in the world and my child gets nothing, but believe me: he lacks nothing. Still, I find it difficult to prevent that little one from being handed sweet junk by everyone. What is the best way to tackle this without sounding like an exaggerated ‘healthy mom’ who only serves her child raw carrots and vegetable juice? No panic: I have put together a few tips for you.

‘He still has to eat’:

Hopefully, every store employee understands that it's not a great idea to snack right before dinner. And if not, you can tell about that one time he went to bed without dinner because he had just snacked and then woke up crying in the middle of the night from hunger. No one wants that on their conscience.

‘He just had a candy’:

Oh, you can definitely consider a box of raisins as a candy, right?

‘We'll save it for later‘: I saw with my little nieces that when they saved candies, they forgot they existed after half an hour. Unfortunately, that doesn't hold true as they get older, but until then you can make good use of this and kindly accept everything so you don't have to say no. But it will never reach its final destination...

‘He could choke on this’:

I have experienced this multiple times. And especially around this time of year, with those life-threatening ginger nuts that Otis with his six little teeth can no way bite through (read: swallows whole, read: choking hazard). Or such a rock-hard meringue – on which I could even break my molar – that a shop assistant cheerfully gave to that little one last week. I was just in time!