Problems with partner's daughter!

saroec

Hi everyone,

We are having a few problems with my partner's daughter (age 4) at the moment. She is incredibly stubborn when it comes to doing what she has been told, and especially when it comes to eating. She goes through phases with food, initially it was mashed potato, gravy and yorkshire puddings, but all of a sudden, she 'doesn't like them' anymore.. At the moment, the only food she will consent to eating is sausage rolls and cocktail sausages. She constantly asks for chocolate, chocolate yoghurts, crisps, cakes and biscuits. We try not to let her have them very often as she needs to eat proper food. She will say she is full just to get out of eating something, and then asks for more food less than 5 minutes after the plate has been taken away.

She has had a nasty cough on and off for about 18 months, we have been told that her mother has taken her to the doctor, though nothing ever seems to get better. She is constantly tired, despite having around 11/12 hours sleep a night. She is snoring on a nightly basis, loudly and occasionally waking herself up.

I have been doing some research on this and I am very worried that she may have asthma and that is impacting on her sleep routine. She is constantly grumpy and gets tired easily in the daytime.

It is difficult to do anything about this as we only have the children every other weekend, so we are unable to take her to the doctors ourselves.

Please please please can someone help! If anyone has been through anything like this themselves, or could offer any advice.. we are desperate!

Thanks xx

conradmum

Regarding the food issue, she sounds completely normal. As with all food fads, it's best to ignore her as much as possible, continue to offer good quality food with a little encouragement to try some (without going overboard) and only allow fruit or bread or something equally healthy if she's still hungry because she hasn't eaten her dinner. Many, many children go through phases of fussiness with food and it's easy to turn it into a family saga if you aren't careful. Don't worry about what food she eats when she's with her mum - children learn what's acceptable behaviour in one place isn't acceptable in another. Try to neither pander to her whims nor make a big fuss about what she eats. It just exacerbates the problem.

Of course, if she's generally unwell that isn't going to improve her appetite either. Maybe she has a long-standing infection, or asthma, as you suspect. If her mother feels she's explored all possible avenues but you disagree I can't see what else you can do except take an afternoon off work and take her to the doctor yourselves. You can't force her mother to take her.

As general advice, I'd say it's very difficult being a stepparent, especially if you have no children of your own. Until you have children yourself you don't tend to see them at their worst, and it can come as a shock when faced with a partner's children. Often childless stepparents see their stepchildren's behaviour as excessively bad, when in fact it's completely normal, especially in children whose parents have split up and are having to get used to a stranger in their parent's home.

miss.bint

She sounds like a normal 4 year old to me.
With the food thing, maybe find out what her favourite 'meals' are instead of giving her the same thing? Kids like new things, not all of them want the same thing all the time, unless it's chocolate

As with the coughing, do you have pets? My daughter started coughing just at night when she was 2. Turned out it was an allergy cough to some damp under her bedroom carpet that we didn't know about. But that's sorted now and she's fine.

You say she snores too. Maybe she's just coughing because she sleeps with her mouth open? Just a thought.

Overall, I think you are over-analyzing things.
As conradmum said, it's hard being a step parent when you have no children of your own (I've been there).
And if you only have her every other weekend it's hard to really establish anything, so I would just say stop thinking about stuff that winds you up and try to have more fun when the children do come round, as you only see them every other weekend and then they go home. Try and find the inner 4 year old inside you

My daughter will be 4 next month and I think it's a fabulous age.

pinkclouds

Just want to point out that this is a duplicate thread and responses should be posted in the main thread: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3636097

make_me_wise

As far as the eating goes she sounds like a normal 4 year old. They know that it is the one area where they can be very controlling and test boundaries to the max. Call her bluff. Decide what you are feeding her and put it in front of her. If she wont eat it she gets no pudding and no other snacks till the next meal time. Lordy I sound like my grandmother, advising that.

Worked a treat with my brother and I when we were little though. May not seem like it, but kids actually appreicate knowing exactly where they stand and that they cant get away with things with an adult.

At 4 years old she will be at nursery and kids do tend to constantly have colds and sniffles, mixing so close with other kids. This tends to get worse as they start school too. Their immune systems are not strong enough to fight it all off yet. Another reason to toughen up on her diet. If she is eating really well then this will strengthen her against illness.

If she is not sleeping soundly then it follows that she will be irritable and grumpy during the day. Bit of a vicious circle. See if you can both have a chat with the mum and work out a way to all be backing each other and sending the kid the same messages. Working together is in the childs' best interest and will make your lives so much easier in the long run.