The official timeline for my Unlimited Sweets Experiment has come to an end. But the drawer has not been closed - I decided to keep the experiment and drawer open indefinitely! My husband and I both think the experiment was mostly a success. And my hypothesis - If I give my two-year-old unlimited access to sweets, she will be less interested in them - was confirmed. But please read my observations below to determine if you think it was a success, and please share your feedback with me!

We established our home's unlimited sweets drawer about one month ago, filling an accessible drawer with jelly beans, chocolate peanut butter maltballs, generic M&Ms, plain chocolate chips, lollipops and gum drops and letting our toddler daughter Jo have unlimited access to it throughout the day, and even at mealtimes, on the suspicion that she might end up integrating sweets into her life better when they were unrestricted. I let the experiment run a bit longer than initially anticipated, mostly because I wanted to confirm that my observations were accurate. A full month allowed me to do that.

How our daughter responded to limitless sweets

Here are our observations of this experiment, with a few tips to follow.

The novelty of the drawer wore off very quickly. I wrote about week one progress in detail here. During this first week, she frequented the drawer several times per day and especially during mealtimes. But during weeks two through four, things really slowed down. On several occasions, she has forgotten about the drawer for several days. And when Jo does remember, she grabs a couple chocolate chips and walks away for the day.

Our daughter is asking for real food more often. This might be a product of her language development and memory, but she has regularly been asking for soup, fish sticks, grilled cheese, peanut butter and crackers, etc. Prior to the experiment, she had only really been asking for snacks, sweets or drinks.

She has continued to devour the vegetables in the garden. Maybe the way vegetable gardens may improve your child’s diet is a topic for another day, but Jo couldn't get enough raw dill, basil, broccoli and peas from our garden, although she knew chocolate was easily accessible. If we served the same vegetables inside the house, she treated these green foods with the same strong appetite.

Her milk and water consumption stayed the same. I was concerned about her overall calcium intake as we started this experiment, but her milk consumption was steady.

Since she could have sweets at any time, she often added them to her dinner plate, but ate both sweets and dinner food. She would nibble on a cookie, then nibble on black beans and back to the cookies. She consistently follows this pattern. I am hopeful that she is beginning to appreciate the different flavors of a wide variety of foods!

We have one last observation to share, too.

Halfway through the experiment, my husband and I realized that we were less interested in the peanut butter maltballs. In the past, these tasty treats have been a serious indulgence for us (or more accurately, overindulgence for us). Prior to the experiment, neither one of us seemed to have self-control with it. However, we stocked Jo's drawer with it every day for almost five weeks. She cares less about the maltballs now. And so do we!

For all of these reasons, we're sticking with an unlimited sweets drawer.

Five tips for trying unlimited sweets at home

If you decide to duplicate this experiment in your own home, I wanted to offer a few general tips:

1. Continue to have ongoing discussions regarding the importance of nutrition, eating in moderation, physical activity, and the role of vitamins in our bodies. If you don't, start.


2. Be a good role model. This is by far, the BEST thing you can do for your kids when it comes to nutrition and exercise. Children imitate our actions on a daily basis, and eating and activity levels are no different. If you can set a healthy example for your kids, they will follow in your footsteps. They will value the importance of eating right and exercise for a lifetime.


3. Brush teeth, often. Dentists say the gummy foods are most likely to cause cavities, so if you include jelly beans or gummy bears in your drawer, stock up on toothpaste!


4. Make up your mind ahead of time about bedtime and the drawer. If you are not going to allow sweets around to bedtime, create a good reason (i.e. sugar leads to cavities, candy keeps you up, etc.). But be prepared. We call Jo the master distractor at bedtime - she thinks of every reason to stay awake past bedtime, so we had to officially close the drawer at 7 p.m.


5. Consider a vitamin. We really like Nordic Naturals Gummies, but choose any children's multivitamin. The vitamin serves as a safety net if your child eats poorly on some days, and it will give you peace of mind.

My daughter is only two and a half years old, so it would be near impossible for me to predict the outcome of a similar experiment for a five-year-old, eight-year-old, eleven-year-old, or even an adult. But I do believe the concept is the same: People generally want what they can't have. And kids are no different!

So what do you think? Was my experiment a success in your eyes? Anyone out there ready to try it at home? If so, tell us your children's ages - and make sure to report back on your results!

Since I started this unlimited sweets drawer experiment for my two-year old daughter one week ago today, I have been asking myself (and my husband) such questions as: Am I crazy? Is this a totally ridiculous experiment? Is this going to backfire on me and will Jo turn into a dessert-aholic? When I am deeply pondering such questions, I often turn to Google for answers. I wanted to learn about other parents’ experiments, techniques and results.

And guess what? There isn't much out there. (Here's an interesting page of parents' stories that covers access to both sweets and TV.) For the most part, parents have initiated these types of experiments before me, they have not been discussing it online. But thanks to Tranquil Parent readers, who have been extremely generous in sharing your personal stories (successes and failures) with me, I know that I am not a crazy parent after all!

Here is a summary of the last seven days at our house:

Day 1

I introduced the experiment to Jo and made a moderately big deal out of it. I opened the empty drawer, poured in the sweets and told her that she could eat as much as she wanted. I wished that I had been video taping this next part. When I asked Jo if she liked the drawer, her response was “Yes, I do. THANK YOU Mommy!”
Breakfast: From 7 to 9 a.m., she ate jelly beans, chocolates and lollipops. I offered her the usual toast and fruit at breakfast, but she didn’t even notice it.
Lunch: We went out for lunch, and she didn’t mention the drawer but ate a typical meal of grilled cheese, mango and pretzels.
Dinner: Her dinner chair sits right next to the sweets drawer, so she went back and forth during dinner. She would eat one black bean, go back for a few more jelly beans, taste a tomato, and dine on more chocolate.

If you start this at home and plan to include chocolate in your experiment, be sure that your dog cannot get to it! We learned that the hard way on Day 1.

Day 2

She completely forgot about the drawer! I did not mention it, and she did not remember.

Days 3-7

Jo must have been dreaming about the drawer on that second evening, because on Day 3 she woke up asking for more chocolate!

Days 3 through 7 have been pretty similar. For the most part, she still frequents her drawer all day long from early in the morning until close to bedtime. And she has been consistently eating about half of her lunches and dinners. The biggest difference is that she does not ask for any (healthier) snacks throughout the day, but grazes at the sweets drawer instead.

Throughout this entire week, she has continued to be diligent about drinking her milk. Her milk/water consumption has been identical to the previous months. And we have been brushing teeth like crazy, twice a day.

My daughter still begs to visit our garden daily. She ignores the drawer, pops on her Crocs, grabs her toddler shovel and begs for more peas, baby carrots and even plain ol’ green dill!

I think it is too early to make any sweeping conclusions about most children's behaviors when presented with this experiment, but I hope to make further predictions in my final post. All in all, I am still really happy that we initiated this experiment, and I truly don't have any regrets.

Have you tried this at home yet? Are you considering it? Keep sharing your thoughts!

So here is the great (and potentially not-so-great) thing about blogging. Different than personal journals or verbal promises, online blogging holds you accountable for your typed words. At the beginning of 2009, I announced my healthiest intentions for the year, and at the top of my list: Grow a Garden.

I remember laughing out loud when I wrote that goal, because any plants under my care have only withered, never thrived. However, at the end of 2008, I had just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and her book greatly inspired me to join the “locavore” (local eating) movement in any small way that I could. And so I decided that growing my own vegetable garden is the best way to cut back on wasted food resources and costs!

We were lucky enough to already have a sectioned amount of our yard, perfect size for a small garden, on the west side of our house. And my husband grew up working on farms in Ontario, Canada, and he naturally has a green thumb and a love for the outdoors.

Since I live in Colorado, we have the potential for blizzard conditions in April/May, and so it is always recommended to hold planting until Mother’s Day weekend. So last Sunday afternoon, we started our first vegetable garden. Initially, we turned over the soil several times, added peet moss, turned it again, added peet hummus and organic fertilizer, turned it again, used a garden weasel to break up the clay and large chunks, made 3’ furrows and planted our favorite seeds! I love my green veggies, so we planted one row each of zucchini, peas, lettuce, carrots and broccoli. And yesterday, I went to the farmer’s market and purchased two different varieties of tomato seedlings – I wanted to cheat and make a small head start on the tomato plants.

Our vegetables won’t sprout up for at least a few more weeks, but I am already giddy thinking about a hot July day, grabbing the freshest zucchini to make a beautiful salad or loaf of bread with my daughter. As Kingsolver’s book reminds us, it is important for children to understand where food really comes from (it doesn’t grow in the air conditioned grocery store)! So I hope that my 2-year old will pick up some of our enthusiasm and want to grow her own fruits and veggies someday soon. (As an extra incentive to keep her interested now, we added a kids’ water table next to the garden).

I have attached a photo of our vegetable garden – it is difficult to see where the seeds lie, but I am hoping to inspire even the most intimidated vegetable lover. If I can do it, so can you! And if you can’t find the space to plant a garden in your yard, consider growing some herbs or tomatoes in a large pot this summer.

You might think this article belongs on our Gardenaut website, but I can’t call myself a gardener yet – if all goes well with this first project, I might earn that right in August! And if you're looking for more ideas for helping your child understand food origins, check out this great game Z Recommends recently reviewed.