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!

A few weeks ago, I posted an article about the possible pros and cons of providing unlimited sweets for your children at home, and got an overwhelming response from my readers. Almost every parent felt torn about this decision - as do I! And everyone (including me) seemed to carry over their own childhood experiences in providing guidance to their families today. But as I promised in my post, I will do the experiment at home, and I'll be starting it this week. And I plan to provide a detailed log of my experiment, with all of my positive and negative observations in our home.

Just so you understand how our family worked before the experiment, here is a little background information. My daughter, Jo, is now two and a half years old, and she has always been a very healthy weight for her age. She drinks about 24 ounces of rice milk per day, consistently eats two good meals daily and grazes throughout the day. She loves any fruit, likes a few veggies, thoroughly enjoys breads and pasta, and she really loves chocolate and jelly beans. When dessert time arrives at our house, we have always been fairly lenient. We don't make a big deal out of desserts, and we usually let her decide when she is full, even if that means an extra scoop of ice cream. If she asks for dessert before finishing a meal, we encourage her to try some of the healthier foods first, but I don't force-feed her. In summary, mealtimes are typically very pleasant in our house.

So I have been thinking hard about how to set up this experiment at home. I know that I am going to use a large bottom drawer in our kitchen that is easily accessible for Jo. And I know that I wanted to include toddler-friendly packaging. It doesn’t do any good to put in giant bags of chocolate if she can't open them with her little fingers, right?

But here are some of the issues that I have been contemplating, and how I've resolved them for my own experiment.

Do I include sweets with food coloring and trans fats? Do I include the very worst desserts like Twinkies?
I have decided to only include sweets that I would normally choose for her, which generally do not contain food coloring or trans fats. As my sister (and mother of 3) reminded me - I am not trying to encourage my daughter to avoid all sweets forever. I am simply trying to give her a different perspective on desserts and the concept of eating in moderation. And my sister reminds me it is also important for us to outright teach our kids about why foods with dyes and trans fats are just not healthy choices. And then we can hope that our children will avoid these types of sweets in the future because of their potential health consequences, even if they do taste good.

How much do I put in this drawer? Do I fill it up or put in small portion sizes?
This was a hard decision, but I finally decided to put in large amounts of each item. If I put in small amounts, I didn't want to be running back to the grocery store every few days if she devoured one type. And I really didn't want a meltdown over the last jelly bean, because that would defeat the purpose of the drawer. So I went to Whole Foods and bought a large amount of jelly beans, chocolate peanut butter maltballs, Sun Drops chocolate candies (the Whole Foods version of M&M's), plain chocolate chips, lollipops and gum drops. She is only two years old and hasn't experienced all desserts, but in her little world, these sweets are the favorite ones.

Also, I am starting the experiment this week for a few reasons. For one, we will not be traveling and we won't have any overnight visitors at our house. And I also chose this week because my husband will be back at work full-time. (Truth be told, I wanted total control over this experiment for the first few days!)

What are my rules for the drawer?
I really couldn't come up with any rules for the drawer. For two weeks (and maybe longer if the efforts seem promising), Jo will be have free access to the drawer all day long. If she wants to access the drawer during a meal, I will simply encourage her to eat a few bites on her plate first.

To be perfectly honest, I am really nervous to do this experiment and I am hoping that it doesn't backfire on our family! But wish me luck, and I promise to keep you posted on our success/failure!