Sweet child's getting cold feeding ducks after bedtime (9)
I believe the answer is:
chocolate
'sweet' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'child's getting cold feeding ducks after bedtime' is the wordplay.
'child's getting' becomes 'ch' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'cold' becomes 'c' (eg on taps).
'feeding' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'ducks' becomes 'oo' (I've seen this in other clues).
'after bedtime' becomes 'late'.
'c' placed inside 'oo' is 'oco'.
'ch'+'oco'+'late'='CHOCOLATE'
(Other definitions for chocolate that I've seen before include "Brown - confectionery" , "Deep brown colour" , "Food bars" , "Cacao product" , "Dark, reddish brown - drink - food" .)