Nested items with Pivot -> children do not get the pivot data

I am trying to build a possibility of nested items for my user model.

Actually, every user can have many items, which can have children of their own type (item).

This is the user's relation to item:

   /**
     * @return \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\belongsToMany
     */
    public function items()
    {
        return $this->belongsToMany(Item::class)->withPivot( 'value'');
    }

This is how the children are being resolved:

   /**
     * @return \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\HasMany
     */
    public function children()
    {
        return $this->hasMany(Item::class, 'parent_id');
    }

Now - thanks to your help before - I can query the items with children:

$user->items()->whereNull('parent_id')->with('children')->get();

This is the result:

Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Collection {#3247
 all: [
   App\Item {#3232
     id: 2,
     parent_id: null,
     title: "Parent 1",

     pivot: Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\Pivot {#3235
       user_id: 12,
       user_item_id: 2,
       value: "3",
     },
     children: Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Collection {#3267
       all: [
         App\Item {#3270
           id: 3,
           parent_id: 2,
           title: "Child 1",
           created_at: "2019-10-04 14:29:59",
           updated_at: "2019-10-04 14:29:59",
         },
         App\Item {#3272
           id: 4,
           parent_id: 2,
           title: "Child 2",
           created_at: "2019-10-04 14:30:16",
           updated_at: "2019-10-04 14:30:16",
         },
       ],
     },
   },
   App\Item {#3255
     id: 5,
     parent_id: null,
     title: "Parent 2",
     created_at: "2019-10-04 14:36:50",
     updated_at: "2019-10-04 14:36:50",
     pivot: Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\Pivot {#3240
       user_id: 12,
       user_item_id: 5,
       value: "50",
     },
     children: Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Collection {#3266
       all: [],
     },
   },
 ],
}

As you can see, the parent items got an pivot value - the children do not have any pivot data. How can I solve that? I learned, that hasMany does not provide pivot.

My question

How can I add pivot data to nested children in this scenario?

via Chebli Mohamed