Toddler and nursery meal timings - WWYD?

[Yadhap]

DD is 14m old and attends nursery 4 days a week.

Whilst there she has a piece of toast for breakfast at 8am, usually eats all her lunch (a hot meal) and often eats the pudding. Lunch is at 11:30am. They also provide snacks such as fruit or breadsticks twice a day.

The last meal of the day is “tea” - usually sandwiches and fruit or similar. This is served at about 3:30pm-3:45pm.

I’m generally of the opinion she needs something else before she goes to bed at 7-7:30ish because tea is quite early. Is this right? What would you give? We’ve been giving her a small portion of our evening meal and she eats most of it, although on occasion we’ve just given her a weetabix which seems to be enough. I thought a small portion of our evening meal was marginally healthier than weetabix (we eat balanced, homemade meals) but it seems odd to give her 4 meals a day?

What would you do? I’m really conscious of overfeeding her because both my DH and I are overweight. (whilst our evening meals are balanced and healthy, we snack A LOT and are quite lazy).

For context she is 75th centile (and always has been) although she’s short so she’s quite chunky. She was EBF and still breastfeeds a little before bed. She has a good appetite for food now but struggled with weaning at first (she wasn’t that interested) so we did mostly BLW. She only drinks water during the day and has her one breastfeed a day in the evenings. She has CMPA. Recently started walking. Was a terrible sleeper until she started eating properly.

I’d really appreciate anyone’s advice/suggestions.

Yeah if her meal is before 4pm I'd be giving supper

I would do what you've been doing. In fact I did when we were in that situation. Sometimes Dd ate it and sometimes she didn't. I think little ones usually self regulate their food intake at that age, as long as they're offered a healthy balanced diet.

I would personally give a drink of milk and healthy snack around bath time. Fruit with peanut butter or some oat crackers and veg sticks for example.

Our nursery has the same timings.. we give our 11 month old dinner when she gets home (6.15 ish) and it's usually all eaten! Non-nursery days it's three meals at slightly more usual times...

My daughter's meal routine at nursery is the same so she either gets a small amount of what we're having if it doesn't take too long to prepare (and she'll eat it without a meltdown) or just a plate of fruit and a piece of toast or some cheese and ham etc depending on what she's eaten during the day.

My DDs nursery is like that and I give her something like scrambled egg on toast, a sandwich, beans on toast, omelette. It felt a bit strange but they do need something before going to bed and I wanted to keep it relatively light so she wasn’t eating a heavy meal before bed

Toast for breakfast isn’t much.

If she’s hungry then a portion of your meal sounds fine.

Yes, she needs supper of some sort. Otherwise she won't be eating from 3pm til 8am. She's still only little.

As long as you've got good habits formed (eg not encouraging her to have 1 more more spoonful /finish the last of the potatoes /snacking through boredom) , she won't over eat.

A small portion of your meal sounds perfect 👍

Usually nursery 'tea' is supposed to be a light snack to keep them going until they got home. I took my boys with me when I worked in nurseries and I'd give them a normal tea when we got home.

Our nursery meal timings are exactly the same and I always end up giving a small portion of tea at around 5.

My DD is 21 months and has her tea at nursery at 4pm. She normally gets yogurt with fruit or rice cakes etc when she gets home at 5.30pm. She then gets a milk just before bed.

Have always offered my kids either a portion of whatever meal we are having, or something lighter, like cereal or toast after a day at nursery.
Four meals may seem odd, but the portions at nursery are often small, and after a busy day they need that bit extra to see them through the night.
Most times they ate what was offered, very occasionally they would just toy with it.
On those occasions I never push for them to eat more and just trust that they have had enough that day.

Very similar situation here. 16 month old, also CMPA! I offer a smaller version of what his 5yo brother is having, or toast and fruit. Sometimes he's too tired to eat, but I can't stand the idea of him going to bed hungry. He's chunky too, but his brother was at this age and is really skinny now.

I have always given ours a tea when they get in from nursery, sometimes a ‘proper’ meal, pasta or shepherds pie type thing (in winter). Sometimes just porridge if they’re very tired & just need to get to bed.
They have breakfast at home before second breakfast at nursery too.
They’re hobbits really.

We give DS supper about 5.30, sometimes he eats it sometimes he doesn’t. Always something quick so he can eat as soon as we get home - ranges from cereal and fruit, beans on toast, sandwiches, cheese and crackers, hummus and pitta etc. Once a week he has a ‘sweet’ tea - pancakes and yoghurt or fruit toast or similar. His favourite is weetabix and blueberries

Thanks everyone, I wasn’t expecting so many replies! Sounds like we are doing the “right” thing then.

@JayAlfredPrufrock I know... she’s never had much of an appetite for breakfast to be fair so I guess another reason I’ve wanted to make sure she eats again before bed.

Same timings here - I always offer DS something when he gets back from nursery. The tea he has there is more a snack than anything - breadsticks and dip, cheese and fruit, sometimes a smoothie. Every now and then it's more substantial but even if he eats all the snack, he generally wants something about 5.30/6. Sometimes it's pasta and a quick sauce, sometimes a quesadilla, sometimes something like crumpets and peanut butter and banana. Depends what he's had in the rest of the day really. When he's home, we just have normal three meals a day. I figure if he doesn't need it, he won't eat it.

My DS is starving when he gets back from nursery and has a proper dinner. He’s 21 months and I don’t think he’d sleep without it!

Tonight was pasta with aubergine & mushroom ragu. He ate the lot and had some of our garlic bread.

Mine has the same mealtimes at your DC at nursery. We give him a proper tea when he gets home around 6.45 then bed at 8.30. Hes 18m

We have those exact times too.

When mine was 6 months to about 18 months she'd have a massive bf and a small amount of a baby based meal.

From 18 months or so to now at nearly 3 it's a small portion of our meal about 5.30/45 and some fruit.

Going back after lockdown I was giving her a usual portion at tea time and after about 2 weeks 1 day realised her stomach had got really quite big and sticking out so much it didn't look right. I analysed everything and it was likely the nursery meals containing lots of bread/ potato based foods as well as a normal size dinner (during lockdown 3pm was a snack). So I reduced the amount we gave and her stomach still sticks out a bit but is normal looking now!

We never know what she will be fed but avoid pasta for dinner on nursery days as they have it 1-2 times a week. If the last meal at nursery was all bread or loads of crackers etc I'd give her a small amount of or no carbs that evening. So if our meal was with wraps/ garlic bread I'd exclude it if I could, if not just a small amount.

75th centile is perfect- that's what mines on!

Yup, same timings and we offer supper. It doesn't always get eaten mind but it's there. The few times DC have gone to sleep without before supper they've then woken up wanting food at 1am so I reckon checking they've had food before bed if they want is better than making sandwiches in the middle of the night...