Taking whole days food to nursery... ideas

[cruellada]

From January DD gets funding for nursery which is fab but nursery charges £10/day for food which certainly racks up over the month, so I'm considering whether to send food in with her.
She will need

Breakfast
Snack
Lunch
Snack
Tea

My vague idea is
Breakfast- Tupperware cereal and send small bottle of milk in every week
Snack- banana and raisins
Lunch- sandwich, kiddy (healthy) crisps and flapjack
Snack- cucumber and pepper sticks
Tea- ???

Any suggestions that people do for similar set ups?
Or should I pay £80-£100 per month for them to provide it for her

Will they heat things up? Or butter bread? Or does everything have to be prepared as if child will eat it without the staff doing anything extra?

Are you allowed to send food in? I thought the 'fee for food' was a ruse to get round the problem of government funded hours being inadequate to cover the cost of providing the care.

After all, not many preschoolers could put away anywhere near £10 worth of food a day, so they're obviously doing it at a considerable profit.

At £80-100 I'd rather not have to faff around with it to be completely honest.

If you have to then what you've suggested sounds fine. 'Tea' at DSs nursery tends to be something small like sandwiches/wraps and fruit, but they do have a cooked meal for lunch. Can you send in something for them to warm up? Soup for example?

That’s crazy expensive! Mines £49 per day food all in, when I get funding I think it’s like 4.50 for food a day... that’s all meals and snacks.

Sounds like a right faff. £10 a day is ridiculous though but as a p said o think it's a surreptitious way of increasing the fees.

How old is she? I assume she is turning 3. That would not be enough to fill up my 2 year old. If you have never packed 3 meals a day to take with you (I have to do it for work when I'm in the office), honestly it's a real pain. If I was getting free nursery, I would happily pay 200 a month to not have to make 3 meals a day worth of packed lunch, unless money is a real issue.

I'd just pay it. You will soon hate packing all that.

I think £80 to a hundred per month would be cheaper than all of the extra shopping trips.

What extra shopping trips? Won't the OP just add what she needs to her existing grocery shopping?

Plus the food can be prepared in batches, so she'll only have to do it twice a week at most.

Is the £10 meant to cover just food or is it to cover eg staff supervision during an unfunded lunchtime too?

I agree that many nurseries use lunch fee to fill the shortfall left by the funding, I can't imagine they would be pleased if their staff have to pour, serve, heat or otherwise prepare packed up meals for all the children whilst not receiving any fee for this.

I had to double check you said £10 PER DAY. I absolutely wouldn’t pay that for a small child and would personally rather send her with food. I guess the problem is how fussy your daughter is with food and what the nursery is willing to do? Do they have fridge space to keep things chilled? Will they warm food up? Will they toast bread?

I think your suggestions are spot on. For tea I’d be thinking of one-pot recipes that will keep in a thermos + a side. Hearty soup/stew, casserole, pasta and sauce, mild chicken curry, risotto, gnocchi and sauce, mac & cheese, mild chilli, and chicken noodle soup. With things like a nice ciabatta roll, sliced cucumber, halved cherry tomatoes, sweetcorn salad, carrot sticks, a simple guacamole (smashed avocado, basically) and a handful of tortilla chips, chickpea salad. But it really depends on what your daughter eats and how helpful the nursery are.

As an ex-nursery teacher, just make sure you label everything so it’s really clear what is meant to be eaten for which meal. “Breakfast. Snack 1. Lunch. Snack 2. Tea. Tea (Side dish).”

Appreciate feedback all.
Will enquire about if they will heat- I suspect they will.
The nursery is not free, even with funding, they have stipulations in place which mean it is still costly. So not keen to pay extra £100/month if feesible. (We love the nursery and not going to upheave DD to another nursery over this either way).
£10 is just for the food, not any unfunded care.

@LondonStone thanks so much super helpful :)
Yes £10 per day it's a posh nursery in a posh area, and whilst we are not particularly well to and do not live in said posh area she is just so happy there that I won't be moving her elsewhere over this either way.
The food is currently included in our fees whilst we are fully paying privately and dd refuses all their fancy lunches anyway and I send a ham sandwich

We also do this, I bought a small canister with spork designed for children from Amazon and it stays warm enough from heating in the morning to when she eats it. I usually cook extra in the evenings she's not at nursery and give her that in some form, e.g. pasta salad, shepherd's pie stew, soup etc.

Raisins aren’t a good snack as they can quickly rot a child’s teeth. If you give raisins you should give cheese cubes along with them to neutralise the sugary acid.

Have you asked at Nursery if this is an actual option ?
Where do you think they would be able to store all this, if several children did it ? Just breakfast alone - you are talking about a separate bottle of milk for each child that does this. How do you think this will work, practically ?
No, they probably aren't spending £10 on ingredients, but you do realise that they are employing a cook who might also like to be paid.
It's like saying "I'm not paying £7.95 for a lasagne in this pub, the ingredients don't cost that".

@BackforGood yes the nursery clearly have two options of provide own or have theirs. Sorry if you disagree with their policy but that's not the point of this thread

I don't disagree with the policy. Not sure why you would suggest I do ?
I also have every sympathy for people paying for childcare - it was a big part of the budget when mine were that age.
I'm just aware it is something the Nursery would need to agree to, and I wouldn't be surprised if many Nurseries didn't have the capacity to have whole rows of different children's food supplies lined up, and stored within the food hygiene regs they have to follow.

^No, they probably aren't spending £10 on ingredients, but you do realise that they are employing a cook who might also like to be paid.
It's like saying "I'm not paying £7.95 for a lasagne in this pub, the ingredients don't cost that^

It's nothing at all like that. People purposely go to pubs for food and drink. There is no cost or service provided if you don't eat and drink there.

People send their children to nursery for them to be looked after while they are working. You'd expect all aspects of care of the child during that time to be covered in the fees charged (or government subsidised 'free' childcare) including food.

@BackforGood Lots of nurseries now offer a choice between providing your own or having theirs, it's not that unusual.

£10 a day

My DS's pre school charged £2.10

That will be a giant pain in the arse to organise and pack everyday. And she might be kick off over not having the same as the others. If you can, I would pay for it.

Just breakfast alone - you are talking about a separate bottle of milk for each child that does this. How do you think this will work, practically?
This!
I’m a childminder and give the option of bringing own food to those on funding rather than paying me for it, but I wouldn’t have space for you to be bringing your own Bottle of milk to store all week, so it would be something to check with nursery as you might find you have to bring everything each day.

All of mine pay me to provide it, but I guess it depends on how much parents value an easier life or if they are happy to be making dinners and thinking about snacks For each day. (But I’m not charging anywhere near £10 a day, but then we also aren’t in a posh area).

@HappyDinosaur - I am aware the option of taking packed lunch is there for most (all?) Nurseries, but the reason I responded was that the OP was talking about doing things like sending a bottle of milk in to last the week. The practicality of having even just 30 of the families each sending in their own bottle of milk on a Monday and expecting staff to store them all and know whose was whose, etc, seems a logistical nightmare to me.

@GlummyMcGlummerson is that for breakfast, dinner, tea and snacks over a 10 hour day ?

I send my 2.5 year old to a childminder all day (roughly 7.30-5) with food although she does have Weetabix with fruit at home before we leave. She takes a small ziplock type bag with a banana, raisins, crackers, brioche and blueberries for miscellaneous snacks through the day, then a sandwich, crisps, yoghurt and apple for lunch. I give her dinner when we get home between 5 and 5.30.