DS Won't eat at nursery

[NameChangedForThis1989]

We love the nursery my DS is at and do not want to change.
They won't let me provide him a packed lunch and he won't eat the hot meal they provide. He used to do a full day but due to not eating (apart from a couple of the snacks sometimes) he now does half days. I give breakfast before he goes and lunch when he's home. We do pay for the food though (breakfast and lunch/snacks) but he's not touching it. We get 30 hours from January and I won't be able to utilise these if he won't eat. Is this usual practice to not allow packed lunches?

It’s fairly standard to only allow one type of food (ie just cooked or just packed lunch) as it makes it easier for staffing and I guess cross contamination of kids trying to share food.

What’s the reason he won’t eat it, is it food he eats at home?

@PandaOrLion it's been an ongoing battle for ages now getting him to try new food. He has an allergy to hazelnuts so I don't know if that's an issue but he's behind on his communication so it's hard to know... very frustrating 😣 he has a big breakfast and lunch at home but dinner is always difficult as he won't try anything

I had this with my DD for a while. I told nursery that if she didn't eat, I was fine with it. He will eat with you at home so he's getting some calories at breakfast and dinner. Does he get offered another breakfast at nursery? I would give mine a big bowl of porridge, then she would get toast at nursery and she would eat the snack (usually fruit / cracker / biscuit). Same with afternoon snack. She wouldn't eat the hot lunch and she would 9/10 refuse the tea too. I said just to nursery to not pass comment on it, and explained she ate plenty out of nursery. I would pick her up with a snack and then give her tea when she got home and milk before bed. After a few months she started trying the odd thing and again I told them not to comment to her. Now she eats there most days

Thank you @wibblewobbleball that's reassuring. I will always give him breakfast before he goes, he's offered breakfast when he's there and had some rice crispies without milk the other day. I just feel sorry for him not eating if it was all day. He was a bit upset on Monday when he was there as he wouldn't eat the shepherds pie but I realised when we got home he was really hungry and that's why he was upset. You'd think he'd try it if he's hungry!! Everything is going so well and this is just a big road block at the moment. It hasn't improved in 8 months of being there but maybe starting full days again will encourage him. I don't know, it's so hard... he was okay not eating lunch before but 8-5 is a long day. He changed to half days due to this but also so he could go more often to help with his speech which is coming along nicely. He doesn't know what he's missing with a lot of food! He's not like his mum lol

We had this with DS1 - he hated most of the nursery food and they wouldn't let us send in food because of allergies. We just focussed on getting the calories in him before and after nursery and they focussed on making sure he sat at the table with the others and tried things. Generally he'd eat either the AM or PM snack though even if he generally refused lunch.

They should really be offering some sort of alternative, even if it's just something like bread/crackers/fruit (DS's nursery were a bit inconsistent about this). Food refusal is an additional need and so they should be making reasonable adjustments to facilitate children eating whilst in the setting.

HV might be able to offer more advice.

@SatinHeart okay great thank you x

Is it possible he is on the autistic spectrum. As you mention behind on communication and issues around food.

I think he will survive on breakfast.
.could nursery try some flexibility and give him simple lunch if he doesnt want the main offering

It doesnt seem very helpful of th tbh to just state he wont eat and not try to resolve it

@waterrat he's under the speech and language team and they haven't raised other concerns. He doesn't show any other traits but who knows, as he gets older we'll see! I'm glad I got him in early with them so that any additional needs can be met.
Yes I'm going to talk to them again about what they can suggest when we get to the new year

My DS would not entertain a hot meal at lunch time at all. I haven't even tried at his nursery. I asked him if he'd like to try the hot dinner option and it was a flat out no! Lucky enough they have the option of hot dinner or packed lunch!

My DS can be a nightmare about food and he often doesn't eat lunch at nursery. I just sort of let him get on with it. They quite often have sandwiches for tea which he'll eat.

My DD was like this for most of her year at school nursery. We just did a big filling breakfast, she would have fruit for her snack there, then met her with another snack at pick up and fed a big dinner as soon as possible after she got home. It was basic toddler fussiness, especially as we’d moved from another country so she wasn’t really used to a lot of British food and I didn’t really want to give into it. And persistent paid off as by summer term she was mostly eating the meals and is now, by age 5, really quite adventurous.

That's all reassuring thank you. I think I'll do the same and send him for a couple of full days next year. He has a big breakfast of porridge fruit and yogurt so I'll see how he goes

I work in a nursery.
If a child refused to eat lunch we would offer a cheese sandwich.
If a child refused tea we would offer toast.
This is unless a parent requested we didn't.

@grayhairdontcare he's off there this morning so I'll speak to them, thank you