Nursery’s comments about 3 year old’s lunchbox

[Fussyeating]

DS is 3 and he recently started at a new nursery. DH and I work FT so he attends 4 full days a week 8-6. He previously attended a different nursery who were great in ways but utterly useless in others so we decided to find a new one to cover this academic year.

The issue we have with this nursery is their attitude to food and fussy eating. DS has always been a fussy eater, even as a small infant when he first started weaning. I have no idea why, older DS is not fussy at all and will eat just about anything without complaint. We didn’t do anything differently when we weaned him, we still offer him all the same foods we eat on a daily basis but he often just won’t touch them. He won’t eat pieces of fruit at all, he actually never has. We followed BLW with both DC but DS2 just rejected any form of fruit or veg unless the veg was disguised within a meal. He’s still the same now, he will only eat vegetables if they’re very well disguised within a meal such as chilli, curry, pasta bake etc.

With regards to fruit intake, the only way we can get him to consume any fruit of any sort is within snacks such as innocent smoothie cartons, bear yo-yos and Nakd bars. I appreciate none of this is ideal, I obviously wish he’d just eat a bowl of berries or whatever like DC1 does but this is all we can get him to accept fruit wise.

The nursery offers one set meal a day with no other selection. Initially we thought we’d try DS with their hot meals and see if maybe it broadened his horizons, perhaps he’d try something new when he saw all of the other children there eating it. What actually happened was he went the full day between breakfast at 7am and dinner when he got home just after 6pm without eating anything at all. The nursery didn’t attempt to offer him anything outside of their set meal such as plain toast like his previous nursery would have, they just essentially let him starve.

Suffice to say, we switched him over to a lunchbox after this. The issue is, the nursery staff keep commenting on the contents within his lunchbox. When DH drops him off, they actually open the lunchbox and will remove certain items and pass them to DH saying DS can’t eat them. Examples are as I mentioned previously- innocent smoothie cartons, bear yo-yos and oat bars. These items are on a very small list of lunchbox style items DS will actually willingly eat. They have said they don’t mind if he brings more packets of crisps and extra sandwiches but they don’t want him to bring ‘high sugar’ foods. The weird thing is, they offer the children dessert with their meal every single day and it’s things such as profiteroles or cake and custard so to offer that but have an issue with something like an oat bar seems bonkers to me! He also often returns home with items like that uneaten and I know he would eat them so I’m gathering they’re intentionally not opening them for him.

I ended up sending a long ranting email yesterday because I was pretty furious that they keep restricting his already quite restrictive diet. When he’s there for 10 hours and there’s an 11 hour gap between the meals he has at home, we need to make sure he’s eating adequately and isn’t going hungry. I’ve already enquired at different nurseries, however I do know FT slots in the area we live in are rare so the chances of us sourcing alternative childcare are slim. I’m just looking for advice really, what’s the best course of action here? Also, if anyone has any tips regarding fussy eating, I’d fully appreciate those!

3-4 sugary items is a lot I get where they’re coming from tbh. Why do you think they’re all needed if he will eat sandwiches, yoghurt and crisps?

I can’t leave him on nursery meals. DC1 is at primary school and he has around 5 different meal options a day so every day he can either have tomato pasta (something DC2 would love), a cheese or ham sandwich (again, DC2 would eat the cheese) or a choice of two other hot meals (some DC2 would eat as well).

At nursery, however, there’s one set meal a day and if you don’t want it, you starve effectively. This happened on his first full day and I just can’t, as a parent, let that happen again. He’s 3 years old and I just can’t have him going 11 hours without eating a single thing, it’s bordering on neglect/abuse on the nursery’s part imo.

Hi OP, it sounds like outside of the nursery meal your DS is doing pretty well nutrition wise for a fussy eater! Eggs are a fantastic source of vitamins and nutrition for breakfast and dinner sounds great (coming from another mum with one inexplicably fussy DS!). From the many dieticians I followed on social media with mine, the advice seems to be, if you can try to squeeze the fruit and veg in somewhere during the day, it doesn't matter if not all of those meals are so balanced, so look at it as a whole over the day/week, rather than worrying that lunch doesn't hit all the food groups. My only fussy eating tips are that heavily branded packets of raisins seemed to be a favourite, and don't have the UPF tag of some of the other stuff. Also, to put out a little fruit buffet each morning when your DS is first awake and hungry. It's a bit of a faff when you need to get out the door, but they might be tempted to venture for a strawberry/slice of watermelon/grape when they are ravenous first thing and they are all in appealing looking little bowls (rather than putting them on a plate for DS). Good luck!

Remove the packaging from the yo-yos and oat bars, I should think they're less likely to remove.

Also I have a 'fussy' eater (actually due to sensory issues) and we've been through the dietician. Withholding food like the nursery are doing is not recommended. Gather some factual info and present it to the nursery.

Can't you send him with cold tomato pasta? DS used to have that a lot. Or cold macaroni cheese.

You could also try cheese scones?

The nursery is right that it's too much sugar. You're right that he needs to eat. I wouldn't be throwing around terms like neglect, you just need to find a solution.

Basically because he has his breakfast between 6:30 and 7am and he doesn’t return home until around 5:45pm ish, we then have our evening meal around 6:15-6:30ish so this leaves a 12 hour gap between meals at home. If I went for 12 hours between those meals and only had a sandwich and packet of crisps, as an average sized adult I would be ravenous. I don’t want him going hungry hence packing food items I know he will eat.

Being positive. He is eating plenty of veg & legumes so getting a good range of different foods and nutrients. Not eating fruit isn't such an issue if he's having vegetables.

The very high sugar content of some of his foods is obviously less good.

I think the advice to send him with a flask is a good solution. Also does he eat wraps? If so a quesadilla/pizza hybrid wrap type thing might work.

Would he eat cheese as a snack instead of high sugar crap marketed as healthy?

If you got a food flask like one of these https://shoreusable.com/products/your-food-flask-by-sho?variant=46193550197044 then you can send in warm pasta or curry or scrambled eggs.

I have a very fussy eater a similar age (much smaller list of foods accepted than yours!). They only had lunch at nursery so that meant only 4 meals a week so don’t worry about it being balanced/healthy. Just pack things they will eat. We do things like hot baked beans in one of those stay hot tubs and some buttered bread plus crisps, plain yoghurt (will not eat plain natural or Greek) and cut up fruit (which is eaten less than half the time). Don’t stress about contents just make sure he isn’t going hungry.

I would send with a hot food thermos instead. Just something simple like hidden veg tomato pasta.
Then little bento lunch box with small cheese sandwich, dried section with dried cherrios, pretzels, plain popcorn or whatever he eats. get a reusable little pop with twist lid for yogurt. decant yourself what he will eat.

i think he eats a fair amount tbh. Ds is 3, hes going through an awful fussy stage, and living off fruit, bread and cheese basically. Anything 'cooked' is rejected. Hasnt ever liked meat or fish. His nursery food is the same cheese sandwich and then fruit every single day as its the only thing i can guarantee he will eat. At home i offer different at eveyr meal but he wont eat 95%

I can try with things such as a cold pasta, I’m just not entirely sure whether he’d eat it cold but I’m willing to try or will source a flask to keep it warm as suggested.

No, he won’t touch wraps sadly so when we have a meal such as tortillas we just give him the filling with some bread to bulk it.

If he's eating those things for dinner, why can't he have them for lunch?
Will he eat a hard boiled egg if he likes eggs?
Lunch could be filling him up with savoury food, so a sandwich and pesto pasta and a boiled egg. There's no real need for fruit if he'll eat veg at home in dinner.

If you get a bento box and fill it with savoury things he'll eat, you could try adding like one apple slice or one orange segment or a slice of cucumber every day so he gets used to the idea, and one day he might pick it up and eat it if there's no pressure.

I do add a piece of fruit/pot of berries/ cucumber or carrot sticks etc most days and they’re always uneaten. I offer him these things on a daily basis because that’s what we all eat in general but honestly, he is used to these foods being offered and has never once picked them up. Even as a baby doing BLW, he had absolutely no desire to even so much as lick a piece of fruit or veg.

But yes, I get the point about sending a flask in with some pasta or curry. I’ll give that a try plus a bento box with some additional snacks and see if that’s any better.

Even though there are children with developmental problems that may cause problems with food intake... I just can't help but feel almost angry at what bollocks like Baby Lead Weaning does to nutritional intake of our children.

Why the feck stop with babies? I'll be all out contemporary earth mother and offer Child Lead Feeding to my 9 year old. Let's see (and be surprised) at how that ends.

I'd be very tempted as a nursery teacher to just let the kids eat&drink whatever shite comes in with the lunch boxes. It's not like ill-conceived parenting can be fixed by an apple slice at school.

would he eat eggy bread? that could be cut into strips and sent in cold, rather than cold scrambled eggs.

I send my primary kid with fish fingers in a thermos soup flask, or spaghetti bolognese or curry.

Your kid doesn’t sound as fussy as you initially made out. He’ll eat a whole bunch of hot stuff so send in a thermos flask with lunch in it. The nursery staff can decant it onto a plate for him. And if they argue with that then fuck them, do what you want and tell them clearly to stop screwing around with his lunch because he needs to eat and they need to back off.

It will be because they don't want the other kids looking at the lunch then moaning that they want it. Definitely need to get something sorted for him as he cant go hungry poor thing!!

Baby-led weaning doesn’t mean you just give them a dairy milk if they won’t eat watermelon. It basically just means offering them a variety of foods at meal times and letting them try different things at their own pace rather than puréing veg and fruit and spoon feeding.

It worked out well for DC1 who now eats pretty much anything. As it goes, I don’t think DC2 is even really that fussy because he will eat some foods I know many children definitely wouldn’t.

I think spoon feeding a baby with mushed up goop is actually much worse than giving them solids and letting them eat.

Some people get it wrong and feed their kid utter crap, but those people would do that anyway even if they did use jars from the supermarket. Baby lead weaning isn’t the cause of poor diet.

I will be trying the meals in a flask and will ask if they can decant to see if that works out any better, it’s not a bad shout.

You have been misinformed how BLW works. Maybe do some research as it is not relevant for this thread. OP herself has stated she weaned 2 children the same way; 1 is fussy and the other isn’t.

I had the same problem, fortunately my fussy eater grew out of it which will give OP hope for future

In your position I think I would ask for a meeting with the manager and room leader. I’ve worked in nurseries for a long long time and understand why they have the restrictions but they are failing to meet your sons needs. I would go to the meeting with the outcome you would like in mind. If it was me I would try to move away from the lunchbox and go back to nursery meals. I would ask for a care plan to be written up and agreed on that he is offered the nursery meal every day with his friends with no criticism if he doesn’t eat it. If he hasn’t eaten, the nursery would make him toast that he could eat with his key worker. I would ask for a written handover of what he has eaten and drunk each day and a plan for a review meeting within a couple of weeks.

at the end of the day they are failing to meet his nutritional needs and need to do better. Arguing over the lunchbox is a smokescreen.