to question nursery as to why they are serving jam sandwiches to babies?

[choceyes]

My DD is 14 months old and goes to nursery 3 days a week.

I won't know whether I am being precious or not, but it annoys me that occassionally she gets given jam sandwiches and also tinned spaghetti hoops on toast for her afternoon snack. I would never give these things to her at home. She always has healthy stuff, no treats at all, cos she is not a big eater, so I don't want to fill her up with junk.

My DS, 3yrs, is also at the same nursery, but there's nothing much I can do to stop him eating jam sarnies, as he would want to eat what his friends eat. and as he eats fairly well most of the time he can afford to have the occassional junk.

The nursery lunches are fine, and they also do fruit, chesse, crackers, tuna sandwiches for afternoon snack , so this probably happens about once a week I guess (i mean she gets either jam sarnies or hoops on toast maybe once a week, the rest of the meals are fine).

I dunno really. I was talking to a friend about it at the weekend and she was appalled at the jam sarnies, so got me thinking maybe I should say something to the manager.

I'm not in anyway a health freak, and against giving kids sugar, but not at 14 months, it's too young for me. And the nursery serves them to kids above 12 months I think.

It's just there is NO nutritional value in jam sarnies. I@d rather they gave her a flapjack or something (and they sometimes for the older ones dessert), which although has sugar, has got good things in it too.

Apologies then, someone else must have mentioned it :)

Sorry, I read your second post wrong!

I don't know what to do about the tinned hoops, though. I'll talk to the manager about that

Why do anything? It is an occasional thing, not a daily occurence. If your daughter enjoys them, then what on earth is the problem. It is an afternoon snack, thats all. Pasta in a tomato sauce, with a slice of bread. It isnt a bag of pork scratchings, or a can of coke.

sorry I wasn't being a food snob mentioning scallops BTW. They were a pack that was in the freezer for months, no food in, so was cooked last night, and it is the first time DS ever had scallops and he thought it was like chicken. I didn't like them however, I don't see the fuss about scallops personally.

^FYI..my DD really LOVES and gets a lot of JOY from eating cucumber actually, and also broccolli. Are they joyeous enough for you? She also finds eating mango JOYFUL..is that joyful enough for you?
I find it bizzaree that you think she will get more joy out of eating a jam sarnie???^

WE don't eat nasty jam sandwiches, DO we Clarissa? That's what COMMON people eat :o

I'll bet your kid would kill for a jam sardine if broccoli and cucumber are your idea of a good time OP!

Remember, at that age it's just chemicals, trick is to shovel enough in and of enough different types. Food fads are for adults.

Cooked to death pasta, destroyed of all nutrients, in a salty sugary tomatoey sauce - this is what is tinned hoops. Not good for a baby.

Jam sardine....Apple is getting Freudian now :)

broccolli and cucumber are HER idea of a good time not mine.

Toddler.

and I think you being frankly ridiculous whatmeworry.

"AIBU?"
"Yes you are"
"No I'm not!"

What a waste of time

Cooked to death pasta, destroyed of all nutrients, in a salty sugary tomatoey sauce - this is what is tinned hoops. Not good for a baby.

She is a toddler, not a baby, and there are far far far worse things than that. It is not "bad" for her.

OP - YANBU - there is that what you wanted to hear?

Didn't you bother to check the nursery's menu before you enrolled your DD? I had a list of about ten points to check at nursery when I was looking where to send DS and while I am much more chilled out than you (!) menu was definitely one of them.

DS's (15 months) nursery does not give jam snadwiches (fine by me if they did, for tea occasionally and in moderation) but they do have spaghetti hoops on toast every third week and it is just not an issue. If it was then I would have to conclude that my childcare requirements and having my child in nursery were just not compatible!

My grandaughter loved broccoli when she was that age, she called it "trees".. but she also loved yorkshire puddings, filled with apple sauce, and chocolate fudge cake.

If you have never given your toddler anything but "healthy" food, then she has no choice but to love broccoli and cucumber, because she hasnt been given the chance to eat something that tastes nicer.

I am not sure where this is going but Choceyes at least I can see that you will be patting yourself on the back when in 20 years time your DCs will be a picture of perfect health and the poor offspring of these MNers will be keeling over through malnourishment or unable to fit through their doors.

YANBU at all. Spag hoops and jam butties on crap white bread is shite
It is junk food-check what is actually written on the label of a tin of spaghetti.

It's very weird to me that on MN today is one thread where people are up in arms that a woman has begun weaning her hungry 3 month old on baby rice (non-nutritional crap apparently) and on the other, whenever a thread like this comes up the OP is always berated for being precious about her baby eating sugar.

Of course a jam sandwich wont kill OP's baby, but is that the point?
Should we just be grateful that nurseries feed kids food that wont actually kill them?
Or should we expect a more balanced diet than refined sugar, refined wheat, refined sugar and wheat, food colouring, and , er, thats about it.

Don't get me wrong-I don't do organic-I do Morrisons-and ds loves the odd sticky pud, but this kind of pap should not be given as a matter of course to toddlers.
Sugar is addictive actually. It kills the tastebuds, so when kids are mostly fed "kid food" of course they end up with a preference for it-it's full of addictive substances.
And it ruins their teeth.

"Food for children should be fuel...".

I disagree. Children need to be used to appreciating decent food, and to distinguish between high quality food and processed stuff (i obviously include in this definition anything which is branded "diet").

It's a huge fallacy that children prefer fishfingers to "other fish", and one I never encountered before I actually moved to the UK and realised how low expectations were for children when it comes to food: the "childhood" foods I remember were risotto with parmesan, squid and polenta (my all time favourite even now), lasagne, barbecued chicken, egg mayo salad with fresh peppers, homemade choc tart... The more foods you introduce, the more they are likely to appreciate and learn to "like" and carry into teenagerdom and adulthood as "likes" (of course there will be exceptions, but there always are).

Calm down children... If this were RL we would have seen talking hands and 'muh muh muh muh muh muh mURRRR' in a high shreiky voice by now.

And what Minerva said.

My DS loves salmon not that he dislikes fish fingers, but then I like them too
I never said it was all or nothing, I dont think anyone has suggested that children should only be fed spaghetti hoops, chicken nuggets and potato waffles... [hhmm]
The only extreme posters here are the "healthy" ones...

my 50 year old husband prefers fishfingers to most other forms of fish... :)

then again, home made fishfingers are very easy to make, and nutritious too..

When I say food for children should be fuel, I dont mean that they shouldnt get decent quality food, but food should not be a major obsession for children, they should just be happy to eat what is put in front of them, and not be picky, faddy, or even aware of calories at a young age..

As a child, eating was something that had to be done in between playing out, building dolls houses, riding my bike, and being with friends... it was something that had to be done and I never questioned the food that was put in front of me... at home, or as a guest in anyone elses house.

I am saddened when I hear 5 year old girls talking about not eating something because it might make them fat.. and that is where unnecessarily strict food control leads to.

Is a jam sandwich treat food? Well, there you go. And there was me thinking it was a sandwich. Dh often takes jam sandwiches for lunch, dd will occasionally have one.

How about jam on toast? Is that treat food too?

and flapjacks contains oats, which are good for you the last time I checked. And it is homemade by the nursery with no added crap

It always surprises me up when people think flapjacks are healthy - anyone who has made them will know they are anything but with all the sugar and golden syrup and butter that goes into them, unless there is a new way of making them?

Tbh I think I'd prefer my kids to have a jam sandwich than a flapjack IF I was worried about sugar.

Ds doesn't like jam so I never needed to fret about such things

I would not feed a child a flapjack! As Valium said, they are just sugar, with added sugar and some fat thrown in for good measure. The oats are only there to hold all the sugar together!

A jam sandwich has far less sugar and minimal fat in it.

Oh but flapjacks are nice! They are real food, unlike spaghetti hoops, which are evil (Italian emoticon).