erm.. chocolate finger for 10 month old at nursery?

[DuelingFanjo]

I didn't put anything on his form saying that I didn't want him to have cakes/biscuits/chocolate so maybe I am being unreasonable but I was a bit to be told that the nursery had given DS a chocolate finger today. I said 'oh, really?' but now I am home I think that actually I am stupid for not saying something and now I feel annoyed with them and annoyed with myself.

What to do ? I have to say something. I was told that they feed the babies healthy food, no juice and so on so I thought they might know that chocoloate fingers for a baby that old is not normal? Or is it? Am I the weird one?

It's a good nursery, highly recommended and they haven't done anything I don't like before.

DF,

I think 4 months would be too young for a variety of reasons but, at 6 months, no problem. I could ask you the converse question? What do you actually fear from early introduction of "treats" in small quantities?

Not sure if 'fear' is the right word but I will try to answer your question.

I am happy to introduce treats in small quantities, just not this early.

first off I do really think I am doing my son's future health a favour by attempting to feed him healthy food for as long as I can. By that I do mean by excluding sugary foods which have very little nutritional value. I agree that part of life's pleasures is enjoying nice food. I would choose a nice blue cheese over a chocolate finger any day however I think all foods, including cheese, need to be eaten in moderation.

I was raised on healthy options, I am glad my parents did this for me. It's what comes most naturally to me. As a family I want us to eat healthily together.

I don't want to be in a situation where DS is choosing sugary foods over healthier options. I don't understand the need to give very small children refined sugars and processed foods.

I 'fear' that I will end up in a situation where DS wants these things more than he wants a healthy choice and that I will have a battle on my hands trying to get him to eat a balanced meal.

We are doing BLW, his eating is not great and in recent days has got worse. I want to continue with the weaning by trying to give him a variety of foods which are good for him rather than plying him with treats just so he is eating.

I don't want him to have an obesity problem. I don't want him to have diabetes.

actually I don't want him to be fat.

DF, I was exactly the same when I had to put DS in nursery at 8 months. Nursery staff thought I was odd bringing in my EBM and saying he could only have the 'healthy' puddings.

Now he's 2.2 and obsessed with chocolate buttons. I wish I'd kept him away from them for longer! Life was better before he knew about chocolate.

I read all of jam sandwich gate and have trawled through this and what I think is that both threads were perfectly reasonable in not wanting their babies (which is what they are when they are under 12 months) to have sugar being given to them in a nursery setting.

When DS was about 8 months I remember getting very hot under the collar as my dad proceeded to give him chocolate buttons when I said he has to wait until he was at least one - completely ignored me and also couldn't understand why he was given water to drink - his words were water is to wash or swim in not drink!! it makes me smile now he is almost 5 as he gets quite a lot of chocolate and biscuits now but also has proper dinners cooked everyday and is a very active child so burns off these empty calories.

At 10 months OP baby will notice if he is not given something another child has in setting so think she should probably ask that baby only has very small amount rather than nothing at all.....

Also think you have to look at very large parents giving babies quavers etc as a snack and kind of think these kids have no hope - they will be fat as their parents who obviously don't have a clue - quite sad state of affairs, and it is very unfair that mothers are villified for wanting their kids to have a decent start in life and they are being accused of precious!

Everything in moderation in my house : )

I think if you have a baby who'll eat anything (as I did - for which I'd like to take the credit but actually I know it was complete luck) then it's easy to say "oh a little chocolate finger won't hurt blah blah blah" because that chocolate finger doesn't mean that they won't want to eat a lovely scrambled egg or whatever later on that day.

I completely understand that if your baby isn't eating too well, that you'd worry about them filling up on less nutritious stuff or that you'd be fostering a taste for biscuits or whatever exclusively.

I think you're taking the right approach tbh - and I'm of the "a bit of cake won't hurt" brigade Big Time.

And actually going back to my first para on this post - yes in the long run ds did (and still does) eat pretty much anything BUT there were times when he seemed to survive on air. If I'd given him biscuits then I think I might have messed it all up*.

*I do appreciate that some children with sensory issues live on jam sandwiches - I'm not talking about that.

exoticfruits - so do you think that chocolate/cake etc should be introduced to a baby's diet at the point that you wean them i.e 4-6 months?

NO! Where ever did I say that?

I thought we were talking about a 10 month old, not one half that age..

I eat healthily. I don't eat biscuits at all unless I am out and it is difficult to refuse. As a family we eat healthily and I try not to serve processed food (except on the very odd occasion-everyone likes a break). A healthy diet contains all foods in moderation and I go with a food pyramid like this one Rather like NHS guidelines
My aim by 10months would be to have the baby eating more or less as the family and if you have birthday cake I would give them a little. I wouldn't get into the idea that there are 'bad' foods because it immediately makes them more desirable, which was picked up earlier on here when someone assumed (wrongly)that I was projecting my food preferences onto a DC, which is not the case, I would much rather have grapes than a chocolate finger and I wouldn't assume that the baby would prefer the sweet thing.
I think that the main cause of obesity is portion size-people eat far too much and I don't see the obsession with snacking-you are supposed to be hungry when you get to a meal time-not pack something in every time you get a mild hunger pang.
Children just pick up the family eating habits as the norm so mine have always realised that you eat sweets in moderation. It is what they see, I never eat more than 2 chocolates at the most at one time. I don't ask them to do things that I can't do. I believe that there are many adults who keep their DCs to a regime they can't manage, they stop the DC eating the chocolate finger but they may stuff 6 once the DC is out of sight! The first thing to do is sort out your eating and the DC will copy. If you strictly police things so that you can't accept the odd biscuit (or jam sandwich) the child gets the message that you think that it is nicer than a lovely apple. Put out bits of apple and some small biscuits and the DC will quite likely take the apple, they haven't got any hidden message about it.

I just think back to the days of NCT coffee mornings and the slightly precious mothers who shuddered at a plate of biscuits-they were the ones who had DCs obsessed by biscuits-the relaxed ones were too busy playing!

"NO! Where ever did I say that?"

no really - I didn't say you did! it was a question.

OP I don't want my dc's to have diabetes or obesity problems either. I'm not convinced that by allowing them choc/jam sandwiches will teach them bad eating habits. On the contrary, my dc's have eaten a wide varirty of foods since weaning. Everything we eat in fact. Now that might be chocolate or it might be a lettuce leaf.

I ate lots of different food as a child am not fussy and eat a well balanced veggie diet. I am slim, normal BMI. DP the same. Yes I like chocolate but its not my fave food. I expect my dc's to be the same.

To stress over daft things seems madness to me. Interestingly, one of my ex 'friends' obssessed about her dc's having goodies. She was the biggest hypocrite ever and sneakily ate cake and junk. I would love to know how her dc's are getting on now.

Sorry-I thought maybe I gave that impression. No I wouldn't wean on chocolate and processed foods.

what I meant was ... you said "If DCs get used to the fact from the start that there are some foods you eat a lot of and some you have in small quantities then they treat it as the norm" and I wondered if you thought 10 months was ok to have a bit of chocolate then what about 9 months, 8 months, 7 mnoths? what is your line and why do you draw it where you do?

I have been called precious and pathetic in this thread and am finding it hard to understand what the magic age is for introducing these things as part of a healthy balanced diet?

She was the biggest hypocrite ever and sneakily ate cake and junk. I would love to know how her dc's are getting on now.

I could guess-and I doubt it is healthy eating!

It depends when you start weaning-if it is 6 months it is going to older than 4 months. It really depends on how sociable you are, how aware they are and whether they are bothered or not. It will be more difficult if they have older siblings. Mine were not in nursery at that age so it didn't occur, but I wouldn't want them left out if every other DC had one.
Basically I would keep them off it as much as possible, but not freak out if it happens socially, it is really not very imposrtant as long as you are eating healthily most of the time.

Fanjo, you have stayed amazingly calm and reasonable in this thread! Fwiw I rather admire your position, when mine were little, and mumsnet didn't exist ( and we weaned at 4 months!) dc2's first food was a party ring! Not sure I'd do that now - though to be fair both my dc stop when they are full, but ds1 just got to the age of buying his own lunch/ snacks and has gone a bit cake crazed! Hope it is just the novelty.

Oh forgot to add what I meant to say- what did nursery say?

I am probably being very unfair-I expect I was PFB.
I have a big gap (8rs and 10yrs) and I was much more relaxed with the younger two and didn't have any eating problems. DS1 was the fussy one, although he was never particularly bothered by food and he would say 'have I had my dinner?' and if I had said 'yes' when he hadn't he would have gone away quite happily! We now call him 'the human dustbin'-he will always eat a lot if it there and finish things up, but equally he will do without. He is very slim fit and does fell running. Exercise is important-give them plenty as soon as they are mobile.

I was happy for ds to have the odd bit of cake when I did from 6 months. The point of BLW for me was that he ate what we did (with the exception of dangerous foods) and I eat pretty healthily so the occasional bit of sugar wasn't a problem. Same way as I grew up - we didn't have crisps, biscuits and fizzy drinks around at home, but we often (not every day) had a pudding and sweets/fizzy drinks on a Saturday. My mum cooked lots from scratch including cakes. No one in my family is obese.

Maybe it seems like a bigger issue for you as your ds is a poor eater, but I don't mind occasional cakes and biscuit (even chocolate - ds had a small Easter egg at 9 months old ) because it made up a tiny part of ds's diet compared to fruit, veg, grains, pulses, meat, fish and dairy he eats the rest of the time.

DF,

I think it is your prerogative to feed as you see fit and I think all those who actually think to post on this thread will probably end up feeding their children a reasonable diet. The real disasters are where people do not even think about what to feed their children because they don't care. I also agree that one should never feed junk to a child who has refused their main course. That could lead to substituting one form of calories with a "less healthy" form for want of a better word.

I am very much with Exotic Fruits on this one. A child should eat the same diet as their family, ideally sitting around a table together. That includes all things in moderation, as long as they are fresh and good quality. Also, diet (at any age) needs to be thought of in conjunction with exercise. We will often walk into our local area and then have tea/coffee and cakes but our oldest (2.5) knows the cake only comes if he makes a reasonable effort to do a decent amount of walking.

I'm going to speak to the nursery later, was very hectic this morning with new babies settling in. I'm hoping to do it as part of a wider conversation about his general eating. I want to speak to the nursery nurses and his key worker rather than just speaking to the manager. once I have I will ask the manager to update his form to reflect my request RE general snacks and party food.

its difficult if child is fussy or small eater as you want to fill them up with good foods but for the rest as long as the majority of foods kids eat are healthy then thats fine.

if you ban stuff you make it make it more desirable and teach kids nothing about self control or life in general.

I had friends who banned sweets and choccis totally but seemed to forget that these littlies all too soon get old enough to catch the school bus and stop off at the shop to buy the treats they had always craved and get rather chubby as a result.

its all about education not banning. though did ban fizzy drinks except at christmas.

Neither of my elder two are interested in chocolate, we always have some in the cupboard but they just don't like it much. Both of them had chocolate from an early age at party's etc ds2 is 8 and would rather have a banana and he loves all veg would eat a Sunday roast with all the veg every day of the week if I let him

Ds1 is 16 and the only veg that gets past his lips are carrots and peas, he loves home made pasta dishes and hates Sunday roasts. Both were weaned on veg and had a healthy diet with occasional treats

I think the biggest problem with obesity is portion sizes and processed foods all the time . The most important thing is children having a healthy attitude towards food. We don't have a good food bad food attitude in this house and so far noone is over weight

I would be absolutely horrified and dont think it is anything to do with first born. My 3rd has got to 2 without sweets or chocolate or crisps without any issues as the elder ones just have these type of things at parties, school dinners, school trips so no issue at all. Any party the 2 year old has attended so far has had food that I felt was appropriate snacks.

Not having junk food until age 2 or 3 has not made mine crave it at all in fact the 7 year old still doesnt eat crisps and rarely wants chocolate but is equally unenthusiastic about meals. The 4 year old eats anything from a whole pepper to a packet of sweets with equal enthusiasm.

No nursery I have ever used would do this. If other children brought in chocolate or sweets for birthdays it would be given to parents to decide whether to allocate and when. I thought all nurserys were assessed on healthy eating. There are loads of fun ideas for halloween snacks.

Obviously this is not the normal view based on this thread though!

This is terrible. All chocolate fingers should be collected up and given to me, not to damn ungrateful 10mos.

I've just checked out how many calories and fat there is in one chocolate finger:

amount of calories and fat

There is 31 calories, or 1.6g of fat per finger.

Babies from aged 6-12 months need around 45 calories per lb of bodyweight everyday.

The average weight for a 10 month boy is 20lbs. So that is around 900 calories a day.

OP's baby had one chocolate finger...that's 3.4% of his dietary requirement for one day.

I don't know. I think that's alot of calories and fat for one chocolate finger for a baby...Assuming he only had one, it should be okay, but what if he had more than that?...I might change my view on this. But I still think one jam sandwich is no big deal.

mrbloomsnursery (i hate that prog btw!) apparently he had a few chocolate fingers?

i just think that they dont need it at that age, they dont know what it is, they cant ask for it, they could have a biscuit that was homemade that you put less sugar in and some fruit etc, its still a 'treat' but a bit better for them, ditto cake.

they are only little once and whilst they are you can control what they eat to certain extent (obv you cant force feed them!) but you can make sure what you offer them is healthy and nutritious, i dont think a chocolate finger counts as either of those, fine as a treat once a bit older, but babies are little they are just getting used to eating and their digestive system is getting used it, may as well give them the good stuff whilst you can!