To think I should have control over what my son eats at nursery?

[booomy]

My 9 month old started nursery this week. There has been a few issues but the food has shocked me! It's a sure start centre with all 1's from ofsted.

The first day I went in, the babies (15 of them) were being spoon fed smushed up chips and pizza! I was really shocked, and the next day had a bit of a to-do with the senior leader about DS not having chips. Pizza is fine as long as its home-made bread with tomato sauce cheese and veggies. No harm in that. But in my mind it's weird to be feeding babies as young as 5months chips, even if they are oven baked!

I also said I didn't want DS having dessert. He soon learnt that after dinner was dessert and started refusing his food, so we cut it out. They made a big fuss about it (example is fruit crumble & custard/ice cream). But after speaking to the head teacher, they just give him bits of fruit from snack time (melon, strawberries etc) that he's fine with!

Fast forward to today (jubilee party). The babies were baking (if you can call it that) when we arrived. I plonked DS in the music area, which he loves and he sat there occupying himself. One of the staff asked if he could make a biscuit with icing and I said no! They were really annoyed at me :( they said before lunch they were having milk and biscuits, and DS would feel left out. I said I really didn't want him to have one. If he felt left out then he could have a small bit of a plain one. DS has never had anything with refined sugar before. if he ate a biscuit with icing then i think he'd either have a headache or be bouncing off the walls!

Would you let a 9 month old have a icing biscuit? An odd treat is okay, but not for babies. If he was 3 or 4 and wanted one its different. Do you think i'm within my rights to ask for him to have fruit instead of a dessert?

Did the 5 months old babies do 'baking' aswell?

Tbh i would be tempted to say 'let them free play fgs. And take them out for fresh air'.
'baking' at 5-6-9 month, hmm it sounds nice activity when you write it down.

I think pizza and oven chips are not suitable for children under a year.
a on off iced biscuit would be ok.

I prefer custard to yogurt as often more sugar in the yogurt than the custard.

a good dessert would be banana and custard or stewed apple etc.

from my experience working at day nurseries, the described menu often sounds rather good. but often the reality can be very different.

once in a baby room found out that first weaning food for a 4-5 month old was instant potato. which i thought was very dangerous for a baby due to the salt content.
staff were not allowed to cook a microwave jacket potato instead, but the kitchen cook made batches of instant stuff.

food is one area that really needs improving in day nurseries.

I was a lot bit like OP when baby DC1 went to nursery. I even went on a Radio phone-in to moan about it. Feel rather that ever happened, now.

I think serving mushed up pizza sounds vile but the meal itself not too dreadful. My daughter was BLWed and has had Pizza Express pizza more than once-usually just eats the cheese and tomato though.

Her nursery is an all-organic cooked on the premises one and we often joke that she eats better there than at home! They serve low sugar carrot and banana cake as puddings but mostly offer veggie wholesome-sounding foods. The other day they made pizzas to bring home for tea so my 12 month old was handed over with a little tuna and sweetcorn pizza ready for tea!

We have fed her a high fat diet on advice as she is a little shrimp with an enormous appetite. We've kept her away (mostly) from high salt and sugar stuff, with nothing processed other than breaded chicken which she adores. She has two much older half siblings and we've never had any trouble keeping her away from their food. She's had almost no chocolate but plenty of baby biscuits and rusks, which I only realised the sugar content of recently.

To be honest, her half sister has such an awful relationship with food that she is tube fed at night so our main aim is to stop the baby absorbing any of that attitude, to keep her admirable interest in and enjoyment of food going, and to offer a varied diet. Which includes pizza, oven chips and biscuits.

The egg thing seems very unnecessary though. Presumably if she throws up all over them, they'll reassess their attitude. I do sympathise on getting used to nursery. It took my daughter weeks to settle in even though the nursery she goes to is lovely.

Most foods mashed up are gross. Because we are adults. Reading the posts a lot of ppl find mashed up pizza and chips disgusting but so is most mashed food. It's not for you to eat its for the child who obviously doesn't find it gross!

I think that I would just choose another nursery-I wouldn't want a baby eating pizza, unless it was home-made-there would be too much salt for a start-and I would never eat chips with it.
While I don't see anything wrong with an iced biscuit I don't think that a 9month old gets much out of the experience of 'baking' and there must have been a lot of adult direction in it-it is an activity better left until they can do it themselves.

eragon was in the menu written instant potato or just potato?

oh, it was potato, and this was in the baby room, so under 1s being fed this as a weaning food.

criminal wasnt it?!!!

I am a bit of a food nazi fussy about what my kids are allowed, but I explain it away by saying my DD has a leaky valve in her heart and cannot be allowed to become overweight. They go to an afterschool club one day a week and I must admit to being shocked by the 'snacks' they were given. They had full butter popcorn and lemonade not something I had ever let them have. I decided I could either tell the nursery they were not allowed it or chill and let them have the treats, safe in the knowledge food at home is different and they know that. Up to you what you do. I firmly believe though that at 9 months old you child will not really notive they are having different things to the others. Good luck.

seems a bit like hospital food to me...like the government / HCPs are banging on about low salt, and balanced diet but what you actually get in hospital is total crap.

I would feel the same way as the op. Why am I supposed to go to the effort of making low salt food from scratch if the nursery are going to mash up chips and pizza?

also my dsis has a baby that has suffered anaphylaxis on exposure to dairy. She is currently fighting the nursery over moving him into the room where all the kids eat their buttered toast twice a day....

Hope they are all trained with the epi pens....

Entro - as hard as that must be what does she expect every other child in the room to not be allowed toast? Him to be held back a room?

I don't know what my sister wants to achieve...although I believe that he is only being moved due to numbers not age, so simply not moving would be a reasonable plan.

I personally think there are plenty of non-dairy things you can put on toast...

I don't think buttered toast is exactly essential for survival is it? They could just give a different snack - eg. breadsticks and fruit.

also the same nursery is hysterical about there being no nuts allowed on the premises even though they don't have any nut allergy suffers at the moment. Seems a bit ridiculous.

Surely though it's best to come up with ways to keep him safe, dairy products can't be avoided they are everywhere in life. Yes they should make sure they have proper procedure for ensuring it is all cleaned away after but to expect no dairy is a big ask IMO.

peanuts can't be avoided in real life either but they are in nurseries...I'm not really seeing the difference tbh...

Entropy I also have a severely dairy allergic child who carries an epipen, and I think it would be ludicrous to ban dairy in a nursery. The allergy charities agree and don't support nut or other allergen bans in schools or nurseries.

Avoiding peanuts is much easier than banning all dairy. What about children who drink milk? Those who like my Ds take a medicine that needs mixing with yoghurt? It's a much bigger issue than not having butter on toast.

hmm so it's only worth protecting children's lives if it's easy/convenient...fair enough.

Although I am intrigued...what is this mystery medication that is only soluble in dairy based yoghurt? Or is it that yoghurt is the universal solvent?

Lets face it, it isn't that hard to cut dairy out...my sister has managed it relatively easily.

Actually I also think that banning foods at nursery isn't necessarily the way forward but whatever the decision is, it should be across the board. Either no life threatening allergies are catered for, or all are.

OP have you considered actually not sending him to nursery - then you would have total control over what he ate if it's that big a deal to you. It sounds like you are unhappy about more than a biscuit. It's very hard to leave a baby in the care of someone else. For some people (including me) it's just not doable and you just have to be a bit poorer and suck it up.

I'm not having a go btw, I think working and not working are valid choices, but you just sound unhappy and I wondered in anyone had ever pointed out that it is a choice.

I actually think you are being unreasonable.

I think you will find it really difficult as he grows up if you are going to police everything.

So the poor child isn't allowed to bake and then eat what he's made? Jesus woman chill out. You'll give him a complex as he gets older!

And I can't believe how many children that are too young to be even weaned properly are in the care of someone else during the day. That really shocks me

whitewidow he is 9 months old!!!
he can't even "bake" and he will have no idea that the activity is in any way related to a biscuit he gets later.

your second comment i will disregard, because it is stupid