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?

Home-made bread pizza is fine for babies but only if the mozzarella is buffalo. And it has to be from Campania, otherwise little Toby breaks out in a rash. He doesn't even have to eat it, he's so sensitive that having a lesser cheese even in the same room as him will set him off, the poor darling.

The buffalo in other areas just aren't fed on the same standard of food. It's all kebabs and Turkey Twizzlers, not the proper organic grass they eat in the better parts of Italy.

I think they should respect your ideas on food. I've worked in a nursery where they have mostly given healthy food but also a fair amount of treats. I couldn't see why they couldn't just give healthy treats instead like home made popcorn, rice pudding, rice cakes, plain yogurt with fresh fruit, dried fruit. The slow steady stream of sugar and fat is bad and it really should be a parents decision if they want to feed their kids crap. I agree half of a digestive or a small bit of bun might be OK now and again for a 9 month old but why give them lots of rubbish?

Poulay-your comment is ridiculous.
What's wrong with saying you don't want your 9month old baby to be eating mashed up pizza and chips regularly?

I had DS in a nursery from 8mo-15mo, and I wouldn't have been happy with mushed up pizza and chips for a 9 month old. DS is 2.9 now, so I've gained some perspective, but even so....

I was one of the 'no sweets' mums for a while, and the nursery were great about it. They also did BLW with him at my request.

I'd find another nursery TBH.

Well bugger my eyes and all my ten toes!

I was going to have a banana just now but I can have 6.25 choc digestives instead. Marvellous.

We dont know if its regular to be fair to the nursery, OP needs to get a menu from them to see whats what.

Rodea you can say what you like, but the fact is plenty of babies DO eat that, and they are just fine. In fact most of the world's infants would be lucky to get that.

If you are a sundried tomato and Petit Filous house, well you need to find a nursery that is in tune with your foibles.

A spoonful of sugar is 5g so that little pack of raisins is almost as sugary as a can of coke

Wow jins!

So all those kids you see running about with little boxes of dried fruit might as well be sucking on a chuppa chupp!

It would seem so wouldn't it?

www.mysupermarket.co.uk/tesco-price-comparison/dried_fruit/sun_maid_natural_california_raisins_6x425g.html

71.4g per 100g

The Op needs to speak to the nursery get a menu. and i think if you dont want children exposed to food that you dont approve off you are going to have to send him somewhere that you can give him a packed lunch and make his food , a 9 month old can eat a biscuit without dire affects , and they dont eat all of it usually

Dried fruit is disgusting IMO. It's literally soaked in sugar and often has very nasty preservatives added.

Lets lock up all our children in cardboard boxes and pass them a few bits of ryvita and plain water through a hole because GOD FORBID they have a bit of fun or eat something sweet in their lives.

I can't believe a thread has gone on 7 pages and nobody has given the op a

I am with the OP, I think 9 months old babies shouldn't have biscuits, or oven chips or pizza or sugary/salty stuff (and I am Italian, so pizza is a staple).

I dont see the big harm in a chip, if its freshly made from an actual potato.

I feel sorry for chips they get a lot of "beef"

Nah, ryvita are horrid. No need for those. It is just that at such a tiny age (when they are even yet fussy), it'd be better to stick to veggies, light proteins, steamed fish etc. There is plenty of time ahead for processed full, saturated fats etc.

Her head might explode Sugar. Do you really want that. Tut.

aren't fussy

We make pizza at playgroup. It's gorgeous and doesn't have a single grain of sugar or salt in it.

Its funny about dried fruit a child once came to our nursery short time while his mum did a course. She was adamant he couldn't have biscuits or buns at snack time. However she asked if he could have his little box of raisins with him as he played as he didn't like to sit at the table but preferred to snack as he played. People seem to think dried fruit is a healthy choice when it really isn't!

9months with the only sugar being from fruit and yoghurt, then suddenly a biscuit with icing all over it??? You don't think that would hurt his head? He has never eaten it in his life, of course it's going to have some effect on him!!

Are you actually serious? I am gobsmacked that you think one biscuit, even with icing is suddenly going to make your child ill. Presumably all the PFB's in nursery are having to be rushed off to the doctor because they had a biscuit?!

As has been said, fruit and yoghurt contain large amounts of sugar, refined sugar in most yoghurts and more than in the average biscuit.

Ridiculous.

Pizza doesn't contain sugar or salt?

So no cheese, no tomato, no flour then?

Sounds yummy.

I wouldn't have been happy with my children being fed mashed up pizza and chips at 9months. It sounds gross.

And to say that a 9month old would feel 'left out' because they didn't get to make an iced buscuit is total bollocks. How exactly are they going to feel 'left out'? I'm sure they wouldn't know the difference if they were given a breadstick to chew on instead.

I agree with the people who said that you should move nurseries. The food thing is just going to continue being a problem with them and its much better if you don't have an adversarial relationship with the people who are looking after your baby.

I'm posting all this sugar content out of context you know

You don't get many vitamins in a chupa chup but there may be one or two in a chocolate digestive. It's all about finding a balance.