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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask your opinion on sending babies to nursery without having breakfast?

186 replies

Babybunny88 · 11/09/2013 22:30

I work in a day nursery with babies and am astounded by the number of patents who say their baby has been up from 6am (or before) and are starving, please give them breakfast Confused.

We open at 7.30 and sometimes even have parents bring their babies in at 9am with no breakfast or even a bottle before hand. One little girl was brought in at 9.10am and had nothing to eat or drink apart from a bottle that she got at 4am Confused. Another little girl is put into her high chair every morning with nothing while
Her parents sit beside her at the table eat breakfast. One time apparently she grabbed a piece of toast of her dads plate and he wasn't very happy as it was his breakfast and she had to wait until she for to nursery before having hers!

I think my DD would be going into the kitchen and making her own breakfast if I didn't give her any! Really is there any need not to feed your baby before nursery? Is it laziness? Opinions please.

OP posts:
mrscog · 12/09/2013 00:16

There's not time in our routine to even find out if DS is hungry. He's up at 6.30 I give him a beaker of milk while I get ready then he's at nursery for 7.30 where he has breakfast. I deliberately pay for breakfast there so I don't have to bother. Could DS be a little bit hungry for 30 mins? Yes but isn't a little bit of hunger part of life? I wouldn't leave him until a 9am drop off though, that's ridiculous.

MammaTJ · 12/09/2013 00:20

My DDs have always needed to be awake for at least an hour before they could even think about food. They would have both needed to be fed at nursery, if I had ever needed to hand them over to someone as judgemental as you.

DS would eat as soon as he wakes.

YABU to think everyone is the same. Do they not teach you about treating everyone as an individual?

MammaTJ · 12/09/2013 00:20

My DDs have always needed to be awake for at least an hour before they could even think about food. They would have both needed to be fed at nursery, if I had ever needed to hand them over to someone as judgemental as you.

DS would eat as soon as he wakes.

YABU to think everyone is the same. Do they not teach you about treating everyone as an individual?

MammaTJ · 12/09/2013 00:20

My DDs have always needed to be awake for at least an hour before they could even think about food. They would have both needed to be fed at nursery, if I had ever needed to hand them over to someone as judgemental as you.

DS would eat as soon as he wakes.

YABU to think everyone is the same. Do they not teach you about treating everyone as an individual?

MinesAPintOfTea · 12/09/2013 00:24

Given the current advice is that under 1 you should give a milk feed an hour before solids it seems reasonable to wake baby up, give milk, dress, put in car, let nursery give solid breakfast.

DS was never interested in breakfast straight after his morning milk (which I had to wake him for), but would wolf a solid breakfast down an hour later.

teacher123 · 12/09/2013 06:54

DS and I have to leave the house at 6.50am on days I work. I wake him at 6.30, beaker of milk and up and dressed and he has breakfast at the CM. I thought that was perfectly normal.

hooochycoo · 12/09/2013 07:03

Another perspective. My DS used to be in a nursery that you had to drive to. He gets travel sick in the car, so if we gave him breakfast he'd quite often be sick on the way in. So we'd be arriving at his nursery with a child covered in sick, and then the nursery wouldn't accept him as it needs to be 48 hours absence after vomiting. Even though it was only travel sickness. So in our case we couldn't give him breakfast !

Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 12/09/2013 07:24

Can I ask how these babies are even you get them. Are they just starting to get fussy or are they full on screaming so hungry they are chewing straps on the car seat or trying to eat their cuddly toys.

If they seem ok I guess it's possible that they were given a bottle before hand.

If however they are hysterical it's not unreasonable to believe that the parents could have given then something. Half seven is breakfast time. However if they are arriving famished at nine o clock and haven't eaten at all then I do think that's something that needs to be flagged up.

Rowanred · 12/09/2013 07:47

Isn't it normal for nurseries to provide breakfast? Both nurseries I have used did/do and all the babies eat breakfast when they arrive. I think it would be really weird to feed them breakfast at home when you know they will get another breakfast as soon as they get to nursery. Our nursery provides 3 meals and 2 snacks a day. I thought that was normal. I wouldn't use a nursery that didn't provide breakfast!

Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 12/09/2013 07:55

I don't think that nursery providing breakfast is the issue. It's babies being dropped off as late as 9 o clock having been up for hours and not even had their bottle. op isn't moaning about doing her job, she is concerned that because nursery will give breakfast that parents are making their very hungry children wait longer just because nursery can give it. If babies can wait then fine, but if your baby woke up at six and was hungry at seven but you made her wait til 9 at nursery fir even a bottle, and she was hysterical, would that not be a mean thing to du?

aGnotherGnu · 12/09/2013 07:56

Mine have both always waited till nursery for breakfast. They are dropped off just after 8 which means they eat at the same time or earlier than they do at the weekends at home.

They have milk or very milky tea in bed with me when they wake up between 7 and 730.

I'm pretty sure that they just get into a routine like the rest of us do. Giving them breakfast would mean waking them up earlier. And that doesn't seem very fair.

Jengnr · 12/09/2013 08:14

Being hungry right before a meal? Who'd've thunk it?

Turniptwirl · 12/09/2013 08:22

If your baby is hungry, you feed it. Surely that's common sense?

I go to work without breakfast but that is my choice. A baby has no say in the matter and its wrong not to feed them if they're hungry!

MrsDeVere · 12/09/2013 08:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

VodkaJelly · 12/09/2013 08:30

My DD goes to nursery and I dont feed her beforehand. She normally has a bottle about 6am and then goes back to sleep till about 7.30am when we wake her and get her dressed.

She is not a breakfast eater and likes to be up and out of bed for at least an hour before she will eat. When she gets to nursery she has toast at around 8.30. We have tried to give her something before but she wont eat it.

Obviously if she got up at 4am we would give her some food at around 6. I wouldnt leave her that long to go without food.

madmomma · 12/09/2013 08:36

I agree OP that the parents are tight to not give the babies a chance to eat as soon as they get up. Even if the whole household's in a rush surely you'd give a baby a bit of toast or a piece of banana and a drink to hold them til nursery breakfast?

madmomma · 12/09/2013 08:39

But it's obvious that the OP isn't talking about safeguarding issues; just passing comment that some parents are a bit mean or thoughtless about their baby's needs. Which they are. She's not suggesting that there are serious neglect issues, and everyone is entitled to comment on other people's parenting; it's a parenting forum and she's not mentioning names is she?

Dackyduddles · 12/09/2013 08:45

Some children may not be hungry at home but the minute they see you - who they specifically associate at the place and time they also associate - they are ravenous!!!

I'm the same with ice cream vans. Don't want one til I hear the chimes! You are wrongly assuming that the kids are chained up screaming for good from nasty parents preferring to read a paper or apply mascara to putting bread in a toaster.

There's someone I take issue with op, and it ain't the parents.

Wishihadabs · 12/09/2013 08:45

My dsis has a 1yo, just starting nursery. The baby wakes at 7 they need to leave at 730 to get to nursery for 8 ( nursery say they won't give breakfast later than this). She is worried about giving milk then the baby won't eat breakfast (has breakfast at 9 at home) and potentially late and he misses breakfast or being hungry in the car. l'm sure attitudes like yours help the relatively new parents which you deal with ! (I sincerely hope you are not my dn s key worker)

Dackyduddles · 12/09/2013 08:47

How do you all know said parents don't or haven't? Are you there? No. You are choosing to believe you are all better than nameless, anonymous people we don't actually know exist!

Ridiculous.

Rowanred · 12/09/2013 08:48

I think this is why there's so many obese children about! I'm quite surprised how many people on this thread think babies need 2 breakfasts! Generally children are dropped at nursery at breakfast time ( between 7-8.30am?). Why would you feed them before that?!

MrsMook · 12/09/2013 09:05

DS1 has always had breakfast at nursery- he needs to be there 8.00 to 8.30 and we wake him to get ready. When he was starting, he had a milk feed on waking, but weaned off that quite soon. If he'd been an early riser and ravenous, I might have given him a snack to tide him over, but certainly wouldn't have had time for him to self-feed a proper breakfast which took the best part of an hour and would require supervision for choking.

If a child is distressed from hunger that is obviously not good, but there are too many people that seem to think all babies and children conform to the same timetable and needs and they don't. There are plenty of sensible reasons why people haven't filled their babies/ small children's tummy first.

Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 12/09/2013 09:06

No ones saying babies need to breakfasts.

op said she had had babies come in as late as nine I click having not even had a bottle.

I don't understand how people will post on one thread telling someone that their baby waking six times a night for food is normal, then post on another saying that not being fed anything since evening before til they roll up at nursery at nine o clock where nursery gives them a bottle/porridge is acceptable.

If a baby wakes at seven half seven and isn't hungry then fine. If a baby wakes at six and is not fed at all on the basis that someone else is going to do it later then tats not right.

Come on, a parent cross at a kid who's hungry who took some toast? He made himself breakfast and made his kid wait. Not because she wasn't hungry or didnt need it, but because nursery provided it. Seriously? Would half a banana to tide her over make her fat?

Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 12/09/2013 09:09

Nurseries change nappies too, you wouldn't leave them in a soaking one cos someone else will do it.

LittleBearPad · 12/09/2013 09:10

Yes but if the OP has serious concerns she shouldn't be posting them on a forum. She should be doing something about them. But she says she doesn't want to??