to not want my son to have sugary/high calorie deserts at the nursery

[calmseeker]

My son goes to a nursery which is renown for being a very good one. It has had a series of brilliant Ofsted reports and I am generally happy with it. My son enjoys in and is learning a lot through lots of exciting activities. My childminder picks him up after lunch on the days I work and tells me about some of the deserts he has had. On several occasions he has had pancakes with lots of sugar sprinkled on top. He had yoghurt the other day with cream on top and regularly seems to have bread-rolls covered in Nutella. The first course is homemade and sounds fine.

If you've got a real problem with it, ask that he just has fruit and yoghurt. However, as part of a generally balanced diet, the puds sound fine to me.

Does the childminder actually watch dc eat the desserts....seems a little strange that she knows the pancakes are 'covered' in sugar or rolls are laden with Nutella. Does she actually see the food?

Yoghurt with cream on top? All sounds a bit odd.

Toddlers need a higher proportion of fat in their diet than adults. Pancakes with zero topping are fairly dull. It's easy to sweat the small stuff with your first child. I'd let it go.

yabu, toddlers need lots of calories as they are running about so much. Those puds sound fine and I think you are being precious.

Bread with Nutella for desert? Sounds odd

Are you sure your cm isn't telling you this in irder for you to withdraw from nursery so she has your son ( and your money) full time?

Discusting

Btw, does nursery not have a Menu so you know what sugary puddings are on offer each day rather than the nursery rely on someone else telling you?

Those puddings sound like an attempt at being healthy anyway to me. Bread is not pudding.

Silly thing is, there's probably less calories (and certainly more fun) in a Penguin. Hey ho.

Whether or not I would care would very much depend on how old my DC was tbh. In the baby room, no, I wouldn't like it, I think there's better ways of getting high calorie food into little ones. Cream etc wouldn't bother me but the sugar would. If he's in the pre school room I really wouldn't care that much I don't think.

I think you're confusing high calorie and high sugar.

The former is necessary for small children, the latter is unnecessary although most children have a little sugar every day.

Personally I wouldn't be giving nutella to a toddler regularly.

You can stipulate no sugar

I find it v strange how this childminder gets to see all this food being eaten....

My son's nursery always has a pudding after the main meal at lunch time and often it's something like jelly or pancakes. Often he doesn't actually eat the pudding because he doesn't like it or he only has a tiny bit.

If you're not happy ask them to make sure he only has yoghurt or fruit. My son only had water to drink for his 1st 2 yrs at nursery because I didn't
like him having juice. Now he's older I don't mind.

I wouldn't want my toddler to be eating high sugar foods daily - there are much healthier ways to get the calories they need into them

Can you not ask for a "my day". This is what we have at our nursery where they write down what they eat each day. Then you can see from the nursery staff rather than by ear from the CM.
I must admit though, those puddings sound strange. Our nursery does blueberry muffins, fruit and yogurt, fresh fruit cocktail etc. Yours sound like something I would put together if I had nothing else in!!!

My childminder is a friend and a reasonable sort of person. She isn't exaggerating. I have been in a few times during the school holidays and seen some of the deserts too. She picks my son up at just after lunch and they are often just finishing off. The bread rolls/toast isn't desert I meant they seem to have it as part of a late afternoon 5ish early evening meal. They do have a menu displayed but it doesn't say yoghurt with cream just yoghurt similarly pancakes don't have a topping specified. I would have no objection to pancakes and fruit or yoghurt and fruit. My son is a sturdy boy and loves sweet food. I am also concerned about his dental health too.
I am not overly strict with his diet.

At our nursery the menus are published online every week and the menus are also displayed in each room.

The puddings do sound a little strange. Ours are more the type of thing you see on menus (they sound tempting to me), but if it's cake it usually has beetroot, or carrot in it; or fresh fruit, or compote and yoghurt.

So she has seen 'lots of sugar sprinkled on top' and 'cream on top of yoghurt'

In that case I'd speak to nursery ....I've never come across a nursery serving cream on yoghurts or such amounts of sugar on a daily basis.

I don't understand why toddlers "need" puddings on a regular basis, they need calories to give them energy to run around but you don't need to get those calories from nutella and sugery pancakes

My ds only has pudding at nursery once a week, they have pancakes with fruit on.

I wouldn't be happy with it, more because it isn't great for his teeth tbh.

Is it normal for kids to have a pudding every day? We only have pudding once a week maybe. I never had puddings growing up except Sundays with a roast. I feel like this isn't normal?!

Our nursery has menus that you choose from and every day there is a choice of a sugary pudding (ranging from treacle sponge with custard, to sweetened fromage frais), or a piece of fruit/fruit salad.

We don't want him developing too much of a sweet tooth - and he has a genetic risk of type 2 diabetes, plus we ourselves try and keep sweet stuff to a minimum, so at home I bake fruit sweetened things, or he has natural yoghurt or fruit, not every day though. We choose the fruit for him at nursery, but I wish they'd be a bit more imaginative with sugar free puddings at nursery.

I'd do nothing. He is getting a good amount of v healthy food too.

If you ask for your son not to have the sweet things you are setting these things on a pedestal. When children are older and have their own money then if they have been banned from sweet foods they usually go crazy on sweets.

I'd be unhappy about it too. High calorie yes, great. High sugar, no, totally unesserary and pointless. Poor habit to get into.

I would formally email the nursery and ask they give DS fruit/yogurt/pancakes for pudding but not sugar/cake/ice cream.

Really not necessary to have a daily pudding either. Bad habit

Our nursery did used to do lots of cakey puddings, but after some requests from parents they have reined it in and have more fruit, yoghurt and 'healthier'cakes and have also swapped some puddings for savoury starters instead. All home cooked too, we're very happy with it.

My nursery does lots of sugary puddings. I just requested that my dd have yoghurt or fruit instead and they have been fine with that.