Will nursery find this a strange request?

[Amilp]

DS recently started nursery. He’s 11 months. I’ve realised that he is given a desert after his lunch and after his dinner. This is chocolate cake, sponge cake, etc. AIBU to ask them to just give him fruit instead? I don’t want to kick up a fuss but I wasn’t planning on introducing chocolate etc until he was 3 or 4??

Lol @Illbebythesea! The op said twice a week 🤣

@whatsappdoc oh right 🤣🤣 well maybe that’s more likely! I still doubt it’s actual chocolate cake though, without a bit of beetroot or courgette thrown in the heathens.

I agree. It's not the kind of chocolate cake we would drool over in tearooms. More like a spoonful of honey and cocoa hidden among some vegetables and baked in a cake tin.

I work in a nursery, the menu comes from head office and includes cake, flapjack, biscuits. They're all low sugar, apple pasty, beetroot cake, courgette cake etc. Small portions too. So it's actually not as bad as it sounds. You are completely within your rights to request that they give fruit instead, we have never had an issue with this.

We don't need any processed sugar and eat more sugar substitutes than we need. We get plenty of sugar from the carbs that we also eat too much of.

You are right!

I couldn't agree more.

I had three children under five during bloody lockdown, and by some of the standards on here I was the laziest fucking parent in the world - fish fingers for dinner, bribing the older ones with chocolate to get them all out of the door, too much screen time probably (definitely). But I was also the busiest and most stressed I have ever been in my life.

Give people a break FFS.

OP you do you, but I swear this is something you will look back on and wonder why you were so bothered.

There's probably more sugar in the fruit you want offered than there is in the "cake" (likely made with fruit/veg).

YANBU to request fruit / yoghurt for your 11mo

YABU to expect to keep them chocolate free until 3 or 4… good luck with that!

And I honestly don’t see what the issue is with pizza on a Friday, that’s a bit bonkers that you’d withdraw them from nursery because of that.

Oh and my DS was given chocolate etc as a baby. He loved them then but went off it age 3 and doesn't touch chocolate or chocolate flavoured foods at all now. He'd always choose a plum or some raspberries over a chocolate cake.

Pizza is nutritionally the same as a cheese and tomato sandwich. Hth.

I've worked in nurseries and not normal where I've worked. Occasionally it would be something sweet like cake but normally plain greek yogurt and fruit x

I’m not actually that strict with my child generally, but really it’s quite easy not to buy them mini rolls?

Because they are a cheap tasty treat which people enjoy. Its nice to enjoy life and an occasional treat makes children happy, and people love to see their children happy.

Duh.

@Yellowlegobrick they’re actually far from cheap these days!

IMO eating crap like that is like alcohol. Sure, no need to actively withhold it. But why introduce it to a baby that has no knowledge of it.

Children under one shouldn’t eat honey

@Amilp because he’ll like it! Cake twice a week is a pretty normal quantity of cake imo. If you’re feeding him nutritionally the rest of the time then it’s going to make absolutely 0 difference.

@Amilp I don't mean this to be snarky all but a genuine question - as this is such an important issue to you, how come you didn't check menus before your little one started? Did you assume the meals would be homecooked and healthy? I'm just wondering what the nursery may have told you and how it differs from what you're finding.

Have you asked them what the puddings are made of?

My 2.5 year old has pizza usually on Fridays at home. In a week of balanced meals, I think it's OK but I wouldn't have done it at 11 months.

Because a toddler is very different to a baby! Fine at 11 months old, but by 2 or 3 people enjoy the little joy of their children having a small treat. As they don't exist in a vacuum, they are aware of these foods.

@Confetto that’s fine, but again, at nursery, where we are paying for our child to be taken care of, healthy food would be best and we can decide when and how often treats are given

Baffled as to why you would want to keep a child from knowing about chocolate. Ours had it from about a year, part of a generally healthy vegan diet, and don't seem to any the worse for it.

I asked for DS to only have fruit or yoghurt after lunch. When he turned 2 he noticed the other kids had other desserts so we let him eat the same then.

Government guidelines are for childcare settings to provide a main course and a dessert for children over 1. They advise limiting cakes and biscuits but do not say to ban them. For children under 1 the guidelines are different but for an 11 month old they suggest a diary or fruit based dessert with lunch and tea.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/658870/Early_years_menus_part_1_guidance.pdf

My daughter’s nursery serve a variety of desserts and that includes various types of fruit or veg based cake. Yoghurt is frequently on the menu and fruit is served most often. I’ve seen ice cream appear on the app too but only the once. Interestingly the only desserts my daughter has had seconds of has been the fruit, never the cake. In fact she eats cake crumb by crumb but can demolish a banana like a machine.

The menus are on a 4 week rotation and are worked out to be balanced over the week. The menus for each day have calories, sugar, fat etc worked out to make sure the kids are getting a nutritious and balanced diet. Everything is cooked on site and looks to be really great quality.

DS has just left nursery after being there from age 12 months, and they got a dessert after every meal, so lunch would be curry and rice with ice cream or salmon and veg with fruit after, similar for tea.

We always got photos on our app and the portions are tiny (and age appropriate) I never saw him get a slice of chocolate cake for dessert for example!

Not something I’d be fussed about. His diet is great, he’ll eat anything and he doesn’t ‘demand’ or crave sweet things at home or anything. Rarely eats chocolate or sweets / cakes at home although I’m not against it (he prefers biscuits….like me!)

Is this meant to be ironic?

No sweet desserts - just fruit & yoghurt 😂

Just ask for a fruit pudding. The nursery won't care one way or another, they see a million parents with different 'preferences'. None of it will make any difference in the long run when these children discover processed food for themselves, but if it makes the parents feel virtuous in the meantime then fine.

The nursery I used to work for had an on-site cook who made all the meals from scratch. Lovely dinners, full of veg, followed by (mainly) milky puddings like custard and rice pudding or other staples like apple crumble. They used to get fresh fruit mainly at tea time. Delicious food and I would say pretty nutritious too. Then one parent had a chat with the manager and suddenly we had a whole new menu and puddings were mainly fruit or low fat yoghurts. I did point out that it's not advised to give low fat foods to young children but that fell on deaf ears. The children were not impressed by the change!

We also used to all get together on staff members' birthdays and have a little tea party with cake. It used to be a lovely social time for them all as normally they ate in their own age group rooms. It wasn't a massive nursery so it's not like we were doing it every day and they all only got a small piece each. But one parent complained the kids were having too much cake so it was stopped.

Then that parent brought in her child with cake all round his mouth one morning saying 'sorry, we were at a party yesterday and got loads of birthday cake so he's had some for his breakfast today!' I couldn't believe the nerve after she'd made such a fuss about him having cake at nursery!

I used to find that at the nursery there were all sorts of food requirements in the under 1s room, then slightly fewer in the under 2s, then fewer again in the under 3s then when they were in preschool most of them were allowed to eat everything as they didn't like to miss out on stuff they saw others getting!

I've since had children and remember being amused when, after an Easter church service, they were giving out chocolate lollies and asked me if my 21 month old was too young for them. Possibly if she'd been my first but as she had two older brothers who she would see chomping away on chocolate there was no way I was going to get away with not giving her one!