Nursery have given DS cake

[Hmmwhatyousay]

i have said I don’t want him having puddings and to have fruit instead. Last week he had cake all week (only just found out on pick up yesterday). They’ve said it was an oversight. Would you be annoyed about this? He’s 12 months.

Only if cake was all he ate.

@Hmmwhatyousay i’m more concerned by the attitude that cake is ‘rubbish’ tbh. Attitudes like this can be really dangerous. Cake can be absolutely fine as part of a nutritionally balanced diet. Labelling a perfectly normal food type like cake as ‘rubbish’ - particularly cake served at a nursery that as others have pointed out is likely made with a very low sugar content anyway - can lead to very skewed attitudes towards food and eating.

That aside, if you’ve asked the nursery not to feed your child cake and they have done so - perhaps a reminder of your preferences is in order? It’s not something I could feel angry about (allergies or religious dietary requirements would be a totally different matter of course). Some fruits have high levels of naturally occurring sugars too.

Or we should all be making our own bread, yoghurt, juice and only drinking coffee with beans we’ve picked ourselves from Colombia 🤣

You've stayed a good preference, they're agreed and then forgot. If the child was vegetarian and they'd had meat all week accidentally, would people still think it doesn't matter?

Whether yabu to refuse to let nursery give him cake alongside his friends is a different thread

Best not to get too hung up on foods.

Moderation in everything is a better approach than "rubbish" vs "good" or whatever you consider to be the alternative to cake.

If cake was all he ate I'd be concerned, but that's highly unlikely.

Try not to be too anxious. Anxiety of a parent around food is far more harmful to a child than a few teaspoons of cake daily for a week.

I don't mind kids having the occasional cake, but given the choice DS's nursery gave us between 'pudding' (generally cake-ish) every day or fruit every day for dessert, we picked fruit. At home we don't do dessert every meal, it really didn't seem necessary for a baby. Anyway he was a total fruit bat, if he had been able to choose on a meal to meal basis (which obviously doesn't work logistically for a nursery) he'd have gone for the fruit more than 50/50.

In this case it's more worrying that they haven't kept track of which child is supposed to be having what. What if one of them has a food intolerance, is vegan, or kosher or something?

I’m surprised so many are ok with cake every day. Sets up a habit I wouldn’t like
to have.

Theres a middle ground between the nonsensical boasting that an adult child finds sweet food ‘rank’ (eating is for both nutrition AND pleasure) and settling up habitual eating of cake without thought at such an early age.

God no wonder our nation is so obese with all the condescending comments about cake not doing any harm and fruit having more sugar, implying there’s no difference between naturally occurring sugars and added sugar and no other nutritional value to fruit!🙄There are also lots of assumptions being made that the cake had no sugar in it, but we don’t actually know this, so I think the pile on is very unfair.

The NHS literally recommends for children under four to “avoid…food with sugar added to it” so I think people really need to reassess their “it’s only cake” mentality. Nurseries simply don’t need to be serving cake.

The day I looked round my DC’s they had ice cream on the menu in the baby room. I checked with the staff member, as I thought I must be mistaken, and she clarified it was shop-bought run of the mill ice cream being served to babies. When she saw the absolute horror on my face she said I could choose for DC to have “sugar-free desserts” which I did. OP, if it’s a similar set up at your nursery where you can specify preferences, then of course YANBU to be annoyed these were ignored and I’d be having a word about your preferences being overlooked (but I do agree you need to pick your battles so I’d be extremely calm and polite about it).

I’m surprised so many are ok with cake every day. Sets up a habit I wouldn’t like to have.
Though primary school lunches put paid to any non-pudding habits DC might have got into anyway.

Do you know how hard it is ? How busy they are ? Lunch time/ Tea time.
Trying to get the children sat down and the meals out. WAter spills. Amy has split her gravy everywhere . John has had an acid ent . Lucy is on the toilet but needs help. We need to get desert out because the kitchen staff need the plates so they can get out on time. Okay.
Right … okay but it’s adult x’s time to take break so you go and I’ll get Adult y to cover as we need to have all staff lunches finished before 1pm so we’re in numbers for the afternoon arrival.
Jo’s mum is here early. We need to get him dressed . Okay but Staff Member V is in the toilet with little Lucy so you can’t leave as we will be out of numbers and X is on her lunch.

We need to get the pudding out.
Oh Shit - remember Little Simon is meant to have fruit because his mum is a pain in the arse ! Oh shit! She is going to be moaning now he’s had cake .
What on earth is wrong with these parents !

Usually how it went when I was the Qualified Teacher in my nursery !

Wow, these comments may have reached peak unhelpful bitchiness in mn land.

I assumed that fruit over cake was a choice the nursery offered, in which case it's a mess up on their part. Monitor it to check it's not a pattern.

Of course you're not being precious for not giving your baby cake. It's disingenuous insanity for ppl to suggest fruit is worse and she'll develop an eating disorder order by being restricted sugar as a BABY. Which is literally what every nutritional body will advise you to do.

I, too, would be very unimpressed with a nursery that had cake to hand out everyday and as others have pointed out, the nursery should have watertight procedures down for food preferences because some of them are of a lot more consequence. So that would also be a concern.

But nursery places can be hard to find and while 85 a day is a lot of money, most childcare settings are running on very thin margins with little tolerance for customers they find hard to please (even though what you’re asking for is more than reasonable) so you may have to accept a lower standard than you’d like.

They said it was an oversight. Everyone makes mistakes, I'm sure even you. Lighten up.

For me, it's not really about the cake, my 1 year old loves cake and he has it a lot.

It's the fact there was an 'oversight' that would bother me. Yep, everyone makes mistakes but what if that had been an allergy?

It wouldn't fill me with confidence to be honest.

Very very likely. I expect saying no to cake was only one part of the issue. I had an eating disorder caused by my mother’s strict requirements around food.

Yes agree @JTRSOP . Good friend was regimental about her children food intake. Oldest daughter is now obese and used to steal food from our house !

The day I looked round my DC’s they had ice cream on the menu in the baby room. I checked with the staff member, as I thought I must be mistaken, and she clarified it was shop-bought run of the mill ice cream being served to babies. When she saw the absolute horror on my face ...

I genuinely only see this kind of post/hear this kind of thing on Mumsnet.

Are people really horrified by a spoonful of ice cream?

Imagine if a parent came on saying they feed their child cake every day. There would be uproar. But fine at nursery.!

The fact is op asked for fruit instead of cake, nursery didn't do it. For a whole week.

Yes op I would be concerned that this has happened for a week. It sounds like their policies need reviewing. I'd make sure the manager is aware.

For babies, as a part of a routine, everyday meal? Yes.

No even if the rest of the diet was really really healthy cake every day is too much. No adult eats cake every day, why would it be acceptable for children?

The fruit will almost certainly be higher in sugar, and worse for his teeth than nursery cake.

I agree OP, it's pretty bad that they are not respecting your wishes especially at the price you are paying.

I know nurseries are busy places but they always have a record of all children's dietary needs and if you've made this request then it should be on there - it's very basic stuff.

I'd look for another nursery.

Love everyone's confidence that it must be sugarless cake. Our nursery give the likes of chocolate Swiss roll from Tesco!

My DD has natural yoghurt and fruit instead as do some other children. She happily eats it. She does have actual cake in her diet but I don't like her having sugary nursery puddings three times a week for lunch and the same for dinner. It's my one bug bear with our nursery. I'm not about banning food I'm into everything in moderation. But six sugary puddings in three days isn't moderation.

I'd hazard a guess that at 12 months, most of it ended up on the floor. I'd ask to see the menus/ listing of what they have given this week, then make a decision, either look for new provision or keep child at home.

We have had a few parents request no puddings over the years. It's ok when they are very little but when they are more aware of what their friends have it gets hard. Even the allergy babies get something that looks similar to what the others are having. When a nearly 2yo is looking sadly at their bit of fruit while the others have a pudding can be hard, especially as they don't know why they can't have it too. All our meals are home made on site so everything follows recommended nutritional guidelines for the age group.

However, we do always follow parent wishes and it is listed with the children with allergies to make sure no mistakes are made.