To think this is absolutely joyless of nursery?

[Bettycrockered]

DD attends a private nursery and if you want to, on their birthdays you send them in with a shop brought cake and some candles. Everyone sings happy birthday and the cake gets shared out.

There is around 40 kids in the room, so an average of one birthday a week. By the time the cake is cut down to share, each kid gets a small cube of sponge and jam.

one of the parents via a nursery/parent forum has complained that they feel the cube of cake a few times a month is excessive sugar and so now there’s no birthday cake. On their birthday, the child sits in a chair and everyone sings happy birthday. Once a month the chef will instead bake a sugar free cake for each room and they have a little party instead.

AIBU to think this is totally joyless? DD doesn’t even like cake so I’ve seen the minuscule cubes of cake that come home with her. The meal plan at the nursery is really nutritious and varied - a little cube of sponge cake surely isn’t that big an issue? They could always alternate the children’s pudding with the cake rather than getting rid of it.

YABU - kids eat too much sugar as it is
YANBU - moderation is fine

Cake doesn't equal joy. The nursery is right to ban it. Babies shouldn't be eating UPFs, it is awful stuff.
Strawberries are much nicer as a substitute.

As an aside, this reminds me of my primary school. At assembly, if it was someone's birthday, the headmaster would get out the big toy cake which had spaces to put real candles in. You would be brought to the front and the whole school would sing happy birtnday, and then you'd get to blow out the real candles. The treat was being centre of attention and everyone singing a song for you.

Wonderful! And no UPFs in sight

Cake doesn't equal joy

It does in my house. I’d go so far as to say that I am very wary of anyone who says that they don’t like cake.

I love cake but I don't feed it to my 1 year old who has an immature digestive system. Also, I find joy in singing and dancing, not gorging on cake. Bloating doesn't give me joy tbh!

Toddlers stomachs are tiny

1. I never gave cake to a 1 year old
2. Sing and dancing are great, I was doing it tonight watching some of Glastonbury
3. never mentioned gorging, a cupcake doesn’t equate to gluttony
4. you’ve obviously never had one of my cakes. Bloating, how very dare you. Lighter than air.

The anxiety this would have caused me as a child would have been much more detrimental to my health than a wee bit of cake! It’s got me coming out in a cold sweat just imagining it

Same!

I remember being given raw sugar cane to chew/suck, whenever someone brought some over.

This!

It really is ridiculous how a small but very vocal minority manage to spoil most things for everyone else!

Some of us can have one slice and stop. Having birthday cake doesn't = gorging for most people.

Unfortunately, most of the time, it does for people that weren't given treats in moderation though.

Joyless.

DH and his sisters grew up in a home where chocolate belonged to Christmas and if a packet of sweets was ever bought, it was one each and put away for tomorrow. A tube of fruit pastils lasted two days between five.

I had a cupboard full of sweets and could have them when I wanted. I wasn't that fussed because they weren't verboten.

Guess who gorged and continues to gorge on sweets and chocolate it isn't me. DH is 62. I often find a secretly snaffled Mars Bar wrapper in his trouser pocket.

The world has gone bonkers.

Ours does. And they get sweets from teachers for doing their work and at the end of term and on other special occasions.

We usually give birthday cake that has been brought in at snack time. It is only small pieces and that way children can choose. Not all of them want cake. We do the cake and candles and sing. If a child doesn’t bring in a cake we will often use a cupcake or playdough cake so they still get to blow out candles. We offer allergy free cake that we provide for those who can’t have it and check all ingredients if shop bought.

Oh yeah that famous birthday food..... strawberries.

I love strawberries but they're not for a birthday are they. They're an every day food... I mean tbh cake is an every day food (as in, not banned in my house! We bake often) but like... birthday cake is a thing. Birthday fruit. Not so much. Not when nursery kids will have more fruit than they know what to do with on a daily basis anyway!

Yep, standard nowadays I'm afraid. At our nursery they get a little fake cake with fake candles to have a photo with and that's about it.

I’m thinking of second hand embarrassment when in primary 7 as your nearly a teen then heading off to high school.. total cringe cake would be preferable in my book

Someone needs to invent cupcake liners that are scented with chocolate, strawberry, vanilla or carrot cake. Pass those out to the children and they can sniff them and imagine themselves eating a cupcake. <s>

Exactly. It's no wonder obesity is the norm.

But nursery will serve fruit which probably has more sugar than a tiny square of cake and it really is tiny.

When you make a cake, do you see how much sugar you put in it?! And store bought cake has even more added sugar. Even a tiny square would be high in added sugar, not to mention a whole host of nasty additives (a tiny square would be equivalent to a proper slice for an adult!)

And you can't even compare them. Natural sugars do not spike blood sugars in any comparable way to sugars artificially added to food.

The ignorance in this thread to how the body reacts to naturally occurring fructose in fruit is shocking. No wonder we have increasing cases of type 2 diabetes and 1 in 10 kids starting reception are overweight.

Having a bit of chocolate with the same amount of sugar as an apple is not the same at all FFS. The sugars in the apple would not be absorbed by the body immediately because the high amount fibre slows this down - so you don't get a big spike in blood sugar. You also end up with essential nutrients, antioxidants and compounds the good bacteria in your gut can use to grow, and fibre which will aid general digestion.

Now the chocolate bar with refined sugars is empty calories. The sugars are immediately absorbed, causing a spike in your blood sugars. There's little nutritional value in it, and it's a UPF with additives that encourage the growth of unhealthy bacteria in your gut.

I assume the portion size depends on the nursery/how big the cake is. A small bit for a baby or toddler is different to a small bit for an adult. Fruit also won’t contain all the other crap a shop bought cake usually contains. It’s not comparable. See PP.

Not at all. They can have as much birthday fuss as they want in their own home with their own family.

Except the kid of the parents who have made this request, of course!

Joyless, I'd get a few parents to complain the other way.