Childminder's club: Long one - mindee not eating hardly anything

[Tan1959]

I have a mindee who is 2.9 years and since being placed with me (4 months now) has always eaten very little. I cook all sorts of things and take my recipes from the Annabel Karmel book 'cooking for toddlers'. Mum originally told me that mindee is used to all sorts of foods that she cooks him such as meats with cook-in sauces (jar type not her own - oh that's not meant as a criticism!!), pkt noodles with chicken flavoured sachets and packets of pasta'n'sauce (the ones that you just add milk & butter to - they have quite a few E numbers not really suitable for infants and young children). Now, I have a dilemma because mum asked me to give noodles with ckn flav sachets to try and get him to eat something; ok I did and he will always eat some of it and now she wants me to try the pasta'n'sauce from pkts. Ok the dilemma is that I have another mindee who nearly always eats what I cook & I really do not want to start cooking one thing for one of them and something else for the other. When my kids were young, many moons ago, they either ate what I cooked or went without - that makes me sound as though I was a really horrible mummy . I would welcome your opinions - do you think I am making too much of a fuss to the mum about doing something different for her Ds ? what would you do? Mindee will happily ask for pudding if fromage frais is on offer but not necessarily the fruit. I am afraid that I never give in to him {shock] . I have discussed my concerns with mum and she says that he will not eat at the dads either (goes to dad for weekends). Mum has suggested that if I worried to take him to see health visitor.

Tan - the other way to look at it is if the mindee was going to a nursery full-time, they would not have a choice of what to eat and would either eat what was offered on the menu or go hungry. I know your mindee is only 2.5 but if the Mum continues with this attitude, then how on earth will she cope with the whole school dinner thing once the mindee starts reception?!

In your position and where you have the needs of other mindees to consider, I think you'refully within your rights to refuse to cook additional meals just on the basis on it's what that partciular child needs. You are offering a service and as clearly stated up front - this includes what YOU decide to provide as a meal, i.e. something healthy and nutrtious and suitable for ALL the children you are minding.

Hope you manage to work this one out.

I agree wholeheartedly that, basically, childminders should work "together" with parents. However, if you have an issue that really goes against the grain of what you believe, then I don't think you should chuck out your principles. This is something that you had already discussed with the parent. I echo what Handbag has said about nurseries as well.

I also had a child (aged 2) who used to arrive with a baby bottle full of coke. The mum used to say, "I probably shouldn't give him this, it makes him bounce off the wall. I might give him diet coke instead." I said that he shouldn't be drinking coke at all, which she agreed with, but he still came with it. I threw it down the sink and gave him proper juice or water, which he was more than happy with. There is no way I could condone giving him coke.

I do sometimes have children arriving with food for lunch that I don't consider suitable, but I do respect parents, and would give it to them. Those meals tend to be the ones sent when parents are running late! Most of the time, their meals are good.