CM club: Do you give mindees a choice for lunch?

[mumbomama]

I am struggling with my newest mindee. He is 4 years old and all he wants for lunch is cheese sandwiches. He won't eat any fruit or salad either.

I know some childminders do a menu. Do you just make whatever you've planned or do you let the children choose?

I'm not sure how to get the right balance between giving children a choice and providing a healthy varied diet.

Eat it or go hungry?

I serve one meal - I try to plan any known dislikes/intolerances/allergies/fads into the monthly menu - but if they don't like it......tough

I do a sandwich/beans/cheese/egg on toast type lunch, so usually give children a choice of filling or topping. Always give choice of a selection of fruit, then often a yoghurt or maybe a homemade biscuit or cake if we have been baking. I would ask mindees parents what fruit/veg they want you to encourage him to eat.

I have taken mindee to fruit shop and allowed them to choose a fruit for their lunch in order to encourage healthy eating when they refused all the choices I had available.

I have a mindee who usually doesn't want a piece of fruit, but if I cut up several different fruits and put it all on a plate for mindees to 'dig in' he usually eats loads.

i make a healthy lunch and they eat what they are given, if they don't want it i will ask them to try one mouthful then usually they eat it all once they try it and see others eating it.

i make one lunch and they eat it or not have not got time to be in the kitchen all day
most of them cotton on and eat their dinners

im with the rest of you on this.....eat it or go hungry!
i used to have a mindee who would only eat one kind of food at home (wont mention it incase mums an mn'er!!) but theres no way i was prepared to give her the same food every day so she ate whatever was in front of her and loved it (after a bit of persuasion!).

she has left me now and is back to eating the same crap every day
what a wsate of my time encouraging the mindee to have a healthy diet and try different foods!!

Eat it or don't is the choice mine get too. TBH it is ususally a sandwich/soup/light meal here followed by fruit/yoghurt and they mostly eat but if I serve soup one of the mindees won't touch it, just eats the bread. She is the same at home and mum has said to feed her the same and she will hopefully try it eventually. I'm still waiting - she is nearly 2 and I've had her since 6mths old.
She is the same at home too though.

Mumbomama i really hope you dont mind but can i hijack your thread? My question is along a similar line - i really hope to be a childminder in the not too distant future but i really am rather hopeless at cooking - can anyone give me advice/sugesstions on what you give your mindees for tea? It's playing on my mind and dont want this to stop me becoming a CM. thank you Ladies and sorry for hijacking!

why not ask them to bring packed luches
lots of childminders do
my DH does all the cooking in my house and when hes at work mindees have baked studs and beans

My last mindee was such a poor eater and I had my OFSTED inspection while he was here. Mum and Dad weren't bothered by his eating a filled him full of macdonalds etc... The OFSTED lady was lovely- I worried my self silly over her watching what he ate and how bad it all was as he would not eat anything and I mean anything!!!

I told her we had grown our own strawberries and gone blackberry picking and raspberry picking but to no avail, he would pick but would not eat!!! I always offered him on his plate the same as my DD (lunch was usually a snacky type thing such as ham sandwich, cheese sandwich etc... or in a pitta with chopped up fruit, veg and cheese cubes if they'd had a meat sandwich filling etc... and tea was usually a hot meal sometimes a roast, pasta bake, etc...) She saw he was offered it, I didn't make a fuss if he didn't eat- I told her I intially worried so much about his eating but had since found out he ate a whole packed of choc cookies on his way to us and macdonalds on the way home so had stopped being a fish wife and stopped nagging him. She laughed and told me her granddaughter was the same. She said I was offering healthy choices and telling him why we should eat healthily. He actually said during lunch while she was there that he wanted a cookie. I replied saying that cookies were ok now and again but not every day because they weren't so healthy. she praised that in her report and overall I got outstanding so I was v.happy. She was fine with them having that meal and the either eat it or go hungry approach.

Thanks everyone for your advice.

I made him beans on toast today (which he'd previously said he didn't like!) and he ate it all without even complaining

my soon to be mindee's lists of food she 'would not eat' inlcuded, cheese, ham, any kind of soup, most fruit...had her for a bit yesterday, she ate just the ham from the ham sandwhich but not the bread as her mam said she just eats bread, followed by lots of chunked up cheese..today, totally lapped up tomato soup with a crusty roll!! followed by a banana!..you never can tell!..my dd hates and wont touch broccoli, yet at my friends, she says they have a broccoli tree in garden and my dd eats it all up there!