Nursery giving one year olds ice cream

[pidge]

My dd (13 months) goes to nursery 3 days a week, where I provide her with her own food, as I wasn't that thrilled with the nursery offerings. I want her to have healthy nutritious food so she develops good tastes for later in life.

Yesterday the nursery gave out ice creams to the kiddies (age 6 months to 2 years) and didn't give my dd one as we had said no food except what we send in. Of course dd got terribly upset, and we felt so guilty when we heard about it.

Now we have said they should try giving her a healthy alternative if the other kids are getting sweet stuff, or if she is not consoled by that it's ok for her to have things like ice cream provided it's occasionally. I don't want her to feel she's missing out.

But really I can't believe that kids of this age need to be given things like ice-cream. My dp gave her a stick of cucumber when they got home and she was super happy chewing on that for 20 minutes!!

I don't want to be mean, and we do give her treats - but her idea of heaven is some melon or avocado. Does anyone have similar experiences of nurseries giving out non-healthy food, and how did you tackle it?

DS1 & 2 are only in nursery 2 days a week s I don't mind what they eat there. In fact, that's pretty much the only place they eat vegetables. I agree that you need to relax a little bit. Provided nursery are aware that you don't want your DD to have ice cream and other unhealthy snacks as a matter of course and have a suitable alternative then the odd one won't hurt.

It's easy now as your DD is not old enough to notice that she is getting something different. There may come a stage where she can see that she is not having the same as the others and wants to be the same. Also, kids reach an age where they tease if another child does something different to them

I have to say that my dd nursery is very good at offering fruit etc but on the odd occasion she has some birthday cake/birthday dinner, pizza, ice cream etc but i believe a little of everything in moderation is fine. I tend not to deprive her of anything so as when she does have a bit of chocolate she's quite happy to just have a little rather than binge because it's such a rarity. You're the parent so you've got to go with your gut instinct as to what you feel is right to do all i know is it would break my heart to think of my little one sat there crying because she wasn't allowd an ice cream whilst the other kids indulged.

While healthy eating is obviously important, parents that are overly fussy with their children's diet are going to be more likely to encourage them to to grow up with eating disorders surely.

That's why we have such alcohol problems in the UK. Its well known that in France where you drink from a young age, you develop a more sensible approach to alcohol, its not seen as such a big deal. 'Everything in moderation..etc'

Pidge I can understand that jelly has no nutrition, and coke rots your teeth, but are you planning to stop your dd from ever having ice-cream?!

I thought that jelly had some kind of nutrition if eaten in the pre-diluted and molded state, is it iron or something? I haven't got any in so can't check. Does anyone know?