Pasta: how many times a week makes a bad mummy?

[GingaNinja]

After I collect DD (22mo) from the creche I need quick stuff to cook for tea ie no longer than 20 mins that preferably can be left to cook without supervision (DD wants attention etc not unreasonably as she's in the creche for 7.15am). I've tried casseroles etc that I can bung in the micro to re-heat, veggies etc with limited success. The one thing she eats and will eat really really well at the moment is pasta - fresh with stuff in it or dried with pesto and cheese/sauce. Though not keen on Mummy's lasagne. And a whopping carb load also seems to improve her sleeping (a good night I'm up with her 'only' 2 or 3 times). She does eat lots of fruit too btw (massive strop yesterday because she wasn't allowed a second 'nana and had to make do with half Mummy's orange).

So how many times a week can I feed her pasta before I become An Even More Unfit Mother? NB: She gets full on cooked lunch at the creche - bacon & cabbage today, roast chicken dinner with trimmings yesterday for eg.

TIA.

If she's getting a full cooked lunch, I'd do a more snacky tea - beans or egg on toast, jacket potato, omlette or even just a sandwich. Cous cous is brilliantly quick too.

Nothing wrong with pasta though! Especially if you vary the sauce. Sounds like she's having a variety of things at creche too.

Thanks for easing my conscience BTF!

Should probably have mentioned that DD is bean-phobic, egg-phobic (unless disguised in the pasta itself!), and - most astoundingly of all given umpteen generations of spud farmers on Daddy's side of the family - LOATHES potatoes. She extracts/licks all the brown sauce/ketchup/pesto/gravy off before spitting out the spud with great velocity. Only exception is processed stuff eg takeaway chips (eaten on 4 occasions) which I presume proves that there's no actual potato (much) in them. The mind boggles.

There must be a hell of a lot of bad mamas in my neck of the woods

The usual here would be at lunch with a meat/fish based sauce and again in the evenings with a cheese/veg based sauce. So 14 times a week!

um, I don't suppose it really matters that much - when I was in Italy au pairing, they had pasta for the littlies at least 5 times a week, iirc.

re. the potatoes - she'll cop on, don't worry - DS didn't eat them at all until he was 2, and then only chips - but now he loves mash and potato of all kinds (except potato salad - still hasn't come round to that).

DD asks for pasta every night. I think she has it 2/3 times a week. She has a 'proper' lunch (meat and veg) at the cm and I need something quick and easy in the eveining for her. She loves it, it makes her sleepy so I love it too.

And I reckon Italian babies must eat a fair amount of pasta and they all seem alright?! (yes I can see all the babies in Italy from here and they're fine)

We're all doing a good job