Your comments on peanuts for under 5s please.

[bobbybob]

I have always lived with my ds's allergies and I think I cannot be totally objective about anything to do with peanuts, so I wondered how other people feel about giving peanut containing products to the under 5s.

For instance; how would you feel if you found out the "healthy hot lunch" at pre school contained peanut product a couple of times a week, but with a very general description like "winter casserole" or "meatloaf"?

I am confused - why age 5? why not age 4 or 6?

If you mean in the question - that's because children go to school at 5 in NZ (on 5th birthday) and so that's the age of children at the nursery 6 weeks to 5 years.

sorry, I meant why age 5 for nuts to suddenly be ok to try?

Because at that age they are considered sensible enough to chew the nut and not choke on it. It's not to do with allergies.
I do think the nursery is most unfair and unreasonable in feeding young children peanuts esp when they know for sure that one of the children is severely allergic.

They say they have taken enough steps with him having a special meal and the staff being trained first aiders, and it's in the best interests of all the children.

I think that's rubbish. Children don't need peanuts!

Er... trained first aiders are hardly sufficient to deal with anaphylactic shock, or whatever it's called.

What a strange nursery. I could understand it if it were a really basic foodstuff, but as Aloha said, kids don't really need peanuts as part of their diet - they're hardly difficult to avoid.

I might give my lovely doctor a call and get him to speak to them - I think that would make a huge difference.

At the very least he could scare them to death about having to deal with a kid in anaphylactic shock whilst having 20 other scared and confused children in the same room.