Mealtimes at nursery

[mrsalwaysawake]

I've just been to look around a nursery that we might send our son to. It seemed very nice, but the one thing that seemed odd was that they serve tea at 3pm for the littlest children, then a small snack at what I would consider actual teatime. Is that very early, or about normal?

sounds normal.
my dc's nursery serves lunch at 11:30, dinner at 15:00 and snack at 17:00

Normal - they have lunch early to allow for naps after, and so early tea, which also allows them to finish tea and get cleaned up before pick ups start

not sure what you mean by 'tea'... sorry. but FWIW, at my children's nursery, they eat at breakfast (by 9, cereal, toast), snack (10/1030, fruitsnack), lunch (12, hot, cooked on premises, anything like lasagne, pasta, pies, rice with chicken, etcetc), tea-time snack (3, soup, vege dip etc). and that's it.

we give them dinner when we all get home about 6/6.30. I know of other nurseries that serve 'tea' later about 4.30/5. Which basically means they don't need to eat anymore by the time they get picked up to go home.

DD (15mo and in baby room) has breakfast at 08:30, lunch at 11:30, Afternoon tea (soup, sandwich, dips) at 3:30. They also have snacks around 10:15, 2:15 and 5:30. All they do is eat!

We give DD another Afternoon tea style meal wen we get home about 5:45.

Normal at my nursery. Dd is in the 2-3 room. She has breakfast on arrival at 7.30 fruit at 9.30 hot lunch and pudding at midday to allow time for naps then a carb based tea at 3pm. They don't serve a later snack afaik but i pick her up between 4.30 and 5. Normally she then doesn't want any dinner at home.

By 'tea' I mean the 3rd meal. We wouldn't be picking him up til at least 6, so by the time we're home it'd be bathtime. He currently has tea at 5pm, so I would worry that he would want feeding again when we got home. Or will he adjust to wanting a proper meal at 3pm? This would be a pain in the bum on non-nursery days.
He will be just 1 when he starts at nursery, btw.

Sounds the same as DD's nursery. We found that she did need more food after we collected her, but we tended to give her snacks rather than a meal (e.g. fruit, toast, breadsticks and cheese). It didn't seem to affect her appetite on non-nursery days, so wasn't too much of a nuisance.

I think it'll depend on what other things they feed during the day... and what they actually mean by 'tea'. We follow what our nursery does most of the time, so on weekends, we still eat at 9, 12, 6 with snacks in between (fruit, yoghurt etc). For our nursery, the 3pm meal is called 'tea time' but it's a snack - soup/bread, vege with dip, pitta bread, fruit etc.

I have a friend whose kids also go to the same nursery, and they don't eat by the time they get home (or she only gives them 'continental style dinner' of cold ham, bread, vege sticks etc). My kids eat a hot meal (pasta, rice, noodles etc). I think it also depends on what time your child sleeps. Mine go to bed at 8 at the earliest. So may need more 'food'. yours might go to bed at 7, and so may need less.

They call 'tea' soup & bread or sandwiches or fish fingers then fruit or fromage frais or biscuity things. So a good light meal, not a snack.
They do breakfast between 0730 and 0900, lunch from 1100, tea from 1500, with snacks mid-morning and after tea. Lunch is a proper 2-course meal.

Sounds pretty standard. At my nursery they have breakfast between 7.30 and 8, lunch at 11.30, tea at 3.30 and snacks mid-morning and after tea so are eating almost constantly. They have dessert after each of lunch and tea too. DS doesn't tend to need any more food once he gets home around 6.30pm (which is just as well as he pretty much goes straight to bed).

He eats at more traditional times at the weekend and it doesn't seem to be a problem changing routine between home and nursery

Thanks for all the replies.
Suburbandweller - that's just what I wanted to hear, thank you! I will get on with worrying about something else now...