Nursery won't supply meals under 12 months

[Muminthewoods19]

I will be going back to work when my little boy is 9 months and the nursery do not provide food or drink for under 12 months, I have to prepare and take all food and drink for him each day.

Is this normal policy or should I look for another nursery?

Not sure how I am going to prepare all his meals for the day and go to work and also catch up on work hours (I will have to leave work early to get back to pick him up so need to make up 2 hours WFH whilst he's asleep).

He's exclusively breastfed and won't take a bottle so I had planned to breastfeed him before and after nursery and to feed him solids and water at Nursery, we are doing baby led weaning, and I had hoped I could to check the menu and they could give him what the other children were having as long as he had tried it at home. However they will only do this from 1 and I need to provide all food and drink and instructions on when to give it to him.

Any ideas for easy but nutritious food I can prepare for him each morning? I am also trying to get him to take milk from a sippy cup.

Just feel evil right now as if I had taken the year off work this wouldn't be an issue but we couldn't afford it. Sorry for the essay.

@shearwater no your body adapts, I was on 1-2 feeds a day when I was back at work full time. Never expressed. All gorging had stopped at that point. Fed first thing in the morning, when I got home. No issues.

Get a good small wide lided thermos and one of those insulating cover things too. What a faff! I'm so glad my dd's nursery didn't have this rule.

It's not unusual - none of the nurseries I visited provided food under 12 months and my childminder doesn't provide food for ANY of the kids in her care

It's not really that hard - pack DC up with some of the pre prepared baby food pouches and some cut up fruit - it will take you less than 5 mins 🤔

Honestly, I wouldn't of had time. Mine both started at 10 months old, 4 days a week - full days as I was working part time. They both had nursery food. My first started in their purée weaning menu (they didn't do baby lead as in their opinion it was hard to supervise all the baby's 1:1), but I was ok with this. We did baby lead at home. Did purée for a couple of months then moved to the journal nursery menu just mushed you a bit more. With my youngest he went straight on to the ordinary menu mushed/cut up a bit more, and never bothered with the baby menu. But I was more confident and he'd been eating the same as us and my eldest at home anyway. It was nursery who suggested it. At 3 snd 5 now they are both fantastic eaters and have school dinners (pre-school) twice a week for youngest. Lots of nurseries do provide all food and snacks so I'd be tempted to cut my losses and look elsewhere. With juggling full time work, pick up and drop offs I couldn't be doing with the faff of worrying about food prep as well.

Honestly, I wouldn't of had time. Mine both started at 10 months old, 4 days a week - full days as I was working full time. They both had nursery food. My first started in their purée weaning menu (they didn't do baby lead as in their opinion it was hard to supervise all the baby's 1:1), but I was ok with this. We did baby lead at home. Did purée for a couple of months then moved to the journal nursery menu just mushed you a bit more. With my youngest he went straight on to the ordinary menu mushed/cut up a bit more, and never bothered with the baby menu. But I was more confident and he'd been eating the same as us and my eldest at home anyway. It was nursery who suggested it. At 3 snd 5 now they are both fantastic eaters and have school dinners (pre-school) twice a week for youngest. Lots of nurseries do provide all food and snacks so I'd be tempted to cut my losses and look elsewhere. With juggling full time work, pick up and drop offs I couldn't be doing with the faff of worrying about food prep as well.

Honestly, I wouldn't of had time. Mine both started at 10 months old, 4 days a week - full days as I was working full time. They both had nursery food. My first started in their purée weaning menu (they didn't do baby lead as in their opinion it was hard to supervise all the baby's 1:1), but I was ok with this. We did baby lead at home. Did purée for a couple of months then moved to the normal nursery menu just mushed up a bit more. With my youngest he went straight on to the ordinary menu mushed/cut up a bit more, and never bothered with the baby menu. But I was more confident and he'd been eating the same as us and my eldest at home anyway. It was nursery who suggested it. At 3 snd 5 now they are both fantastic eaters and have school dinners (pre-school) twice a week for youngest. Lots of nurseries do provide all food and snacks so I'd be tempted to cut my losses and look elsewhere. With juggling full time work, pick up and drop offs I couldn't be doing with the faff of worrying about food prep as well.

I’d be tempted to look around for another nursery that does food. I would find it really hard work, and I usually cook from scratch every day anyway. It’s more the mental effort and the planning that I would struggle with.

We changed nursery at the last minute, so you might be lucky and find a good one with a place. We did lose the deposit on the first one, but my husband felt it was important to find the right place for our daughter, and I think he was right.

I would prepare a packed lunch, the same each day.
Baby bel cheese
Carrot and cucumber pieces
Chopped up chicken
Bread and butter (sandwiches are rubbish, all the filling either gets squashed out or falls out)
Petit filou
Tangerine
Water

My daughter wouldnt take a bottle from me at that age but was fine in childcare because breastfeeding wasnt an option, so you may find he will take a bottle or sippy cup at nursery. Your HV is right that your breasts will quite quickly adapt to feeding morning and evening, and you can feed during the day when you're together too.

Food wise, spend half an hour in sunday making lunches for the first half of the week, half an hour wednesday for the second half of the week.

If you're really short on time a lot of stuff can be bought pre prepared or minimal prep e.g. pre prepared fruit, individual cheese sticks or babybel, Ella's kitchen puffs, raisin boxes

I would change nurseries. Mine provides meals for all children who are weaned (except morning snack which I have to supply). I honestly can’t be doing with the stress of meal prep when I work.

I wouldn't send my DC there. Three months of all meals needing to be taken in and presumably involving no prep/mixing/heating by the nursery sounds too hard and not particularly healthy. Yes it's only 3 mths but it's a 3 mths that you are trying to readjust your whole life.
Btw My milk supply did adjust for no daytime feeds on a working day when my 10mth old went to nursery .

The nurseries I worked in all supplied lunch and tea (parents asked to bring in breakfast cereal which was easily prepared and given).

I would just supply healthy snack/picnic type foods that need little preparation or take leftover food from your meals at home eg bolognaise, pasta etc.

Greek yoghurt
Banana
Blueberries
Fromage frais
Grapes cut lengthways
Pears

Ham
Cheese
Frittata or quiche
Flask and thick soup
Pasta Parmesan pesto and pine nuts ( unless you like to avoid the nuts) then pesto and Parmesan and rocket or spinach.
Pasta and tuna

Just simple healthy food . Don't overthink it.

As a childminder I had the same policy, but was flexible. If you told me they'd tried all fruit and veg then I gave it alongside what parents had sent.
If they'd tried toast etc, then I'd introduce it.
Eggs etc
So it was more of a process whereby I was happy nothing I would feed would upset the baby. And I got used to what was fed at home (and got new ideas for our menus 😁)

Parents would batch cook and prep little Tupperware boxes and pitta etc

I would change nurseries too. That's too much to organise around working also imo.

I send a packed tea for DD. I batch make and freeze sandwiches. Then add chopped salad and some yoghurt and fruit for pudding.

If I need her to have a more filling meal I send her with last night's leftovers even though I know it can't be heated (I choose things that aren't too grim eaten cold). She's got pasta with chicken, broccoli and a cream sauce today and will happily eat it cold.

Problem with sending a thermos is it'll have to be kept separately from the rest of her packed lunch/tea which will need to be kept in the fridge. I've assumed our nursery would consider this too much of a faff.

I would agree this is a pita to deal with as well as returning to work but as it's only for 3 months, with some advance planning, you'll manage it and presumably that might be preferable to trying to find alternative childcare at this stage.

It's a pain but probably doable, especially if you plan ahead.

Assuming that nursery will heat up food for you I would batch-cook a chicken casserole, a pasta bake, a fish pie with mash and a shepherd's pie. Add some cooked veg to each in a small tub. Six potions of each in the freezer will keep you going for the first 6 weeks. Take one meal out in the evening and defrost overnight.

Breakfast could be easy - cereal, banana, breadsticks, cheese.

Lunch could be a small sandwich, veg sticks, cheese cubes. If you made soup you could send in a portion of that each day.

Add some rice cakes, yogurt, fruit for snacks each day.

It might be a bit repetitive but it's only for 3 months.

Sorry, should have read it properly and realised that they won't heat food.

I've never heard this one before both of mine were provided with food from babies upwards
Could you prep a little bit of extra dinner every night for lunch in a Tupperware the next day plus some cereal for breakfast and some fruit for snacks
I fed my babies pretty much what we ate (with a few exceptions) sometimes it was only the part of the meal and often saved a bit from dinner for lunch the next day (I'm rubbish at eating lunch)

Surely you can just send a packed lunch of sandwiches/fruit etc if you are blw?

@SnowsInWater

Not only are you correct, but the reality can be far worse: but it’s more todo with fussy parents than fussy children

One nursery I visited had 21 children in the baby room. The manager informed me that 8 supposedly had food allergies, but only 1 had a bona fide diagnosis and diet plan from a qualified medical practitioner. Another 14 had detailed lists of what they must or must not eat. Yet staff reported that, when grandparents collect the children, they frequently told them, "oh, mum says they can’t eat such-and-such, but they eat it all the time at our house."

So, if anyone’s nursery no longer offers food, you can thank the pita parents that have made it into an impossible task.

Apologies for my error: the 14 children with detailed food lists did include those 8 with 'alleged' food allergies.

Are there really no other options op?