Is this standard at nurseries?

[otterbaby]

FTM here starting to look around at nurseries...we will be sending our daughter to nursery full time when she's around 9-10 months old.

It appears as though in our area, the standard age group for her would be 6 months - 2 years.

What I have noticed and is bothering me a bit, is that most of them seem to advertise a 2-course lunch, with the second course being dessert. Is this normal? It's not just fruit, it's things like chocolate cake, ice cream, jelly, bananas and custard, etc. I'm not really keen on my baby having dessert after lunch on a daily basis. If I want her to have something sweet, I'd like to do it on my own terms. And having it every day (for lunch, no less) takes away from the idea of it being a "treat".

This then begs the question, does that make me the witchy mother who has to stipulate that I don't want her to be given these desserts and instead she can have fruit or yogurt? And cue meltdowns when her friends get chocolate cake and she gets an apple?

What is everyone else's experiences?

I used to work in a nursery. Just tell the staff that you'd rather her have fruit/ yoghurt rather than cake but yes they are usually very small portions and from experience as she gets older, she may see other children having different and get a little upset xx

I wouldn’t stress. You could definitely ask that she just has fruit/yoghurt but as she gets older she might notice.
I would say, children are fine about some things at nursery and some things at home. So for example mine would never eat pasta at home but apparently would at nursery. They carried on napping at nursery long after they gave up napping at home.
What I’m saying is, if she gets puddings at nursery, I don’t think she’ll suddenly be demanding them at home. She will get quickly used to the fact that food is different at nursery, she’ll be less picky about it, and that’s that.
When she goes to school they definitely get puddings too, but again it’s balanced in the grand scheme of things, no massive slabs of cake or anything like that

Portion sizes are tiny and the ‘puddings’ are normally v low sugar and taste of not a lot

I managed a nursery for 10 years and this was standard. But a number of parents would request "just fruit for dessert."
Say that if you are not keen.

There was a girl in dd's nursery who wasn't allowed dessert. My dd used to come home and say "X must have been really naughty, she wasn't allowed any dessert". I felt really sorry for X (it wasn't a medical issue, her Mam just preferred her not to have it).
The desserts are really quite small, and they quickly burn off the energy.

With my daughter who went to nursery full time at 8 months I said no to puddings until she was one. After that I relaxed a bit and let her eat everything. I will do the same for my baby who is starting nursery very soon. I used to provide fruit purées for her to have instead.

Ours is mixed. Pudding varies but is usually a piece of fruit or fruit salad, yogurt, occasionally bananas and custard or rice pudding and sometimes cake if it’s a child’s birthday.

I was a baby room supervisor and my babies used to get meals according to their age as it was in the days when you got 14 weeks maternity leave. So a 5 month old just starting solids would get something more suited to them compared to the one year old having what the older ones were having. Though we occasionally had yoghurts or fruit depending on the child.

I'm still in touch with the nursery staff and They still go by the way of the parent so if they are baby led weaning, they'll adapt the main meal to them. And it's fruit or yoghurt. They don't tend to give the cake or crumbles until they are able to feed themselves and it's like a soup spoon sized portion.

I would talk to the nursery about it.

It’s pretty standard. I really like the meals our nursery provide, DD eats a lot of fruit and veg every day as well as the pudding and they have a nice variety of food rather than the standard burger/fish gingers/pasta you get in schools sometimes.

OP it’s common in most nurseries. My DD started at 7 months and I said no sweets- she got fruit. At around 18 months she has slimmed down was super active and I was less worried (she was a top centile baby and I was terrified of childhood obesity!) so she just had what everyone was having. She didn’t pile on weight and we eat healthily at home so it was fine. Habits are generally from what they see at home eg generally being well, active, healthy attitude to food (which includes eating a balanced diet including sweet things). I would try not to worry but as a baby she won’t notice not having the same anyway so don’t worry about asking.

I work in a baby room (up to 15 months) and we don't give pudding to under one's. They have fruit instead. Parents can request no sweet puddings for older children and they don't seem bothered until about 20 months when they start trying to swipe their friends pudding! They don't get a big portion and are not allowed seconds.

I just said no desserts apart from fruit or yoghurt until she started to notice. Then I let her have them - about 18 months.

Why do they offer puddings every day though out of interest? I don’t anyone who would let their child have a pudding a day. I guess not all of the kids go 5 days a week!

That’s completely normal but many parents say no sweet puddings, especially when in the baby room. You won’t be seen as ‘that parent’ don’t worry :)

I agree OP. My two are 16 & 18 now but it was nursery and school that introduced them to the idea that you have a pudding after every meal. It created a mindset that was difficult to counteract.

We were treated like freaks for asking for our DS to have fruit/ yoghurt instead of super sugary puddings they provided for babies. When he started he was just trying new foods like fruit and veg so we weren't expecting him to be fed loads of sugary puddings but that's what they do there. Apart from that it's a great nursery and after the initial reaction things did get easier with the food.

IME nursery puddings are full of veg, v low sugar, tiny and needed after all the activity at nursery.

We said no sweet pudding and it was fine. The dessert they do serve isn’t what you think it is. I’ve had their chocolate cake for Mother’s Day tea and I wouldn’t describe it as “cake”. You have little reason to worry.

Perhaps it’s a difference in terminology, but pudding and dessert are the same thing to me. Are people suggesting having dessert/pudding every day is odd? I certainly don’t think so. It’s the last course of a normal meal. It may be fruit based or yoghurt based, certainly, but also a tart, ice cream, etc.

Having viewed a range of nurseries my experience was the cheaper ones were very much of the jelly and ice cream, the more expensive were so healthy I felt it was too harsh. I like what our nursery offers, sometimes it’s fruit, yogurt,other days cake...they’ve never had ice cream or chocolate- guess they don’t want to deal with hyped up kids either.

In our nursery the puddings are fairly low sugar, and they only give it if the child has been seen to have enough to eat of their lunch/dinner, so they rarely eat much of it as they're fairly full already.

instead of super sugary puddings they provided for babies.

They wouldn't have been super sugary. Nursery meals are very nutritionally balanced, and puddings are often low sugar and made very differently to normal puddings.

@daisypond

Perhaps it’s a difference in terminology, but pudding and dessert are the same thing to me. Are people suggesting having dessert/pudding every day is odd? I certainly don’t think so. It’s the last course of a normal meal. It may be fruit based or yoghurt based, certainly, but also a tart, ice cream, etc.

Yes. I think it’s odd and contributes greatly to obesity. I may have a piece of fruit mid morning or a few biscuits late afternoon with a cup of tea but the concept of having to have pudding/dessert after a meal is odd to me.

Thanks for the advice and opinions. I am not anti-dessert, but I don't see a reason why a 9 month old needs to have dessert after lunch every day - realistically, she'll only have started eating proper food 3-4 months prior!

I do see dessert as a treat - in that it rarely offers necessary nutrients and isn't a given with every meal. I'm not saying that she'll only get sugar as a reward/incentive. And quite possibly the recipe for their chocolate cake is full of beetroot, so it's certainly worth asking. Both myself and my husband eat healthily and also indulge in our fair share of sweets and junk, so I have no doubt that we'll be able to teach our daughter the value of a balanced diet. But I don't even get dessert after lunch every day

Once she gets a bit older and actually clocks on that there's cake on the menu, I'm sure we'll reevaluate. But until then, it sounds like it's reasonable to ask for fruit or yogurt as an alternative which is great to hear!

@daisypond

Perhaps it’s a difference in terminology, but pudding and dessert are the same thing to me. Are people suggesting having dessert/pudding every day is odd? I certainly don’t think so. It’s the last course of a normal meal. It may be fruit based or yoghurt based, certainly, but also a tart, ice cream, etc.

I think it is odd to have ice cream or cake every day