Was the HV right? Am I feeding my kids poorly?

[Myohmymy]

12 month development review, hv comes to house, due to lack of clinic apps. Dc2 (11 months) is doing great weight (50th centile since birth)and milestone wise. Dc1 3.5 is at home.

HV asks about food if they have a varied diet asks what they eat, I say give some for instances, We have a family notice board that we print off our menus for the week (lunch and dinners, helps save costs) so I show her almost in a bit of a jokey way,… she tuts and asks like if it’s like this every week, I say well we have different meals but I guess, tells me it’s not good enough and that’s why my first is small. I was floored, I thought she was joking at first. She was actually born on the 2nd centile and is now 25th.

ill put the exact menu we had that week down below, but I genuinely thought this was fine, actually better than fine, I thought they were eating rather well and I was quite proud of that (maybe silly I know but due to work (I’m part time wfh and dh has a lieu day so we’re getting away with only 2 days nursery )and childcare food prep is a conscious effort and I’m normally up the night before getting everything sorted).

hv said some of it is too junky even if it’s home made and they need to be having proper meals not ‘fakeaways’ and they need a proper cooked meal at lunch too (roast, shepherd pie etc) I did say but this is similar to what school dinners are like and that’s seen to be ok, and she said but they’re not at school they’re at home with you, and suggested I get a cook book.

im leaning towards making a complaint because I can’t afford to do two full cooked meals a day, both time wise and money, but I just want to check I’m not in the wrong here. The menu is in no particular order. She left and I honestly felt so shaken, especially being blamed for my child being small when she wasn’t even there to see her, i feel quite gas lit.

please be gentle, if the food isn’t good enough what should I be doing? We don’t eat pork for religious reasons.

breakfast: usually the same sort of thing everyday, either eggy bread/ french toast with yoghurt and fruit or porridge with fruit. Made with whole milk.

lunch: tuna sweetcorn pasta salad (I make a yoghurt dressing for this as we don’t like mayo), cheesy veggie lentil muffins, JP and beans and cheese, egg florentine pizzas, chicken (from schwarma) and avocado pin wheels (served these with some Pom bears for eldest and baby melt crisps for baby)

dinner: beef tacos (left over meat from the Sunday dinner) chicken schwarma, rice and aubergine, home made fish and chips and mushy peas, ‘crispy’ duck noodles and salad (just duck breast marinaded In that hoisin sauce and 5 spice ), tarka daal and rice, Moroccan lamb and couscous, roast chicken and trimmings.

fruit and yoghurt are offered as puddings and all meals are served with veg. Menu is random in order because it depends on you know if we forget to take something out of the freezer.
.
my eldest has 2 snacks in between meals, rich teas, buttered malt loaf, i made these muffins she quite likes (lower sugar than your normal muffin) cheese and crackers, fruit and nuts, veg sticks and hummus, bread sticks and tzatziki (shop bought) that sort of thing. She has a glass of milk before bed too.

my confidence has been really shaken.

Health visitors seem such a varied bunch, it’s all very confusing. But the rubbish ones really do sink to new lows…

so, of course your food sounds great! Referring to your home cooked meals as ‘fakeaways’ such makes her sound culturally limited and really stereotyping, which is not ideal for anyone but especially not in her profession.

Not wishing to derail the thread but I'm surprised how much interaction people have had with health visitors.

I had a health visitor come to my house when DD was about a week old. I was then told I could bring her to a clinic to weigh her.

I did this regularly for 9 months (until I went back to work). Other than DDs 1 and 2 year check ups that was it.

When I went to clinic none of the HVs spoke to me other than to day hello. I saw them actively engage with other mums but I had to make a point of getting some time with one of th when I needed advice.

If I'm honest I think they made a snap judgement that I was fine. (White, homeowner, married, early 30s, well spoken.)

Noone ever came.upstairs in house to check where DD was sleeping or that we had everything we needed for her.

Is thos anyone else's experience?

We had even less than that @Shanda5 - one home visit at about two weeks (when HV have bad advice and made me feel awful), one home visit at six weeks when she told me they didn't provide support for PND.

Never saw her again, but no great loss as she was useless! I did go to baby clinics for weighing but these were often cancelled without warning so I got my own set of scales in the end. My area wasn't offering the 1 and 2 year developmental checks.

@Shanda5 I'm currently chasing the HV to get DD weighed on the timescale requested by her pediatrician, and struggling to get hold of them. I had to do the same thing with DD1 (I make very small babies).

Most people I know haven't seen a HV, or maybe once in two years. I only have because I chase them to do what the pediatrician has asked for. When I was expecting, the midwife basically told me that I wouldn't see one as she'd put on my records that she had no concerns about me/ the family situation. In other words, the only people in my area seeing HVs are those where a safeguarding concern has been raised.

Your kids are eating and that’s the main thing. Just ignore and continue to feed your kids. Just remember that when they become teenagers and you put a vegetable on their plate they genuinely think you are trying to poison them. My little one ate a rainbow of fruit and veg when little

Huh?

Have you looked at OP’s menu? It’s great.

And isn’t it a bit of a generalisation to say that teenagers don’t like veg? Mine eat all sorts of veg, from swede to spinach, as do many teenagers.

Why not too spicy?

And what are ‘family foods’?

as babies don’t sleep through till lesst a year

😂 Another example of the shit HVs come out with.

@Welshmonster

how do u think OP’s food menu could be better?!

All your food sounds gorgeous and very healthy, I too would make a complaint can I also come round for tea?

I still wish I'd complained about the ignorant, ill-informed advice from a health visitor, and that was 11+ years ago.

You are doing fine. She is wrong and really should know better.

Hv can be right aholes 🤷‍♀️
My first she told me to put him on a diet at 8 months as he was too fat and too long for his age 😂 he was 11 pounds at birth and already off the charts in length.
My second she told me to feed her fresh cream with every meal and bottle at 8 months because she was too slim 🤷‍♀️
My third she never got a chance to see because I declined her stupid visits!

@user1471538283 what are “family foods?”

Oh fgs. This really won't help the image of HVs on this thread 😖.
Yes, pointing out the salt content of Pom bears is too picky. Really.

And what are family foods?

And there's nothing wrong with spicy. Nothing. It's personal taste.

Also a very experienced NHS public health professional here.

Are you going to come back and tell us what 'family foods' are @user1493559472 ?

@user1493559472

I wasnt born in Britain. I mostly grew up here but I wasnt born here. My parents are British but lived there for almost 20 years, had us and moved home a few years later to be near family.

What do you mean, "not too spicy?" How is spicy food not family food?

Where I was born and spent my early years, spicy food was just what was called "food." My parents, having lived there 20 years, had moved away from British cooking and cooked all sorts, so we were babies and toddlers on a spicy, colourful diet.

I think what you meant by family food was actually, british food. You advise british food and not "foreign muck". Yes?
Because those other countries with spicy foods instead of meat and potato just dont know what they're dong, right?

There is a lot of racism around raising babies in this country. And it is health visitors out there on the front lines telling families to feed their kids a plain, British diet of meat and potatoes and some veg, whi are causing a huge issue.

The british diet is pretty poor. Nothing wrong with eating world foods, and being raised on them.

Kind of wondering myself...

I took it to mean the food the rest of the family is eating, ie don't cook different food for DC, they can eat normal food the rest of the family is eating.

Surely family foods and no salt, sugar, spicy are a contradiction.
Adults don’t eat like that. So if you are literally giving them what you have they will be eating spicy or salt (stock cubes etc)

I give DD the same level of spice that the adults have, but I add the salt once I have taken her portion out.

so they can have salty and spicy foods then? Cos that’s what adults sometimes eat

What do you think they do in countries where most food is spicy?

She’s run for the hills (hopefully having reflected on her casual, normalised racism).

@LuckySantangelo35 what do you think children eat in the rest of the world, bland beige food? We in the UK seem to be quite unique in believing that children must be fed some sort of special food because they can't manage what the adults eat. Other than going light on the salt and possibly toning down the chilli, there's no reason children can't eat pretty much everything unless there's a health reason not to (eg not introducing honey or liver too early).

That's perfectly fine and healthier than what a lot of children receive I'm sure. I'd ask her to provide a menu of what she would like to see, I'd be really intrigued to see whether she could provide healthier or more inspiring meals tbh. But I would be complaining about her for sure, I'd hazard a guess that she's either some new age crunchy mum or someone who should have retired a few years ago but clings on to keep her ability to lord over other mums.