Do you have a picky eater who goes to nursery?

[undercovamutha]

If so, how does the nursery deal with it?

My DD is 3.5yo and over the past few months has got terrible at eating cooked meals. You can just about get her to eat a snadwich (at a push) but as for a main meal (such as pasta, roast dinner etc etc) its a disaster zone. Much mind games/blackmailing/power struggles later, and maybe she will eat 5 - 10 spoonfuls.

DD has recently returned to the nursery she has attended since 9mo (she has had a year off as I have been on maternity leave). Now I regularly find that she has eaten NO dinner at all at nursery at lunchtime (but usually has plenty of pudding). The nursery has worked with me to do a sticker reward chart for if she eats at least some of her dinner, but lately she is eating nothing.

I realise that the nursery have not got the time to sit with her for an hour, trying to persuade her to eat, and I also recognise that this is not particularly effective anyway. But I am now getting the impression that they have almost given up trying to get her to eat, are giving her extra pudding so she's not hungry in the afternoon, and have commented to me that maybe I should bring a cereal bar for her to eat during the afternoon just in case she hasn't eaten her dinner!

I have never had any problem with the nursery in the past, and when DD was younger she ate all her dinner perfectly when she was there. I am a novice at dealing with a picky eater as it has kind of come out of the blue.

Any advice of what your DCs nursery does, and basically WWYD?

Sorry long !

Bump

Well i work in a nursery and have dealt with many fussy eater.

I work in the 2-3 room, for all the children we use a reward chart, if they eat all their main for lunch and tea they get a sticker, a smiley face, normal face or sad face depending on how well they have done. We look at how well the children eat and what they like and give them size approiate (sp?) portions, and as we know some of the children really struggle with chicken, we give them extra veg or the vegetarian options instead.

Then they have roughly around 45 mins of encouragement to eat, if they don't finish their main they don't get pudding.

At tea time, they get fruit but we also have muffins and cake, the non eaters would get the fruit but not the cake. The reward system works well as the children like to recieve stickers.

Your child at nursery has no incentive to eat, as she knows she's going to get pudding, and not only will she'll get pudding she'll get double

I would speak to the nursery personally, and decide how you want to tackle it.

Cookielove's advice makes sense

My niece was a fussy eater until she went to nursery and their approach was similar to the one described by cookielove and now a year later she's eating all sorts at home too

Thanks so much Cookielove. You have really spelt out what I THOUGHT they should be doing.

I have just kind of got the impression that they think I am making a big deal out of her not eating, but it is pretty important in my book. I almost feel like the nursery are giving me excuses, whereas I normally have excuses straight from DD! The other day when she didn't eat anything, her keyworker said she thought it was because it was fish in a sauce, and apparently not many of the children liked it. I did point out that there was no reason why she couldn't have eaten the veg, and almost felt like I was challenging the keyworker, who surely should be singing from the same hymn-sheet as me!

BTW totally agree about pudding. At home my DD gets no pudding if she doesn't eat her dinner, and will maybe get a small piece of fruit later in the afternoon/evening if she's really hungry.

However, I do think opinions are very diverse on this, as a number of other mums I know think I am being cruel by doing this. I think the nursery are in their camp, rather than mine!

Does depend on the nusery, but you could always ask them not to give any pudding if she hasn't touched her main.

I work in a nursery too and our general policy is that food isn't a reward or punishment, so pudding isn't withheld or conditional on eating the main. We are happy to work with parents though if they want to tackle eating in a particular way, whether that is no pudding, only fruit, sticker charts, food diary etc.

Missus84 - your nursery's ethos sounds very similar to DD's nursery. I'm really not sure which method is the most effective. I must admit to having limited success with my method, so who knows!

She is so stubborn, that arguably making it a 'battle of wills' just makes things worse. However, I can't help thinking that getting 2 helpings of pudding isn't the best plan.

I just feel miserable about it cos one of the (very few) things I was looking forward to about going back to work, was not having to go through the horrendous mealtimes every day. I foolishly thought that she would eat fine at nursery cos she would copy the other children and listen to the keyworkers!!!

Most children do copy all the others and eat up, but we do have one or two that are really fussy. One boy in particular will not eat a thing - he comes to the table and sits nicely with his plate of food in front of him, but will not be cajoled into eating anything. About 50% of the time he won't eat pudding either. There's no alternatives offered though and no seconds of pudding.

Personally if it was my child, I'd ask the nursery not to give her any pudding unless she eats some of her main. If she's hungry in the afternoon then they can point out to her that's what happens if you don't eat lunch!

Generally I do think the "food isn't punishment or reward" approach works for the majority of children - mealtimes aren't stressful, children eat as much as they need to and aren't encouraged to eat too much to get pudding. But if a child eats no proper food and holds out for double portions of pudding, then that approach obviously isn't working for that individual.