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Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months
daycare food menu=crap
dd moves up to the toddler room in a couple weeks and her teacher gave me the menu for the month of june. the breakfasts they serve are ok but the lunches are horrible: fish sticks, chicken nuggets, pizza rolls, hamburgers, mac and cheese, etc. we don't even eat this stuff at home. they do serve a veggie with lunch but i am sure it is all canned foods. i am not a super health nut but we do eat organic and fresh foods as much as possible.
does your daycare offer menus similar to this? i am going to let them know i will be providing her lunch most days of the week but i know they will prob side eye me for it (not that i'm too worried about it). i guess i was just really surprised at that foods they offer.
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Re: daycare food menu=crap
unfortunately i didnt even think about this when selecting her daycare (shes been going since 3 months). i will have to ask them about the medical note and if they require it. that seems ridiculous to me!
Ours is similar, they have 4 weeks of menus, different lunch for 20 days, so there are some more 'healthy' and some less healthy things in there, some popular 'kids food' type things & other things that are a little different/better.
The way I look at it is that they are not going to learn eating habits from daycare, they are going to learn it from me & what I role model & I still serve them all dinners and all weekend meals & snacks and as they get older we can talk about it, and for me, feeling they are safe, well taken care of, enjoying their day, learning, etc was a higher priority than the type of food served. It is very expensive & difficult to feed toddlers all sorts of fresh & 'healthy' foods, esp considering how much gets wasted when kids don't eat it or throw it on the floor (in the younger rooms), not to mention prep time for fresh vegetables and other meals for 75-100 kids' bfast and lunch, etc.
Also, DS will not eat many veggies on their own at home but scarfs down the canned green beans at daycare. I pick my battles, he doesn't eat canned veggies every day & at home not at all, sooo....
Just my .02.
LO goes to an in-home and she doesn't create a menu. She cooks pretty healthy foods for the children. If the breakfast is decent, I would probably just let LO eat what's on the menu, minus the chicken nuggets and ensure she's eating healthier choices at home.
The reality is, school lunches are even worst. If there are any days when you feel the food is just too unhealthy, pack something healthy...provided you don't need a note.
Same as everyone else, this looks like the menu at DD's daycare too. Some days are better than others, I just try to make sure I keep feeding her well at home. I'm not sure what they would require if I wanted to send a lunch for her, but for most things they do require a dr's note (I had to get one to send her LF milk), I'm guessing mostly to cover their butts.
/shrug
Honestly you're going to get the same thing as they grow up and go to school. If you don't like it, then just pack a lunch.
My first thought was wait until you see the school lunches!! And with school lunches (and even daycare eventually), there is the peer factor. For the first month of school, my DD took her lunch. She then asked to participate in pizza Friday. Why not its just Friday right? Then she asked to start buying hot ham and cheese sandwiches (Wednesday)....and eventually she started taking her lunch less than buying. Gah! ( It's only one meal...)
Even if you send your DC lunch, she may see the others lunch and want that. Refuse to eat hers.
I agree that its a typical daycare menu and I bet they follow current FDA recommedations. I do believe that is law. Ours is similar, but I don't sweat it too much. Even if there is veggies, they can't force them to eat them. I think you will have a very hard time finding a daycare with an organic menu. It's not cost effective. I do wish there were better options though!
That is disgusting!
I run a daycare in my home, and my menu rarely includes anything like that. Occasionally I will give them fish sticks but I buy ones breaded with whole wheat and they are a special treat.
Sounds like laziness to me. I work all by myself and I manage to serve healthy foods just fine! How hard is it to slap some chicken on a baking sheet with some spices sprinkled on? Or chop some carrots and throw them in a pot of boiling water?
Our daycare menu is awesome. They get it catered from a place that specifically makes schools for DCPs and schools, using organic and largely local ingredients. It's SO nice not to have to think about it and know DS is eating well. I make similar meals for dinners, but to be honest, on the weekends I end up giving a lot of grilled cheese & pb&j, so on those days his lunches are actually better at DCP than at home.
At DCP he'll eat anything from curried chicken to baked whole wheat ziti to falafel.
We do get the side eye from daycare occasionally though. Even though their meals are so great and well balanced, their snacks are pretty crappy (nutrigrain, gogurt, a bunch of other stuff that is processed and we don't let him eat). So, we ban a lot of snacks (the ones with HFCS especially) and just send some with him if they don't have other healthier offerings.
It sounds like she was in a center (correct me if I am wrong here) so there are a lot more kids to provide for than an in-home.
That sounds like ours too. DS1 only goes 2 days per week. I really didn't like it at first especially when he was just over one and they excitedly told me that he ate over 1 hotdog! yikes! I told them to mark his chart to only give him 1/2 because I really try to watch his salt and sugar because of family heart and diabetes problems.
Now that he is in the somewhat picky toddler stage, I don't really care much, it is only 2 days per week and he actually eats there. But he LOVES veggies and fruit so we load up on those at home.
We are not allowed to bring our own food either.
Laziness? At our DC facility there is one woman who prepares breakfast & lunch for almost 100 children on what I'm sure is not a huge budget (and it is still one of the pricier daycares in our area) and she is supposed to cook things that kids from age 1 through 4/5 will eat and which meet the different state regulations. I think your situation is a teensy bit different.
This is what I was going to say also. In bigger centers they are dealing with a different situation than a home provider. At least in my state, the ratio regulations are different, the budge is different, and the time constraints are different. Often the people who establish the budgets, approve menus, and assign staffing have little understanding of what is best for kids. Or, they have a "I ate it/did that and I survived" mentality.
This menu sounds pretty standard to me. There is work being done to try to improve goverment subsidized lunches (Michelle Obama) but money is such a key factor.
i am ok with those foods a couple times a week, it's no biggie. but that was literally their menu for next week. i pay more for daycare that for my mortgage so i would assume they had somewhat better options.
and i know school lunches are even worse. but i would like to take advantage of teaching my kid healthy eating now while i have some control over it, you know?
thanks for the input ladies.
yuck, i'd switch if at all possible. i wouldn't want my child exposed to that.
our 17mo is starting 1/2 day waldorf daycare in the fall, and thankfully they make most of their own food as a class, and it's virtually all organic, and zero junk/processed food. check and see if you have a waldorf school in your area.
Ours has the same type of menu. I'm not thrilled about it, but I get it. I get that it is a center and feeding that many kids something fresh, etc would be difficult. I also pay more than my mortgage, but I'm not just paying for food. I'm paying someone to keep him from 7am to 6pm and keep him from hurting himself.
I can send other food for DS. In fact, for a while we were not giving him fish so they asked us to send something else. Instead, DS got mad and wanted the fish sticks the other kids were having. Same thing with hot dogs - he wouldn't eat them and was starving on hot dog day. I started sending spaghetti and all of a sudden he ate hot dogs.
I focus on giving him good food for dinner and good snacks - he would make himself sick on fruits and veggies. I know they always have a veggie & fruit with lunch and he eats all of that, but won't always eat the main dish.