Sending food to daycare- advice?

TMWarren85 · February 2014

DS is 11 months old and goes to a daycare that doesn't provide food. When DD was an infant/toddler she went to a school where they provided the food, so after we passed the baby food stage, they fed her. So now I'm trying to pack a days worth of food for my 11 month old, and I feel like I'm packing for a road trip every night. I'm trying to slowly transition from mostly formula to more real food. At his last pedi appointment that happended at 10 months he was eating baby food with some finger foods (mostly puffs) mixed in 3-4x a day, and 5-6 8 oz bottles of formula. He's kind of a giant. Our pedi advised us to start pulling back the formula and giving more food to prepare for the transition around a year to milk. Currently his daytime schedule looks like this:

6:30a wake and 6oz. bottle

9:00 breakfast finger fruit and starch, jar baby food

11:30 6oz bottle formula

12:30 lunch finger vegetables and starch, jar baby food

2:00 6oz bottle

5:00 6oz bottle

5:45 dinner vegetable and starch

7:30 6 oz bottle and bed

Every night, I'm packing 5-6 different containers of food, making bottles and sippy cups and it's like I'm moving-

I guess my post is two sided- one, how do I transition more to food so that in the instance that he hates whole milk he isn't starving (I know I can still give formula after one) and two, is there an easier way to pack a days worth of food, or at least breakfast, lunch and snacks without packing a crazy amount of stuff? Do you just get repetitive within the day and give the same thing at every meal, or just deal with it and pack a bunch of stuff?

I know his morning and night time bottles are a must, but then do I give food first at every meal and then milk 30 minutes after? Or should I start putting his formula in a sippy cup since he does well with his sippy cup and water?

Sorry for the long post, and thanks in advance for your advice.

=Lee=B · February 2014

If your baby is eating with you at supper then just pack up left overs from supper for lunch the next day. Leave a stash of emergency food (puffs, arrowroot cookies etc.), for when baby needs more or refuses something.

Another idea would be to pack the same thing every Monday, same thing every Tuesday etc. So there is variety in a week but you don't have to think at all and just pack the same things each week.

stenobook · February 2014

I mostly lurk, but we were dealing with the sending too many containers too, so I thought I'd weigh in. My DD is 10.5 months.

On daycare days, we get her up at 6 and I nurse her. She gets to daycare around 7 and they feed her breakfast around 7:30. We always send her a pouch of yogurt mixed with fruit for her breakfast and they give her Cheerios, too, and sometimes Puffs. DCP provides Cheerios, but we can leave Puffs there for her. We use reusable pouches, so we send that in a snack size bag so they can send it back home.

She usually gets her first bottle around 10 and sometimes they'll give her some more Puffs or Cheerios right after her bottle. She eats lunch around 12. We were sending her lunch in multiple bowls and snack size bags, but that was getting to be too annoying. We bought a Bento box (a yumbox) and have been packing that for the past 2 weeks and have really liked it much more. She doesn't get baby food, but you could dump a jar into one of the slots. It's leak proof.

We try to make extras of things throughout the week, so we're not making her food the night before, just packing it. She loves sweet potato fries, so we make a bunch on Sunday and pack those early in the week or steam extra vegetables at dinner and then send those the next day. We also started making mini muffins for her. She loves cheese, which requires no prep and "grilled" cheese or almond butter sandwiches, which are easy to make at night while I make my lunch. Having the Bento box seems to make the process much faster and easier!

She has another bottle around 2 and if she starts getting fussy or I'm a little late picking her up, they will give her some Cheerios around 3:30ish and then I nurse her again at 4 and then she eats dinner with us around 6. If she eats a lot for lunch, she doesn't eat much for dinner. I still don't think she's ready for 3 full meals a day.

ASmallWonder · February 2014

Can you send larger portions twice a week to last anfew days? Besides being easier for you, it gives your provider flexibility to feed more or less each meal as his habits change.

Sending food to daycare- advice?

Re: Sending food to daycare- advice?

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