My Son Doesn't Eat That

[daycare]

I had a family that was lets just say was really over weight; the entire family.

The family had two kids here. 3 months and 3 years when they started.

The family asked me to start the 3 month old on jar food. I was a little in shock, but said that I would only do cereal. So they brought the food and a note of directions. They wanted me to give the 3 month old 2 jars of peahes, one jar of pears and one bowl of cereal...ooh and one 9 oz bottle just for breakfast. Im on the food program so I called my lady up and said hey can you believe this.... she said that I am not supposed to be giving him jar food yet, but if the parents ask me to then I can tell them no, or I can do it at their request. I was shocked.. i would not do it, I couldn't. Btw at his 3 month check up the kid was 24lbs.... and they thought it was so cute.

Well the 3 yr old was a huge kid too. He looked like he was 5 or 6 years old. Saddest part was that he was speach delayed.
Any ways, he was here 5 days a week, but only half day. The parents wanted him to stay for lunch and then would pick up right after lunch.

at drop off they would tell the 3 year old, if you eat your lunch today i will take you to get candy/slurpee/donughts/etc. Then the DCB would whine and say NO I want Mc Donalds. So the parents would say ok if you do good today you don't have to eat all those gross vegtables and fruits and I will take you to Mc Donalds......
Lets just say that the family did not last long here.

[countrymom]

I heart Jamie Oliver

I have one family where mom cooks a nice meal every night, and then heats up some chicken nuggets for her son. Every single night. Never even offers him what they are eating. Just blows my mind!

omg do we have the same parent. Yup I have one that does the same thing and feeds them nuggets every night too, acually I have 2 families like this.

[nannyde]

I heart Jamie Oliver

I am having a big struggle with school lunch here. The school used to have a microwave, so I would send my older children to school with the same things we were eating at home and they could heat it up right there. Well, apparantly, they do not have a microwave anymore and they have no interest in replacing it or allowing one to be donated. So now I am left with the choice of sending my kids with money for the hot lunch at school, or a literal cold lunch from home. I consider myself a decent cook, and I am fairly creative, but I have not been able to come up with a heck of a lot of variety when it comes to what I can send them with. It keeps me up at night and I don't know what to do.


Sorry to derail....
I have two families that say their children will only eat or drink pure cr*p. Those are the ones I enjoy telling the most at the end of the day how much little Johnny loved his spinach or how sweet Susie couldn't get enough of her salmon. Makes me sick to think about what these kids eat at home. I have one family where mom cooks a nice meal every night, and then heats up some chicken nuggets for her son. Every single night. Never even offers him what they are eating. Just blows my mind!

Packed lunch is a pain. I am sick of it. I wish I could pay for a healthy hot meal but it doesn't exist at my ds's school.

It is hard when he wants their food too. He wants pizza and chocolate milk for breakfast. He wants their all nugget all the time food.

They probably stopped the microwave thing because it's a big liability and a time issue. Having kids heat their own food is risky. Having the adults do it is money.

Ann Cooper is doing some AMAZING work. If you look on her lunchbox site you can see that she is devloping recipes for schools with the food guidelines and paperwork already built into it........ so it's a one stop shop.

She's doing a salad bar project, managing the Boulder School Districts lunch program, farm to school, and on site food growing. She's doing all this PLUS doing a national data base of recipes for districts.

Nannyde hearts Ann Cooper and Jaime Oliver. I'm really proud of them.

Don't you wish you could just PAY for a good meal? I would happily pay five bucks a day for ds to have a healthy diet even without it being fully organic.

[Meyou]

I heart Jamie Oliver

I am having a big struggle with school lunch here. The school used to have a microwave, so I would send my older children to school with the same things we were eating at home and they could heat it up right there. Well, apparantly, they do not have a microwave anymore and they have no interest in replacing it or allowing one to be donated. So now I am left with the choice of sending my kids with money for the hot lunch at school, or a literal cold lunch from home. I consider myself a decent cook, and I am fairly creative, but I have not been able to come up with a heck of a lot of variety when it comes to what I can send them with. It keeps me up at night and I don't know what to do.

If you can trust your kids with a good quality stainless steel thermos you can send any leftover in it hot and it will stay hot. It has to be a good quality one though. I paid about $25 each for my kids thermos's but one has been going strong for 6 years so it's a worthwhile investment (if they won't lose them). I send leftovers and soup all the time with the girls. My youngest has been know to nuke a couple of hot dogs, put them in her thermos and pack buns. ol Get the wide mouthed ones that look like a little barrel then they can eat right out of them.

[mickey2]

apparently DCD had some pleasant things to call me yesterday when they discussed it. DCB parroted them back to me when I placed his bbq pork, green beans, blueberries and homemade stuffing in front of him. Dropped "You %^&# S! Just like daddy says." "

Dad would be getting a talking to from me!

[Blackcat31]

Well Mom and I had another discussion at pick up about his eating and the words he used at the table today. She's not surprised he started dropping f-bombs (he's 2 btw!). He apparently does it at home, gets it from DCD and they just laugh and tell him "we don't say that". She was shocked that he parroted what appeared to be DCD calling me f-ing S___. She said she's never heard DCD refer to me that way and that they both love me to bits (uh huh).

She wants to go from 2 day to 4-5 days because DCD can now work all week with a buddy doing landscaping. Hopefully they will start that in another week or two and this child will start to eat something. He's not overweight. Quite the opposite. He's 36" tall and barely 23lbs @ 2y3m. And he appears low tone, gross and fine motor delayed, and spectrumy. I base this on the fact I have 2 kids on the spectrum and EI is here 2x/wk for my own 2yo and she's made several comments about him needing an eval. Mom refuses. But he sits at home in front of the tv, has never been around other kids ever and hardly eats. Of course he's low everything. I can't believe Mom doesn't see how it's harming him. He's a very easy boy to take care of and when his personality comes out he's a joy to have around. One of those sad cases where being here is probably better for him.

A lot of times parents do not want to see what they already know to be true. There are the issues about admitting that your child has a problem, issues with the guilt that you as a parent did or did not do soemthing to cause it or they have fears of their child being labeled. Have you tried discussing this with the mom? If she is only hearing "Something is WRONG with your child." then I can understand why parents choose not to "see" the things we already know.

Plus, if he is an only child mom does not really have anyone to compare her child to as to what is normal and what is not. Could you invite her to a session of play time so she could witness the delays herself when she sees her child playing with others and can visably measure his slowness or lack of certain skills? I think that is a great way to show parents where their child should be developmentally.

Do you have information or fact sheets that you could share with her so she can see the milestones her son should have mastered by now?

I wonder why the child's physician has not noticed any delays during well-child checks?

[safechner]

Packed lunch is a pain. I am sick of it. I wish I could pay for a healthy hot meal but it doesn't exist at my ds's school.

Really? I packed lunch for my girls everyday and I am not allowed them to eat lunch at school. I usually only let them choose one meal once a month at school if it is healthy. I do not want my girls to eat junk like pizza, chips, hamburger, cookies, candy, etc.

[countrymom]

If you can trust your kids with a good quality stainless steel thermos you can send any leftover in it hot and it will stay hot. It has to be a good quality one though. I paid about $25 each for my kids thermos's but one has been going strong for 6 years so it's a worthwhile investment (if they won't lose them). I send leftovers and soup all the time with the girls. My youngest has been know to nuke a couple of hot dogs, put them in her thermos and pack buns. ol Get the wide mouthed ones that look like a little barrel then they can eat right out of them.

we have them too, and they are great. Yes they are expensive but so worth the money. I have 5 of them (I have a kid who forgets sometimes to bring his home) I put soup, nuggets, pasta, rice

[Symphony]

If you can trust your kids with a good quality stainless steel thermos you can send any leftover in it hot and it will stay hot. It has to be a good quality one though. I paid about $25 each for my kids thermos's but one has been going strong for 6 years so it's a worthwhile investment (if they won't lose them). I send leftovers and soup all the time with the girls. My youngest has been know to nuke a couple of hot dogs, put them in her thermos and pack buns. ol Get the wide mouthed ones that look like a little barrel then they can eat right out of them.

Thank you! That is really helpful. I have sent them with soup and chili in a thermos before, but I never made that connection that it would work for other foods as well!

[MG&Lsmom]

A lot of times parents do not want to see what they already know to be true. There are the issues about admitting that your child has a problem, issues with the guilt that you as a parent did or did not do soemthing to cause it or they have fears of their child being labeled. Have you tried discussing this with the mom? If she is only hearing "Something is WRONG with your child." then I can understand why parents choose not to "see" the things we already know.

Plus, if he is an only child mom does not really have anyone to compare her child to as to what is normal and what is not. Could you invite her to a session of play time so she could witness the delays herself when she sees her child playing with others and can visably measure his slowness or lack of certain skills? I think that is a great way to show parents where their child should be developmentally.

Do you have information or fact sheets that you could share with her so she can see the milestones her son should have mastered by now?

I wonder why the child's physician has not noticed any delays during well-child checks?

We see the same peds office and I'm sure based on what you fill out at the WCCs that she's just not showing the dr anything to be concerned about. He speaks really really well, but then I also notice that he just parrots a lot. He can and will produce some pretty advanced sentences (4-6 words) but that's not always a good think iykwim. Especially with the motor delays, sensory things I see, and lack of social skills. But it could all be exposure too. I'm going to start keeping good documentation of what I'm seeing and taking some video of his play skills too. He doesn't play when mom is around. He just clings. She also things his waddle run is cute.