Food issues with nanny

[Anonymous]

My daughters nanny brings her son to work. They're both the same age and it has been working out great for the most part. She cooks a lot of healthy meals for this kids. My daughter is a very picky eater and 95% of the time she will only eat gold fish cracker's or peanut butter cracker's. I've been noticing on the nanny cam that my daughter is only offered these snack's while her son takes a nap or also after nap time. She always offers my daughter plenty of meals and snacks but nothing my daughter likes. I have talked to her about this and she says she's not comfortable offering lots of processed food. She told me I can find another nanny if this is a deal breaker. I'm not sure what to do because I think her point is valid. My daughter needs to eat real foods but she's so picky!

[Anonymous]

She sounds amazing. YOU the parent need to model healthy eating too. If junk food is SO important to you OP, then it is time to find a new nanny. Your daughter shouldn't only be eating processed food. You screwed up somewhere and she's trying to help you.

[Anonymous]

She doesn't want her son to eat the junk.

At the same time, you and she need to figure out what to do about your daughter's eating issues. If you think she is one of the few kids who has a clinical problem with texture or taste, and literally will not eat if she is hungry, then take her to the doctor and figure out what therapy she needs.

Otherwise, you need to figure out which healthy snacks she actually will eat. She may be hungry for a few days, but there has to be something acceptable to the nanny that your daughter will also eat. At this point, she has learned that she doesn't have to eat the real food, because eventually someone will give her a snack.

[Anonymous]

For example, will your daughter eat a peanut butter sandwich? Or just apple slices and peanut butter? Something other than essentially salty crackers with zero nutritional value with the tiniest smear of sugary peanut butter?

[Anonymous]

She sounds like a great nanny OP. Healthy eating is so important. I had to take away junk food because that's all my kids wanted to eat.

[Anonymous]

Compromise. Your daughter can be offered one junk food snack a day. Otherwise it’s health stuff, some things she likes and some new things to try.

[Anonymous]

Great nanny! Get rid of the junk and either make her understand that there are better choices or take her to OT and get her help for sensory issues.

[Anonymous]

So what does your daughter like? Nothing healthy? You have a great nanny by the way and good for her for standing up for her healthy choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Compromise. Your daughter can be offered one junk food snack a day. Otherwise it’s health stuff, some things she likes and some new things to try.

She said the nanny offers these snacks twice a day.

[Anonymous]

That's a great nanny! She is doing the right thing by offering your daughter a variety and healthy foods.

[Anonymous]

Great nanny

[Anonymous]

I would ask the nanny to log everything your daughter eats for a few weeks. My guess is that she is eating more of the healthy stuff than you realize. So it may be that after you review the log you no longer worry as much about this issue. On the other hand, if you have a complete log (and that means you should do your part and log what she eats on your watch as well) of two weeks of food and literally the only thing your child will eat is goldfish crackers then you should absolutely take that to her pediatrician and have a bigger conversation, possibly including referral to a specialist. More likely it will be somewhere in between where you are still concerned about her getting a little bit more to eat during the day but you realize that she is at least trying most of the healthy stuff.

At the bottom of it all, is the fact that your nanny has a reasonable goal for your child (to eat the real, healthy food that is offered), she has a reasonable boundary for herself as a nanny (she is not comfortable feeding a child a diet full of food she feels is not healthy or safe long-term), and she has communicated both of those to you respectfully. It is up to you to figure out whether you want to work with her on this or find someone else who will feed your child whatever you want them to feed her.

[Anonymous]

Two issues here. Your daughter's eating issues. Second, the care that you want for your daughter being affected because your nanny doesn't want her son to see what another child eats.

Two separate issues.

Rest assured that her concerns for your daughters healthy eating habit is about #213134332432 on her list of concerns. You can tell because she offers the food when her son is sleeping.

When she says "if this is a problem you can find another nanny" it means "take it over leave it," definitely not "i'll put my job on the line because your daughter's eating habit is so important to me."

[Anonymous]

My child has eating issues. They stem from a health probeoem when she was 20 months. Prior to that she was a great eater. We have consulted professionals. We have only offered “healthy” food to the point that she gags and chokes trying to eat it because she is hungry. She also dropped too much weight so after consulting professionals, we accepted that she needed to focus on her short list of foods. So that is my perspective coming into this. Children need calories to grow and develop and there comes a point where that must be the priority.

I would be furious with a nanny who wouldn’t feed my child what I instructed because of her own child being present. It shows she is absolutely unqualified to do her job with her child present.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child has eating issues. They stem from a health probeoem when she was 20 months. Prior to that she was a great eater. We have consulted professionals. We have only offered “healthy” food to the point that she gags and chokes trying to eat it because she is hungry. She also dropped too much weight so after consulting professionals, we accepted that she needed to focus on her short list of foods. So that is my perspective coming into this. Children need calories to grow and develop and there comes a point where that must be the priority.

I would be furious with a nanny who wouldn’t feed my child what I instructed because of her own child being present. It shows she is absolutely unqualified to do her job with her child present.

But your kid has an actual medical issue. That experience is very different from someone like the OP who has a standard-issue picky toddler.

I am a nanny with no kids of my own, but I would absolutely give notice if it was required that I feed kids junk food regularly. I care for two toddlers and they both eat whole grains, lots of roast and raw veggies, beans and lentils, brown rice, every kind of fruit, eggs and roast chicken or baked fish. It is very possible for kids to be happy with this diet if they a) have a caregiver to is dedicated to it and b) don’t have any medical issues that make eating impossible. OP, what and how much is your kid actually eating for the nanny during meals? Does she track it for you? My nanny kids eat more/better for me than for parents because I have more time to sit and focus on helping them try new things. You might be surprised that your daughter is actually eating things that she wouldn’t for you because the expectations and environment are different.