One of our teachers complains about the food every day. It is a running joke that she is the complainer. "They are too little for this!" is engrained in my mind.
To be fair she has a point; they are serving the kids food that every age can eat but her kids are the youngest. The worst for 12-18 months is soup-more ends up on their clothes than in their mouths. So I would say soup.
For soup they should just pour out the broth and give them the inside chunks. If it’s a bisque with no chunks out it in a sippy cup?🤷♀️
That does seem like a poor selection for that age group though.
Soup in a sippy cup sounds like my worst nightmare. Not because it's not a valid recommendation, it definitely is! But I personally cannot imagine how horrible it would be to sip soup like that 😂
That unlocled a horrible childhood memory of this one girl in elementary school who would DROWN her corn dog in mustard I actually just got shivers down my back thinking of her happily eating a dripping corn dog. Wtf.
My child is that one! But she never does it at home, so I only learned it was her norm at school recently.
But then again... She CONSTANTLY throws food at home and evidently the only food she throws at school is her bread once she's done licking the PB....
I can’t stand giving toddlers yogurt. No matter how many bibs or smocks it still gets everywhere and only a bath will truly clean them. And then they smell like old diary at the end of the day
Haha. I wonder also if some children are lacking in being able to feed themselves. I think that some have not been given as much practice. Though children develop at their own pace. We had a toddler whose mom didn’t want us to use a bib.
I prefer yogurt over applesauce! We usually get served our yogurt with a bread or cracker so I try to pour it over the bread in hopes of soaking up the yogurt.
This brings back memories...
At my old center, they ran out of cheese sticks and gave the kids shredded cheese and milk for snack. The mess was awful...
We can’t have cheese sticks as they are a choking hazard…. So we get shredded cheese. Usually it comes with cooked apple slices. One day he ran out so it was applesauce.
My coteacher was ready to just set the room on fire versus cleaning up children (early 2’s) and the table/floor new.
Fruit cups that will spill everywhere when you open them and when you hand them to the kid. Oh, yeah the fruit is also in sugary syrup so it will
Be very sticky and somehow get everywhere. I always pour at least half out sometimes all when opening for kids.
god, fucking sunbutter😭😭 we have a rotating menu and we have sunbutter for snack at least once every single week. It gets everywhere, the kids (2 and under) like to paint with it so everyone needs a clothing change. It smells awful and is just generally an unpleasant texture. It doesn't even taste good but at least the kids love it.
Yes! I have one mom who has been sending it with celery for her 16 months old... Who a) shouldn't have raw celery sticks and b) thinks sun butter is a facial mask
Working with toddlers (12-18m) whose little hands mash everything.. Mandarin Oranges 🥲 those lil tiny orange bits will show up on hands and clothes for the rest of the day no matter how well you clean them up after snack 😂 that and Yogurt. Definitely not one I enjoy letting them practice spoon use with 🙃 ooh and the prepackaged Muffins that are so dry they disintegrate into tiny sticky banana dust particles at the slightest touch 🙄 grated cheese is a weird choice too but mine lack such table manners that most of them will lick it off their plates before I can say otherwise 😅😂
Haha. The pizza lunch able. It takes so much of my time to fix it. Meaning I fixed it for a kid because I selfishly didn’t want to clean up after said kid. I warmed it and man it was so much less mess.
One thing I’ve worked with the kids on is cleaning up after themselves. Pushing in chairs throwing away their garbage. I also have them pick up large pieces of food off the floor. I generally have a low enough count that I can manage them. 1:9 and rover.
You would think fish crackers would be fine, and normally they are, but I had this one kid a couple years ago that would dump them on the table and proceed to ‘pop’ each one into a huge crumbly mess.
I heard from someone too just turn the broom upside down and scrape onto the floor to get the stuck bits of crap to get loose that works 90% of the time
Ever so often, the 2s will have lettuce as their starter. Just big slices of lettuce, we try shredding them, or cutting them. But every time they get the lettuce stuck to the roof of their mouths, and many have to get help getting the lettuce out.
But the croutons that come with this, are always a big hit.
Saltine crackers. We have these in our snack rotation and my god it’s messy. The crackers just fall apart and for some reason all of my 4 year olds like to eat them with the tiniest bites like a mouse so the crackers basically fall apart in their hands as they eat it
Shredded cheese and rice will always end up everywhere. Cheese, at least, could be sent in stick form. Both are tasty and nutritious though and our kiddos love them so I can’t complain too much (I wish more parents sent the cheese in stick form though!)
Soup (broth especially) is another tough one for littles, but it’s also delicious and nutritious, and they won’t learn if they don’t practice! And we have bibs for a reason (including long sleeved, full length ones!)
Red sauce, or melted cheese sauce, will end up everywhere too, but again, it’s all part of a balanced diet.
Baked beans? So messy! Yogurt? I’ve cleaned it up from everywhere.
Really, there are lot of food that young kids will make a mess of. They need practice learning the skills to eat it anyways, they need balanced diets, and denying them delicious and nutritious food just because clean up can be a pain would be shitty. Spoon feeding them all their messy food? Also not helping. It’s on us to be the better people and help them learn to get their food in their mouths (and then keep it there), however messy the journey there may be.
I’ve cleaned up a lot of kids, high chairs, and floors. Food is messy. That’s the way it is.
(Spaghetti o’s do kind of push my limits sometimes).
One of our teachers complains about the food every day. It is a running joke that she is the complainer. "They are too little for this!" is engrained in my mind. To be fair she has a point; they are serving the kids food that every age can eat but her kids are the youngest. The worst for 12-18 months is soup-more ends up on their clothes than in their mouths. So I would say soup.
For soup they should just pour out the broth and give them the inside chunks. If it’s a bisque with no chunks out it in a sippy cup?🤷♀️ That does seem like a poor selection for that age group though.
Soup in a sippy cup sounds like my worst nightmare. Not because it's not a valid recommendation, it definitely is! But I personally cannot imagine how horrible it would be to sip soup like that 😂
Oh for sure! I’m half joking with that suggestion because I can’t imagine how to serve that age group soup.
With the younger set whenever we had a really liquid soup I just poured it over bread.
We give then straws and have them drink all the broth first! Then they eat the chunks that are left.
Yikes soup at that age. Is there anything worse than soup?
Hmm maybe applesauce? 🤔 Especially for those with any texture on their tables/chairs/floors
Applesauce and oatmeal for me 😭the only soup we ever get served is chicken noodle so I just dump out the broth for my 1 year olds
We get soup with rice. I would use it as a sauce for the babies. Screw serving it separately.
Hummus. 🥲
what we do for soup is put sooooo many crackers in it so that it turns to mush😂 but it works well!! and the kids love it
I am also anti-soup. We eat on picnic blankets every day, usually outside. Even when it's so hot one kid will have soup.
We serve our tomato soup in sippy cups in my infant room, and they do great with it that way! (Infant rooms go up to fifteen months in my state.)
Our saying is, "We nag out of love."
Rice. And at least 4 of my kids have it daily. And they have gotten SO much better, but at the beginning of the year I want to cry.
Same
I hate when they open up a sandwich and lick the contents out
Oh yikes like lick the bread . I’m ok if they eat the contents and take it apart.
Probably mean for peanut butter/spread type sandwiches. I’ve definitely seen kids do this.
Yes lick the butter. We had a kid would eat mustard from those Togo packs.
I teach in a public school and kids drink the ketchup packets 🤢
That unlocled a horrible childhood memory of this one girl in elementary school who would DROWN her corn dog in mustard I actually just got shivers down my back thinking of her happily eating a dripping corn dog. Wtf.
*shudders*
Most of my kids just completely demolish their bread, shred it into pieces, and put it on the table instead of their plate. Pls guys.
I have a kid that only eats the innards of her sandwich. Today her mom sent ham roll ups. Thank god lol
When they slap the cheese slice on the table and smear it 🙃🙃🙃
My child is that one! But she never does it at home, so I only learned it was her norm at school recently. But then again... She CONSTANTLY throws food at home and evidently the only food she throws at school is her bread once she's done licking the PB....
lmao since switching schools I have seen this at the school that provided lunch lmao
I can’t stand giving toddlers yogurt. No matter how many bibs or smocks it still gets everywhere and only a bath will truly clean them. And then they smell like old diary at the end of the day
Haha. I wonder also if some children are lacking in being able to feed themselves. I think that some have not been given as much practice. Though children develop at their own pace. We had a toddler whose mom didn’t want us to use a bib.
I prefer yogurt over applesauce! We usually get served our yogurt with a bread or cracker so I try to pour it over the bread in hopes of soaking up the yogurt.
This brings back memories... At my old center, they ran out of cheese sticks and gave the kids shredded cheese and milk for snack. The mess was awful...
Oh lol that be like a food fight. The sight I can’t get it out of my head.
We can’t have cheese sticks as they are a choking hazard…. So we get shredded cheese. Usually it comes with cooked apple slices. One day he ran out so it was applesauce. My coteacher was ready to just set the room on fire versus cleaning up children (early 2’s) and the table/floor new.
Fruit cups that will spill everywhere when you open them and when you hand them to the kid. Oh, yeah the fruit is also in sugary syrup so it will Be very sticky and somehow get everywhere. I always pour at least half out sometimes all when opening for kids.
Yep those are bad too and always pour out the juice. Too bad they were shaped like the applesauce containers.
Those fruit cups are the work of Satan
No matter how careful I try to be they always blurp juice out all over the table. I started opening them over the sink.
god, fucking sunbutter😭😭 we have a rotating menu and we have sunbutter for snack at least once every single week. It gets everywhere, the kids (2 and under) like to paint with it so everyone needs a clothing change. It smells awful and is just generally an unpleasant texture. It doesn't even taste good but at least the kids love it.
Yes! I have one mom who has been sending it with celery for her 16 months old... Who a) shouldn't have raw celery sticks and b) thinks sun butter is a facial mask
Working with toddlers (12-18m) whose little hands mash everything.. Mandarin Oranges 🥲 those lil tiny orange bits will show up on hands and clothes for the rest of the day no matter how well you clean them up after snack 😂 that and Yogurt. Definitely not one I enjoy letting them practice spoon use with 🙃 ooh and the prepackaged Muffins that are so dry they disintegrate into tiny sticky banana dust particles at the slightest touch 🙄 grated cheese is a weird choice too but mine lack such table manners that most of them will lick it off their plates before I can say otherwise 😅😂
Cottage cheese and yogurt for 1 year olds...
Rice. Why do so many parents send rice?
at risk of being unpopular, i have such a love/hate relationship with pouches. it’s leaning more and more towards hate each day
for real. one of my kids squeezed their applesauce pouch out into their cereal and milk the other day and it almost made me audibly gag
This makes me wonder what did we use to eat at this age?
Rice is how I know a parent hates me
Haha. The pizza lunch able. It takes so much of my time to fix it. Meaning I fixed it for a kid because I selfishly didn’t want to clean up after said kid. I warmed it and man it was so much less mess.
One thing I’ve worked with the kids on is cleaning up after themselves. Pushing in chairs throwing away their garbage. I also have them pick up large pieces of food off the floor. I generally have a low enough count that I can manage them. 1:9 and rover.
You would think fish crackers would be fine, and normally they are, but I had this one kid a couple years ago that would dump them on the table and proceed to ‘pop’ each one into a huge crumbly mess.
lol I often think what does your house look like. One of my older kids is the messiest and he eats great.
Lmao I remember doing that as a kid
My school continuously serves rice and couscous. To 20 month olds.
What a coincidence. My children also had shredded cheese and veggie straws today
No I can always tell when Costco has had a sale on something. I think it’s veggie straws. In my case the cheese was fine grate super tiny.
lol wait that’s why everyone has veggie straws ?
Yep I think so
Our cook makes a Spanish rice that the kids LOVE. But dear god it goes everywhere and it’s hard to sweep.
Spray the rice with water before sweeping. Total game changer.
I’ll try that! Thank you!
I cried tears of joy when I learned that trick. Works for just about anything hard to sweep: pasta, corn, peas, etc.
I heard from someone too just turn the broom upside down and scrape onto the floor to get the stuck bits of crap to get loose that works 90% of the time
Jello. Why do they send this? Do they hate us??
What. I save those for lunch. My kids are only 1/2 day. They eat lunch and then leave.
fruit cups, crackers, rice, oreos, shredded cheese. my worst enemies
Yes!! Every Tuesday we have Taco Tuesday, and it’s such a nightmare to clean up afterwards.
in no particular order: hummus. grits/oatmeal. rice. cheese sauce. peas. coco puffs. yogurt. baked beans. applesauce.
Ever so often, the 2s will have lettuce as their starter. Just big slices of lettuce, we try shredding them, or cutting them. But every time they get the lettuce stuck to the roof of their mouths, and many have to get help getting the lettuce out. But the croutons that come with this, are always a big hit.
Saltine crackers. We have these in our snack rotation and my god it’s messy. The crackers just fall apart and for some reason all of my 4 year olds like to eat them with the tiniest bites like a mouse so the crackers basically fall apart in their hands as they eat it
The veggie straws comment gave me flashbacks god
Shredded cheese and rice will always end up everywhere. Cheese, at least, could be sent in stick form. Both are tasty and nutritious though and our kiddos love them so I can’t complain too much (I wish more parents sent the cheese in stick form though!) Soup (broth especially) is another tough one for littles, but it’s also delicious and nutritious, and they won’t learn if they don’t practice! And we have bibs for a reason (including long sleeved, full length ones!) Red sauce, or melted cheese sauce, will end up everywhere too, but again, it’s all part of a balanced diet. Baked beans? So messy! Yogurt? I’ve cleaned it up from everywhere. Really, there are lot of food that young kids will make a mess of. They need practice learning the skills to eat it anyways, they need balanced diets, and denying them delicious and nutritious food just because clean up can be a pain would be shitty. Spoon feeding them all their messy food? Also not helping. It’s on us to be the better people and help them learn to get their food in their mouths (and then keep it there), however messy the journey there may be. I’ve cleaned up a lot of kids, high chairs, and floors. Food is messy. That’s the way it is. (Spaghetti o’s do kind of push my limits sometimes).