Breakfast

[Trace of Angels]

Hi Everyone,

Looking for a little advise and what you all would do, do do, or have done.
I have been doing home daycare for a couple of years now and I have recently had my first bout of turnover.
So I signed on two new families. It's been great. Lovely parents and SUPER children.......I mean GOLDEN from day 1.

I open at 7 and usually the first child strolls in around 7:10-7:20
and we have snack at 9 am and have structured planning the rest of the day.

However on the first day new family shows up at 7:15 and hands me a lunch bag and says "here's their breakfast".......and I thought great.........and then as I am doing it I am thinking.........not so great.

Everyone else has always shown up dressed fed and ready for the day. I have two other families that start at the same time and have been dressed and ready for the day for two years.

But now I am serving and cleaning up from an entire extra meal and the other children are watching these new little ones eat and asking why aren't they having breakfast too.

I get my own two kids up dressed and ready for 7:15...........

When I spoke to mom about it she said that she has never given them breakfast at home and that it is too much work for her husband to deal with and she would have to wake them an hour earlier.

She is super sweet and is so easy to talk to.........and I just adore the children.
What would you do?
What have you done?

Looking for some suggestions......... I mean I know it's no big deal really but what does everyone else do......?

TIA

[mimi]

It is a big deal. Your daycare does not serve breakfast whether it is brought in or provided by you.
You, as a provider, are not there to do the parents job aka preparing their children for their day by dressing and feeding them. It is not fair to the other children to see food being eaten by their dc friends and not being allowed to join in.
You need to tell them that you do not provide "breakfast time" and it impedes the flow of your daycare schedule. The parents then need to suck it up and get up earlier and feed their children. I find the clients who are soooooo nice are the biggest perpetrator's of trying to take advantage or not follow the daycare policys and they are also the ones who can turn nasty if they are told no. Bottom line, you are not the "help" you are a business person who runs a daycare and your policies and schedule need to be followed.

[monkeymama]

My kids are late risers and slow to get moving in the morning. So, I usually have a couple children arriving while my kids are still eating and in pjs. If they arrive before 8, I have no problem letting them sit and finish their breakfast with my kids. However, if it ever started to become more work (as you are saying it is) I wouldn't hesitate to not allow it. All the kids who come with breakfast, it is already prepared (a yogurt, banana etc.) so it is no extra work to me at all. I wouldn't prepare something and I wouldn't serve breakfast as part of my program

[Crayola kiddies]

I have it in my policy book that children must arrive dressed, having eaten breakfast with clean hands and face and ready to begin the day......... however I offer to serve a parent supplied breakfast to any child that arrives prior to 730. So all the children that are eating breakfast here arrive early and are all done and already playing by the time the non breakfast eating children arrive so there is no conflict. If you don't want to serve breakfast then tell the parent that you do t allow outside food as this causes sharing issues with the other children and therefore you need them to be fed prior to arriving. Although this may result in the child being giving a cold pop tart to eat in the car on the way over. As far as it being to much work for dad ?!?!?!? Well to bad ... It's all part of being a parent .... What do the rest if the families do .... Was this not something that was discussed during the interview? Strange that she would just assume you would feed her kids breakfast!

[Daisy123]

I've had a similar situation with parents wanting their kids to have breakfast at my house. Personally I don't have a problem with it unless they are expecting me to provide the food. If the other kids see the food out I just explain that they have already had their breakfast and that's the end of it. I find that that early in the morning the kids are being rushed to get ready and out of the door. If letting them eat at my house leads to less stress and happier kids well... a better way to start the day. Like I said though, if the parents were expecting me to have time to prepare the meal that would be a different story!

[Trace of Angels]

It was discussed......or grazed on in the interview and I told them that they eat breakfast at home and sometimes if they don't really eat the parents pack it up and send it once in a while. This has happened maybe 6 times in two years.
So I guess totally my fault in not expressing myself fully. And it's not the prepping of the food (because they do it all and supply it all) it's the extra clean up and the other children watching that makes me question it.........

[apples and bananas]

This is hard to deal with. On one hand you want to make sure the client understands that it's your dayhome and you make the rules, on the other hand, you don't want to make a client upset because of one small issue. And really.... breakfast brought from home could be a small issue.

If it's really a huge problem then I'd send the client an email just letting them know that although I understand their intentions are good and it is an early start, you do snack at 9am and are unable to watch a child eat safely while the rest are playing in another part of the house. I would blame it on safety and leave it at that.

If it continues, I'd refuse the food at the door.

You also have to be concerned about allergies in your home. We have young ones and often allergies to food develop. You don't want something like a peanut allergy to come up in your care because of food you didn't make.

[playfelt]

When breakfast is sent from home it must be a container of dried cereal/dried fruit and a sippy cup of milk. Nothing that makes a mess or requires my help. As for the other kids I remind them that they already had breakfast. I think it is important to teach kids that just because there is food does not mean they should eat.

I have also held the breakfast and served an early snack to everyone and made the child eat the breakfast from home as their snack. Sometimes topping it up with fresh fruit or piece of cheese depending on what we are having.

At one point I was having real issues and announced that from now on no more food from home - used the allergies of one child as my excuse. Cost became $5 for any day I needed to provide breakfast to the child. Surprisingly more kids ate before coming. It was also a service only available to those arriving to care before 7:15.

[Fun&care]

This is why I have a " no food, no beverages and no toys from home" policy. I once had a dad show up at 8:30 with dcg and breakfast for her and I'm like ummm no, we have a snack at 9 anyways! sometimes it'd pure laziness. I personally do not like having to serve and clean up after yet another meal of the day. 3 meals with 5 kids per day is enough for me. But as some have suggested, a clean, dry breakfast might be ok. It's really up to you and what you feel comfortable with in the end. I would just make sure to make clear rules like, it has to be easy cleanup, parents provide it and only for arrivals before 7:20...

[daycarewhisperer]

I would just tell her that you don't do breakfast and that means you don't serve it, host it, or clean up after it. This means the kids have to be completely done with breakfast BEFORE they come into your house. You don't prepare, serve, supervise, or clean the children after eating.