Day cares often provide members with weekly or monthly lunch menus.
Choosing a day care for you child is a difficult decision. Even after your child enrolls in a program, you still have choices to make, such as whether he will pack or purchase lunch. There are advantages and disadvantages of both, and what is best for one family may not be best for the next.
Nutrition
School and day care lunch menus are normally planned by nutritionists and health professionals. Therefore, meal choices include the different food groups and nutrients that growing children need. Parents can rest assured that their children are getting the basic vitamins and nutrients that they need to develop. However, with school lunches, children may avoid eating nutritious entrees and opt for less healthy sides or deserts. They may also choose chocolate milk over regular milk on a daily basis. When children pack a lunch, parents have more control over what their child eats while at day care because they can exclude less healthy snacks and treats, thereby encouraging a child to satiate hunger with more nutritious items.
Special Needs
Different children have different nutritional needs, and parents -- not school or day care workers -- are usually best prepared to accommodate a child's individual dietary needs. For instance, a child may suffer an iron deficiency and require iron-rich proteins. Diabetic children also have very particular dietary needs, and standardized school lunch menus may not be diabetic-friendly. In addition, children may have religious dietary needs, such as kosher or meat-free meals, that day cares disregard. Young children at day care may not be mature or old enough to know better if they are accidentally given the wrong meal.
Allergies
When it comes to allergies, home-prepared lunches are better. Many young children have food allergies that adults need to consider when preparing meals. If parents pack meals, they take care to avoid foods that cause dangerous allergic reactions. In order to accommodate different children's allergy needs, schools would have to prepare special alternative meals for allergy-prone children or avoid certain foods, such as peanut butter or nuts, altogether.
Cost
Many parents prefer to pack lunches to save money. In general, packed lunches are more cost-efficient since day care lunches are priced to pay for the labor of preparing food as well as for the food itself. The exception is in public day cares, for which lunches are heavily subsidized. Also, some day cares require parents to pay up front at the beginning of the month for lunches. If a child misses days of care or if the day care is closed due to inclement weather, money may not be refunded.
Convenience
If your child buys meals at day care, you do not have to worry about preparing his lunch every morning. As any parent knows, morning routines are very hectic, and it is difficult to find the time to prepare a nutritious, balanced meal. Also, you have to remember the packed lunch and ensure that your child exits the vehicle with the lunch. If your child rides in a carpool or day care van, she may leave it on the seat. On the contrary, since many day care lunches require payment up front, you need not worry about making sure your child has a meal waiting for her at lunch time.
Tags: your child, children have, dietary needs, lunch menus, care lunches