Healthy Drinking
Children are encouraged to bring water bottles to nursery to drink throughout the day. They should be clearly labelled with their names.
However, we are seeing an increasing number of children bringing squash in these bottles, which is widely understood as unhealthy. The NHS recommends that only water and milk (dairy alternatives included) are suitable for children and that if juice or squash is to be provided, they should have it with a meal to ensure healthy oral hygiene.
Top tips:
- Provide your child with water only in their bottles (children often happily drink water if provided by nursery staff)
- Only provide well-diluted fruit juice or sugar-free squash (one part squash to ten parts water) at meal times
- Only offer fresh juice and smoothies, give half pure juice/half water once per day as they contain quite a lot of sugar
Healthy Eating
Children who stay at nursery all day require a packed lunch to be provided for them. To ensure their energy levels are efficient for their full day here, it is essential that their lunch is healthy and balanced.
High sugar, processed foods can leave children feeling tired in the afternoons and this impacts on their resilience throughout the day.
For more information and ideas for packed lunches, please see the following NHS links:
- Young children and food: common questions – NHS
- What to feed young children – NHS
- The Eatwell Guide – NHS
Snack at Nursery
Sharing snack is an important part of the nursery routine in all classrooms. It is cut up and shared between the children, teaching them key social, communication, and understanding skills.
But we are not getting enough donations of fruit and vegetables to share. We kindly ask all children to bring in at least one small portion of fruit and vegetables each session. So, if your child is attending 30 hours per week, we ask for 2 portions a day.
If we do not get enough donations on a daily basis, then we cannot provide children with snack.
Examples of donations can include:
- Apples, oranges, bananas, pears, kiwis
- Cucumbers, carrots, celery, peppers
- Tomatoes, grapes, blueberries, strawberries
- Pineapples, mangoes, melons
If you have any issues or questions about any of the above, please get in touch with your child’s key person, room leader, or Kate.
