Ideas for Foods to Pack for Day Care

What day care is your daughter going to? I never had to bring the solids, just the breast milk. Keep in mind that 1 year olds and up typically have breakfast, snack, lunch, and then snack. Do you want your daughter to have snacks or just milk? My experience is that if she sees others eating a snack, she'll want one too. I used to pack healthy snacks because the daycare would serve cookies, donuts, etc... as snacks. Some things I would bring are bananas, prunes, any cut up soft fruit, avocado, Gerber little puffs. The key that I learned was that they had other children to focus on too, so the more "self-serve" the food, the better. If it wasn't self-serve, they would feed her after the other kids, and you can imagine, she didn't care much for that.
Good luck!

When my son was in daycare as an infant, I packed his food in containers I found at Walmart. They were plastic, round trays about 6 inches across and were split into 3 compartments. I would choose three different foods to fill the compartments. Then I put Glad press n seal wrap on top then the container lid. I prepared his bottles so they would be ready for feeding. I never heated baby food or the bottles for my kids. They never seemed to mind cold formula and the ped ok'd it. As he started on solids he would eat what the daycare provided or I would send the Gerber version of tv dinners - just pop them in the microwave.

In my pre-child days I used to make lunch for me and my husband to take to work. I would do it in the morning and was often pressed for time. So I started preparing things on Sunday. I would bag things like pretzels, trail mix, etc in ziplock bags- enough for the week - and put them in a specially marked container in a kitchen cupboard. I would also do the same with drinks, cheese sticks, fruit - put enough for the week in a specially marked container in the fridge. I couldn't do it with the "main" course as it was a sandwich or dinner leftovers, but this seemed to make packing lunches less time intensive. If you have the space to do this it might help.

Hi D.,

I personally work in a daycare that does not provide food for the children, so they do have to bring their own. I usually am with the young toddlers or pre-school age, but I do work fairly closely with the infant room teacher also. She usually offers them breakfast (broken up waffles, cheerios, oatmeal,etc) then a morning snack (goldfish, animal crackers, cut up fruit, raisins etc) then lunch (dinner leftovers, cut up pieces of hot dog or lunch meat, cheese etc) then an afternoon snack (same kind of things as morning snack). I know it sounds like they are constantly eating, but most of the food are given in fairly small portions.

I would be specific on when your daughter is to have certain items. If you want her to have a bottle around a certain time, definitely let them know it. It is your daughter and you know her best and the daycare will be happy with any input from you to make it easier on her and keep her regular routine. If she is happy then it will make their job easier.

I hope this helps,

L.

D.,
Just pack what she normally eats. Put the number 2 foods into little cup containers, also you can provide goldfish, puffs, etc. as well as meat sticks (so gross but my son LOVED them!). Also the convenient little Gerber Graduates can be easily heated by the care givers & ffed to her.
You could make a batch of stuff ahead (pasta, mac& cheese, etc.) and freeze in small containers for thawing a few each week. My mom has always made homemade chicken pastina soup for my son and froze it in little single size containers for him. He still calls it his "chickatini"!