Monthly Archives: August 2010

Guest blogger: It starts so young…

Guest Blogs, ,

For 15 years, I worked as a teacher and center director at two of the largest child care providers in the United States. Although you might think that the nutrition in child care and preschool centers is much better, you are not correct. Early childhood is the time of rapid development, discovery of the world around us and the time when most kids are just beginning to figure out who they are. It would make sense to have well rounded, healthy nutrition in the countires preschool and child care centers but unfortunately, it is not.

One of my daily challenges as the director of a child care and preschool center was maintaining a budget. Just like those cafeterias in the public school system, it is all about the budget. Athough it was my job to stay on budget, I often felt guilty with what these kids were fed. State licensing laws in California mandate that the children are fed a daily mix of protein, fruits, veggies and dairy products but there is not a set limit on calories or fat levels.

In order to maintain a budget, you have to go with what is cheap. Since your monthly budget in a preschool is based on the number of children you have enrolled, so it pays to have a school that is as full to capacity as possible because that will give you the “extra” money for not only supplies like crayons and markers but also food. When I ran a school that was close to capacity (I had 125 children enrolled and school capacity was about 145), my menus were full of yummy treats like green salad, pasta salad full of fresh veggies, homemade favorites like lasagna and BBQ chicken sandwiches. We also had homemade cookies sweetend with apple sauce not sugar and kabobs with fresh fruit. It was easy to make healthy choices for the kids and in three years, I never had a complaint about food and often parents asked for recipes we served, to make at home.
In contrast when I was assigned to a struggling school that had an enrollment of 50 or so (capacity was about 165), there was no way to stay close to budget and be nutritious. I was not the director but the assistant director and most days, I would not even eat the food. It was everything on the cheap, chicken nuggets, fruit cocktail in heavy syrup, packaged cookies and sometimes a trail mix of dry breakfast cereals and juice for snack. At one point the director even ordered the cook to serve either fruit (it was the canned kind in heavy syrup) or veggies because it cut the cost of each meal to a more manageable budgeteed amount.
In both cases this food is served to all children that eat table foods. So babies that don’t have food sent from home are fed the same meals and staff simply finely chop the foods for them to eat. So little ones (around age nine months of age or so) were eating processed, sugar-ridden foods before they were even one year of age. Now on the outside looking in I realize how crazy this is! My own son was in the young toddler program and had many problems going to the restroom, sleeping and even having good behavior. I think now that it was not only the environment but also the food that he ate daily while in care.
Parents with young children should investigate the salt, sugar and fat content that their infants, toddlers and preschoolers are eatting. I think that they would be shocked! No child should be eating that much fat and salt laden, processed food at one year old. It is sad to see our littlest people being taught that chicken nuggets, fruit cocktail and crackers are suitable lunch and that juice is the only beverage of choice unless you are eatting lunch.

Our children’s poor nutrition starts young, too young. The cycle is created for many when they are not even old enough to talk. Parents need to rally in all areas of education and care to meet the needs of our children to teach and facilitate healthy nutrition which is something that can stay with them for a lifetime.

When I left the child care and preschool industry and became a stay at home mom, my son who was about one and a half, also left care. During this time he had a lot of problems sleeping, was almost always constipated and often in care was “wild” for no apparent reason. Once he was at home with me, things changed. He got homemade meals everyday, was limited on sugar and was given choices. His choices were often carrots or green beans or a choice of low fat ranch dressing or tomato sauce for his chicken breast. When I saw that he was actually learning to make “healthy choices” as well as think independantly it made something click inside. Maybe all his issues were based on all the processed foods, sugar filled foods he was served in preschool and insisted on eatting at home. Maybe I was not only changing his diet but teaching him how to make better choices when it came to food.
This made me make some changes in our whole family’s diet. We are not rich, not by any means but we found a way to always include fresh fruit, freah veggies and lean proteins in our shopping every week. We changed to whole grains, we cut out salt, switched to lean turkey and chicken instead of beef and even added in more fish to our diets. Our son fell in love with our morning breakfasts of egg whites with sliced tomato or steel cut oats topped with strawberries, blueberries and cinnamon. He started asking for salmon and the “tan rice” (brown rice) for dinner. He refused to eat the chicken nuggets, fish sticks and processed foods the other kids ate while at play dates. We even switiched kid favorite like jelly/jam, syrup and lollipops to sugar free types. We started having salads a few times a week as a main dish and ate high carb things like pasta as a side dish rather than a main dish.
Our son’s behavior changed as well as his sleep patterns. He also began to have regular “movements” that were normal and didn’t make him cry. When our second son was born and started to eat table foods we commited ourselves to even having his rice cereal be whole grains. We thought if we did that, we might never have to “recondition” him as we had with our oldest.
It actually has not made that big of an impact on our budget. We eat seasonally, or in some cases such as blueberries, buy frozen. Looking back on our diets both the one our oldest ate in preschool and the one that our family ate I realize it really was not that hard to make a change. This does not mean that we have never again eaten Mickey D’s or had ice cream but when looking at the whole picture, we have made a BIG change. It has made us all healthy and our kids now make much better choices when it comes to food.

Today’s guest blogger: For over 15 years I worked in the preschool industry as a teacher, infant care provider and eventually as a center director. I learned a lot from the parents, children and educators that I worked with over the years but now have moved on to raising and teaching my own children at home as a Stay-at-Home Mom (by far the hardest job I have ever had). I enjoy sharing my knowledge of the preschool world with everyone I can and currently write a blog called Preschool Mommy and am a Featured Parenting Contributor on Associated Content, a local writer for Examiner on the topics of Motherhood and Preschool and write on occasion for the AOL site Holidash.

World Breastfeeding Week – and my own harrowing tale

News,

In honor of World Breastfeeding Week, I’d like to share my experience breastfeeding. I might be going way off topic here, but it’s the summer, there are no school lunches to eat and so I retain the right to blog about anything remotely related to food, nutrition, education, and schools. Breast milk is a baby’s first food and is an infant’s perfect made-for-baby food. Since studies show that breastfeeding prevents obesity, I believe it is relevant for the blog. If you don’t want to read about breastfeeding, feel free to skip the below. You have been warned…

I wanted to breastfeed my baby for 12 months like all the experts recommended. I knew my mom had breastfed my sister and me, but I knew that we had been bottle fed too. I learned while I was pregnant that my grandmother had bottle fed my mother exclusively (it was the 1950’s and formula was new and en vogue).

I took a breastfeeding class at the hospital while I was pregnant. My husband and I jointly took a birthing class at the hospital and breastfeeding was covered so he was exposed to similar information. My husband was supportive of my breastfeeding because he was exclusively bottle fed and has severe asthma. We had read research that breastfeeding decreases the risk of asthma and we both wanted our baby to not have a medically-involved childhood like he had experienced.

In the hospital after the birth, my little baby was interested and excited to breastfeed. I was encouraged by his little baby bird mouth and proud of myself for feeding him. Towards the end of my two days in the hospital, one nurse came in and said, “I don’t think he has a good latch. I’m going to send in a lactation consultant.” I was slightly offended mostly because she was the first nurse to notice a problem. But my breasts were taking a beating from his vigorous sucking so maybe she was onto something.

The lactation consultant visited me just before we were going to leave the hospital. My milk hadn’t come it, but I figured I was providing colostrum so it was no big deal. She said, “I’m very concerned.” Her demeanor was gruff and rude and I took it personally that my baby was not feeding properly. I started to cry. I told her, “Look, we are just about to leave the hospital with our baby. I don’t want to hear this right now.” She left and came back with nipple shields. We left the hospital with formula samples in a formula company provided, hospital approved diaper bag.

My husband and I went home hoping that everything would be alright. After a night of about 90 minutes of sleep, we were supposed to see the doctor the next morning. We went to our pediatrician (a great guy) who told us that the baby had lost too much weight and we needed to supplement with formula. I was devastated. My pediatrician’s office has a part-time lactation consultant/nurse practitioner on staff, but she was not in the office so the doctor sent us back to the hospital to see their lactation consultant again. I told my husband I couldn’t go back to that terrible woman who saw me before. Thankfully it was a different lactation consultant on call that day. During the session she gave our son two ounces of pre-mixed formula and we rented a breast pump.

Finally the next day my milk came in (FINALLY!). I started pumping because I couldn’t get the baby to breastfeed. Pumping is a weird feeling, but I got used to it. My mother also arrived to help us. I was so happy to see her that I cried. Unfortunately because of her work commitments, she could only stay for 48 hours even though she wanted to stay longer.

I discussed breastfeeding with her and I asked her, “How long did you breastfeed me for?” Her reply, “I weaned you when you were three months old.” It seemed like an insanely long time to have breastfed but it seemed doable. But I vowed that my goal would be to equal what she had done for me. I would do this for three months.

Unfortunately I could not get the baby to nurse. Every time I put him to the breast, he would cry mightily in protest. This vocal insult felt like a rejection of me. Thankfully, my milk production was high and I was able to meet all of his needs while pumping. But I wanted to find more lactation help. I was determined to get him back to the breast.

I was pumping exclusively for our son. During the day and throughout the night my husband would reheat a bottle of breast milk and feed our baby while I pumped for the next feeding. Lactation consultants advise that the mother should not give the baby a bottle if the mother also offers the breast. In my case this was especially important as he wouldn’t nurse. It was traumatic that I couldn’t feed my baby in my arms, but at least I could feel proud that he was getting breast milk.

Two weeks after birth I was so exhausted and my husband went back to work. I noticed a large red spot on my breast and called my pediatrician and my OBGYN. I had mastitis and I was put on antibiotics. It felt like having the flu with aches and pains, plus weepiness. My OBGYN referred me to a social worker and I was screened for post-partum depression. The diagnosis was “the baby blues.”

While sick with mastitis I met with the lactation consultant at my son’s pediatrician’s office. She did the unthinkable: she got my son to nurse! I was thrilled, but when I got home I couldn’t repeat it. I told my husband that if I had to pump exclusively for our son, it was ok because I was getting used to it. The constant rejections from my baby were almost too much for me. I ended up having to give him a bottle myself.

I quit offering the breast to my son because it just seemed like “too much work.” And when he was six weeks old, I got mastitis on the other side. Luckily I caught it early and went straight to the lactation consultant. I told her I couldn’t get the baby to breastfeed. She was able to get him to breastfeed during the session in her office. She looked me in the eye and said with all seriousness, “You’re going to have to push his face right into it.” That still makes me laugh!

I went home and took her advice. He started crying when I offered the breast and I just pushed his face right into the breast. He nursed! I was overwhelmed with relief and pride. From that point forward he stopped getting breast milk in a bottle.

Shockingly breastfeeding became easy. I was able to nurse during the night quickly and efficiently though not lying down, which I never mastered. There were no more smelly bottles to wash. And my husband didn’t have to get up in the night, which made him very happy. All of a sudden I felt a bond to my son that I had not experienced before. I viewed him differently. He was no longer this alien being, but my baby. I’m sure it was oxytocin because nothing else had changed. That’s one powerful human drug!

Just as breastfeeding was finally getting easier, I had to gear up to return to work when he was nine weeks old. I was worried that all my work to breast feed would be for nothing. I invested in a breast pump and returned the hospital’s breast pump that I had been renting. I was able to pump at work in a small, semi-private/private room. When I wasn’t at work I was able to breastfeed my baby at home. The only bottles we washed were the ones from daycare. As a working mom, breastfeeding was a great way for me to be able to be close to my infant in a way that no other caregiver could be.

After that difficult start, I was able to breastfeed for 13 months, thereby far exceeding my original goal of three months (the length of time I was breastfed). There were dips in my milk production after seven months and formula had to be supplemented sporadically then, but whenever I was with my baby I was able breastfeed him. Around 13 months of age he refused to nurse and self-weaned. I never had to wean him off of a bottle since he wasn’t crazy about the bottles he got at daycare and didn’t drink from a bottle at home. Additionally I lost almost all the weight I gained during the pregnancy though I’m still carrying 5-10 stubborn pounds. My little guy was a massive, chunky baby (gotta love those fat rolls) but is now a slim, active toddler.

I have a healthy, thriving child who is the inspiration of this blog project. My kid is in childcare so he gets sick a lot (like every toddler I’m told) so a history of breastfeeding can’t prevent everything! We’re still waiting to see if our son develops asthma. But my husband and I continue to be breastfeeding advocates. Recently I caught Mr. Q on the phone discussing breastfeeding with a buddy of his who is about to become a father. I got a little choked up when I heard him talk about the benefits.

***

What I learned and now believe:

1) No woman who wants to breastfeed should leave the hospital prior to her milk coming in, in effect without a way to feed her baby. It’s criminal to let mothers like me leave the hospital with formula samples. If our country is serious about increasing the number of women breastfeeding to help combat a host of ailments, we need to be entirely more baby-friendly and less formula-company-friendly.

2) All new parents should accept every offer of help they get from family and friends. We told family not to come right after the birth because we wanted to “bond” with the baby. Can you laugh with me! HA HA! We were so bonded we didn’t have time to pee, eat, or shower.

3) If a woman is screened for post-partum depression and results come up in the “baby blues” range, someone should still follow up. The social worker asked me when I was two weeks post-partum, “Do you experience moments of joy during your day?” I replied, “Of course, I have a beautiful baby.” “Then you are not depressed,” she stated emphatically. However, when I compare how I felt during those first six weeks with my baby to how my friends felt with a newborn, I can find only one friend who went through what I did. Normal people were a lot happier than I had been. When/if I have another child I’m going to be more aware and GOD FORBID I have another rough time of it breastfeeding a newborn!

Since there are a lot of Moms who read this blog, if you blog about breastfeeding for World Breastfeeding Week, please link to it below:

June’s Titanium Spork Award Recipient: Laura DeSantis

Spork Award,
June’s Titanium Spork Award Winner, Laura DeSantis, agreed to write a little acceptance speech. Her words appear below. I appreciate everything she does on behalf of her school kids every day! Thank you Chef Laura for your dedication and hard work!
Thank you to all who voted for Marblehead Community Charter Public School (MCCPS). It’s an honor to receive the “Titanium Spork” It’s great to be recognized for all the hard work and great things we do in the nutrition department. We couldn’t do it without the support and help from the faculty and parents. Our schools mission states,”We are a community that empowers children to become capable, self determining, fully engaged individuals who are critical thinkers committed to achieving their highest intellectual, artistic, social, emotional and physical potential. We are dedicated to involving, learning from, participating in and serving our school community and the community at large”. We all realize that this statement covers a lot of territory but one thing is for sure, we believe that nutrition and healthy habits are something our students will use for a lifetime.

I grew up in a large Italian family who owned a catering business, so you could say I ate very well. I always thought the whole world ate like we did, until I went to college. I attended and received my BA in Culinary Arts from Johnson & Wales University. I realized that we are what our parents/ adults expose us to. Chefs in training were eating things like Spaghetti O’s! Yuck! It was very eye opening for me and nutrition became a personal issue. Eventually, I did a fellowship with the university and taught intern students from all over the country. This was great to meet and teach, as well as take skills from others. I always enjoyed teaching/instructing and wanted to return to that kind of environment. I worked as professional chef for 15 years with many experiences, mostly in fine dining. I starting at MCCPS about 2 ½ years ago. I never dreamt all these years later I would be teaching middle school students how to hold a knife, how to make pizza from scratch or Asian noodles with vegetables from the local farms. Most students embrace it and for me it has been extremely rewarding. To watch the students absorb these life skills is amazing.

My background as a chef has really made the difference at the school from a financial standpoint. Chefs by nature are very cost conscious. Also knowledge of recipes and how to utilize every item without much waste is common restaurant/kitchen practice. Everything we do is with costs in mind. We use seasonal produce because it’s cheaper. This enables us to support the local farms and utilize what we produce in our gardens. This also allows us to be creative with our monthly menu. We do participate in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). We process all these “commodity” foods in house. There are many regulations some of which I don’t understand but we need to comply with. For instance you may already know that French fries (potatoes) are considered a vegetable?!

We have a few rules in our kitchen. We don’t serve fries, chicken patties, nuggets or fingers (once a year we make them from scratch as a treat). We only use fresh chicken, meats and vegetables to produce our menus. Once these items were gone, the students eventually stopped asking for them. Most students are willing to try new foods. If they want all those other things, their parents can make the call. Our participation is over 50%. We use our fresh salad bar for trials or we give out a free sample. That’s right – FREE! It’s amazing what kids will try when it’s free. That’s how I got them to eat curry. We also offer seasonal whole fruit for free. This is our effort to promote eating fresh fruit. We put out a big bowl of fruit 2 to 3 times a day. We work these items into our budget. A little something free helps to gets students to try new things.

Using food in the classroom to learn about different cultures. The students take foreign language so we do things like French and Spanish Buffets. We have the students do the research and translate the food items. We then have them test the recipes in the kitchen. My staff (2) and I produce and serve these items for lunch. We also encourage students to help and participate in the kitchen. They are assigned to rotating lunch clean up crewand are responsible for doing dishes, cleaning tables, and composting leftovers and waste. Our teachers actually eat the same lunch the students eat and even sit with them.

We are very proud of the school and our nutrition program. The program has come a long way and we keep building on it and continue to try and be innovative. We have all “ drank the Kool-Aid “ as they say. We are passionate about what we feed and offer our students and faculty. We admit that we can’t change everyone completely but a little goes a long way.

How teacher tenure works…

Teachers,

I hear a lot of nasty things in the media about bad teachers getting “tenure” and then it’s impossible to get rid of them. I’m not sure anyone has any idea how tenure works in public schools (it’s not professorial tenure in a university). I’m going to endeavor to define what it means in my district.

Teacher tenure is earned after a set period of time, usually four to five years. If a principal fires a tenured teacher, that teacher has the right to have a meeting with the principal and union representation to ask why. Until tenure is earned, the principal can fire an untenured teacher without a reason. Tenure helps preserve the rights of a teacher when a firing occurs.

I have seen both tenured and untenured teachers get fired. Principals can fire whoever they want at any time. Tenure only guarantees the right to discuss one’s firing with the principal. I have seen good untenured teachers be dropped for political reasons. I have seen bad tenured teachers get pink slips too.

There are procedural rules governing what a principal must do if he/she doesn’t approve of a teacher’s job performance. The teacher must be observed (at least twice in my district I believe) and warnings must be given. Those are similar to rules set forth at a corporation where a warning is given in the presence of a representative from human resources and a time limit (usually 30 days) in which improvement must be seen.

At least in my district, “bad” teachers can be fired. It requires a principal to do more than usual: observe a few extra times, give a warning, etc. I’m not a principal but from what I can tell it’s not that hard to fire any teacher but there are steps that I have to be taken in a proper order. If not, then a tenured teacher will be able to fight the firing. Honestly I have not seen a teacher tenured or untenured fight a firing. I mean, why would you want to stay if you were asked to leave?

I believe it improves teacher morale when under-performing teachers are not given “a pass,” but instead are called on to improve by a demanding principal. It makes the school better and improves the learning environment. I also believe tenure as it is defined in my district is a good thing. If a teacher works somewhere for four to five years or more, he/she should not be let go without having an opportunity to discuss it with the principal.