I have a prospective family who interviewed yesterday. They seem nice, their hours are ideal...not a teacher's family but hours of 7:30-3:30. But they are vegetarian.

They eat eggs, dairy and fish. No pork, chicken or beef.

Have you cared for a veggie child before? I'm unsure and definitely skeptical about how this will effect my program....but it would be nice to have a 3rd child who is picked up at 3:30.

Anyone with experience? I generally try to make big dinners and freeze leftovers for lunchs. We do a lot of chili, soups, stews, casseroles and crockpots, so I can see having to revamp things a bit and I"m not sure it will be 'worth' the change in routine.

Thank you

Reply

I have a V family & they provide everything. It's the only way I will do it. I'm not a short order cook and I won't provide different meals for different kids. I actually went into it knowing they would provide everything, but because of their limitations we can't bake or do fun snacks. It has cramped my program for 5 years i mean, to the point of keeping the others from having ice cream or popcicles on hot days. Actually I just now decided to change that. Effective immediately. Maybe I'm in a crappy mood today but I'm over others dictating how I do things. Ugh lol. One of those mornings

Reply

I would have them bring their own lunch. Breakfast and snacks would probably be fairly easy to accomdate, but I wouldn't want to revamp my whole lunch menus for one family and I don't serve different things to different kids.

Reply

since they do eat eggs, dairy, and fish, then baked goods shouldn't be a problem so you shouldn't have to worry there. You could have the paretns provide a main dish (The protein portion of the meal basically) and you could still give him the same fruits and veggies and grains.

Reply

Ask the parents to provide the protein and you provide the rest.

Reply

I have one vegetarian and I provide all the food. Whenever I make anything cassorole-ee I take out a scoop for her and freeze it in individual portions before I add the meat. I just take a dish out and thaw for her if I can't adapt a meal. I only serve meat protien 3 days a week anyway though.

Reply

Right, she should be able to eat whatever the other kids eat since they eat dairy, eggs, and fish. Just take out her portion before adding meat products in, and start using veggie stock instead of chicken if you a lot of stock in your menu.

Reply

I had a little boy in my care who ate this way, too. He was old enough to eat peanut butter and his mom would supply a can of tuna "just in case" for those days we had pork, chicken or beef. I supplied everything else for him. It was no big deal.

Reply