formula advertising, or not?

We did a lot of research into nurseries in the city and went to visit 6
of them. Only one provided nappies and formula (probably the one you
are talking about as it was the only national company). Mind you they
were the only ones that made the point they were happy to use ebm
although a couple of otheres mentioned it in their literature. All of
them apart from the ond ds is at provide food, although they do provide
snacks. Judging by his appetite since he has started crawling I think
we are getting our moneys worth there. If it is the one I think you
are talking about we decided not to send him there as the atmosphere
was very corporate and clinical and we didn't really see it as a
selling point to have dostevsky quotes on the wall and French lessons
at 3yrs. 2 months down the line we are happy we have chosen the best
one in the area even though it is the only one where we have to provide
the food. This is more inconvient for us than most as we only eat
veggie food and as ds will only eat 2 flavours of Hipp Organic and
won't eat much table food yet, we have to do a lot of extra cooking.

Sorry, I've gone off on a tangent here, but in asnwer to your question,
I don't think it is normal for nurseries in the area to profvide
forumla. This company in question is one of the more expensive ones but
not the top. The worst one we saw was one where the babies slept in a
damp room in old SilverCross prams that were stored outside in a
partically covered bike rack when not being used. Appalling - and they
were the most expensive one we saw. I feel sorry for those babies.

bit of a late reply, but I think you've guessed right, it was kidsunlimited,
but I think they run more than one nursery in town, but few of them are open
access, I had the choice of one of their nurseries or finding something else
very inconvenient given where I lived and where I worked, we only went to
nursery at all, because when I upped my hours the childminders couldn't keep
up! So we didn't really choose, it was more can we deal with this, we
thought the answer was yes and it turned out to be no.

Anne

Better to provide something
than have a malnourished baby because mom is trying to stretch formula
until the next paycheck, IMO.

absolutely, but in this case we are not talking poverty situations, the
nursery company in question has fees per week that a higher in pounds than
the one you are talking about in dollars, so no one on a low income would be
able to get there kids in there, plus if you are on a low income you get
free formula anyway.

Anne

All were quite happy to feed with EBM, they just provided formula as a
service. All 3 also had fees on a sliding scale, and their clientele is
mixed low-income to middle-income. So the provisions are partly to
assist low income families (tho this stuff is provided to all). Cost
for those who don't meet the cut-off for low income is $110-130/week,
not sure how low they go on their sliding scale.

it's useful for me to find out this kind of info, in the Uk whilst we are on
one income anything more than an afternoon with a childminder is too much
for us, but this sounds promising for when we move to the US. I'm stretching
out the time I can manage the children for, but I'm almost certain I'll
still need help for another 6 months - 1 year and knowing that nursery might
actually be affordable is helpful.

Anne