Snacks and dinner: what to prepare when you're looking after children

You don't need to know how to cook. You need to not get the few things that matter wrong.

Rule number one: eat what the parents say

This isn't the moment to try new things, however healthy. Food never tried before can hide an allergy nobody knows about yet, and you'd be the wrong person at the wrong time. Ask what to give and stick to it.

Dangerous mouthfuls

Choking is the most concrete risk at the table with young children, and it's prevented by the shape of the food more than the food itself. Under age four, watch out for anything round, hard and about the size of the windpipe:

• Grapes, cherries, cherry tomatoes, mini mozzarella balls - cut lengthways, into quarters, never into rounds
• Hot dogs and sausages - same rule: never round slices
• Whole nuts, popcorn, hard sweets - better avoided entirely
• Raw carrots and apples in big chunks - grated or in thin sticks

And the rule that matters most of all: eat sitting down. Never walking, never running, never in the car, never laughing with a full mouth. You stay right there.

Simple things that almost always work

Pasta with tomato or plain. Rice. Light soup. Scrambled eggs. Bread and cheese. Yoghurt and cut fruit. You're not trying to impress a food critic: you're getting a child fed who wants to get back to playing.

If they won't eat

Don't insist, don't threaten, don't bargain with sweets. A skipped meal has never hurt anyone; a war at the table has. Tell the parents when they get back and leave it there.

Before you leave

Report what and how much they ate, and at what time. It sounds like a detail: for a parent getting home at eleven at night, it's the most useful information you can give them.