What do you pack for kid lunches

Littlejen22 · October 2013

My son does not want to brin anything in a Thermos but is getting sick of sandwiches with yogurt.

Wahoo · October 2013

My DD brings in turkey slices (not a sandwich) and crackers and water. She has also cooked chicken nuggets and just wrapped them in tin foil and eaten them cold (ie like cold fried chicken).

DS brings in cheese sticks and crackers. Also a piece of fruit and a treat. He gets milk in the lunchroom.

When DD was younger, she liked waffles (like eggo frozen waffles). She stopped because other kids made fun of her (calling her "waffle girl"), but whenever they have pancakes or french toast sticks for lunch at school, all of the kid buy!

Have you thought about making a wrap instead of a sandwhich? Or you can purchase sandwhich cut-outs so the sandwhiches are in funky shapes (dinosaur, car).

nevertune · October 2013

My son likes to switch it up with some hummus and pita bread or I make "homemade lunchables" where I just cut lunch meat and cheese into squares and send some crackers.

Ilumine · October 2013

Pinterest has tons and tons of ideas.

But with Monkey, we do lots of little things (will have to buy a bento box for Kindy next year). We do a mixture of small portions of various foods. I keep the portions to no more than 4 pieces per food and then no more than 4 types of food. I will increase that when she turns 5

various cubes of cheeses she likes
crackers of all types. We love going to specialty food stores and buying cool types
cut up veggies from carrots to red/yellow/orange peppers (no green), to broccoli to cucumbers, to fresh green beans to fresh peas still in their pods, etc
fresh fruits from berries to apples to pears to grapes to plums etc.
dried nuts (this is harder because there is a nut allergy in school so we only do the nuts at home).
dried fruits (she loves my homemade dried banana chips)
hummus and pita chips
homemade granola in large chunks
thick cuts of cold-cuts then cookie-cutted into shapes. But her desire for cold-cuts (not processed meats) is fleeting. So she ends up only eating that once a week and Daddy eats the rest.

No I am going to try to make my own chicken strips next week. She loves them in luncheables, but I do not like the processed meats. I will let you know how it goes. but my goal is to get a weeks worth done and see if she will eat them.

Ilumine · October 2013

Here is the one thing my pedi told us. For the next couple of years, it is not the daily intake but the weekly intake that matters. So I don't stress having her meet the "Pyramid" everyday, but as long as she gets an overall amount of veggies and fruit (given we are having fresh, oven-roasted brussell sprouts per her request tomorrow night), grains and proteints over the 5 day period, I am good.

SimpleJane · October 2013

What about a pasta salad with whatever protein/veggie/dressing combo they like. You could add any protein really (boiled eggs, chicken, ham, tuna, other leftover meats).

I make pasta salads of different varieties with leftovers all the time. My kids love them. My fav is greek dressing, cold pasta, feta, tomato, cucumber, olives, whatever protein I'm
feeling. DS loves cold pasta, ham, cheddar cheese, tomatoes, and a little ranch dressing. There are about a million different ways you can do it.

Littlejen22 · October 2013

I should add I always send two fruits and a snack too. And he said he wants the yogurt every day so i just need to substitute the sandwich sometimes. I don't worry so much about variety, my kids are not the worlds best eaters but for lunch I just want to get a fairly healthy lunch in them and that will work best if they enjoy it. The other day I sent carrots with ranch and he liked that, I might have to try cucumbers again but r did not like that last time, not sure if they got soggy.

Today he had low fat/low sodium american cheese on rye, squeeze Greek yogurt, pomegranate seeds and grapes with a small container or potato cheese rings.

CFjo2010 · October 2013

Wahoo said:

Have you thought about making a wrap instead of a sandwhich? Or you can purchase sandwhich cut-outs so the sandwhiches are in funky shapes (dinosaur, car).

I make wraps for DD and K. They love them and it's a nice switch from regular sandwiches.

Today for DD was a chicken and bacon wrap (cut up chicken breast, bacon, lettuce, avocado, pepperjack cheese and mustard), Gogurt, orange slices, s'mores granola bar, trailmix, hard boiled egg and chocolate milk. I know that sounds like a lot, DD eats some of that for a snack... A hugely popular "sandwich" at our house is the pancake sandwich. I make unsweetened pancakes (lots of almond flour and flaxseed, no sugar) and put peanut butter or almond butter and jelly on it. It's almost like having breakfast for lunch. My son likes those with an egg and bacon.

I second the sandwich cutouts. The girls are older now so they don't care as much, but when K was in Kindergarten I used them quite a bit. She got excited for them. Another thing that helped with the "lunch battle" was to ask the girls to help me pick out stuff at the grocery store and help pack their lunches. Obviously there were some items they wanted that I vetoed (I am not letting the girls take cheescake to school), but listening to what they wanted made it a lot easier to plan for them.

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