talk to me about lunch boxes: how much do your children actually eat?

[mousymouse]

PFB's first day at school.
so far had warm dinners at preschool, now packed lunch in "big school".

[HattiFattner]

big eater or not?

my ds (Y4) has a roll (cheese or ham), two pieces of fruit and a cake bar/cake/donut/3 biscuits/sweet treat.

my other ds (11) is an unfillable pit - and has two rolls.

[piprabbit]

1 round of sandwiches - ham or chicken.
1 pack of crisps.
1 piece of fruit.
1 other sweet item - might be yoghurt, dried fruit, banana bread etc.

BTW before anyone judges and says DC should not be getting crisps everyday - she doesn't, she only has packed lunch once a week in order to be able to sit with a different group of friends.

[Ragwort]

DS is 10 - has a sandwich (tuna, cheese or cheap ham), fruit (kiwi and a few grapes), pepperami (small size) and a small cake/cookie type thing ........... sometimes he tells me he swaps something for a bag of crisps !

I don't think he is a particularly big eater for a sporty 10 year old but he says he has enough to eat.

[EttiKetti]

Time is an issue with mine. They get the same and are 6 and 9 -hmm maybe I ought to alter that however...

• both get 2 slices of bread (is that a "round"? I never know!) as a sandwich with various fillings
  
• piece of fruit/carrot/baby tomatoes
  
• yoghurt or cheesestring :o
  
• sweet thing (cake or biscuit bar)
  
• small handful of tortilla chips or mini cheddar type savoury thing in a freezer bag, sometimes this is sausage rolls if I have made any
  
• drink
  

Not the most inventive or exciting, 6 year old eats it all, 9 year old normally leaves one sandwich and the fruit . They do have variety at times (tub of pasta salad/couscous salad etc) but bog standard days as above!

[mousymouse]

he is 4 and his eating changes from week to week. sometimes he eats more that his athletic dad, sometimes less than his baby sister.
today I gave him: two slices of bread with salami, 2 petit filous, a couple of blocks of cheese.
they are not allowd to bring chrisps or sweets at all. maybe I could pack some vegs, or pasta salad tomorrow...
fruit is available for self serving all day.

[NightLark]

1 round of sandwiches (marmite, almost always)
1 or 2 pieces of fruit
biscuit or other 'sweet treat' (cake, flapjack etc)
petit filou or cheese portion

DS(5) could eat this twice over and needs feeding the fruit and sandwiches part all over again at 3.15 when collected, then has tea around 5...

DD(2) who is at nursery would eat half the sandwiches, nibble the fruit, devour the yogurt and sweet stuff...

[WhereDidAllThePuffinsGo]

Mine leave most of what I give them, in order not to waste valuable playing time, and then finish it off on the way home from school.

The school's definition of "crisps and sweets" maybe quite flexible. Cookies and flapjacks are popular with mine (quick to eat, filling). Also dried fruit things and cereal bars.

[WhereDidAllThePuffinsGo]

Oh yes, mine have about 10 rounds of toast when they get home and then are ready for their dinner at 4:30!

[upthealdi]

Sandwich (marmite or Dairylea)
Babybel cheese
Crackers/ plain biscuit
Fruit stick/ ceral bar
Carton of fruit juice

Sometimes raisins/ dried apricots

[redskyatnight]

DD (Y1) is not a big eater and yesterday ate a 1-slice of bread sandwich and a yogurt. (which is about normal).

DS (Y3) alternates between ravenously devouring everything in sight and only eating his (2 slice of bread) sandwich as he wants to go out to play.

[TheOriginalNutcracker]

Ds (8) has today taken....

1 chcken sandwich
1 pot of grapes
1 yoghurt
1 mini yum yum

He will probably leave some of the sandwich, but i garuntee the yum yum will have gone lol

[piratecat]

dd is a pita. during yr 4 ate bugger all most days. i tired everything, bribery, threats, scaremongering, but she just had no appetite. now in yr 5 and i have insisted, and got cross.

one round of sandwiches, will leave crusts (still working on this, but it's cheaper than her leaving half a bap or roll)
cheese string or houmous dip
handful of pringles
cookie or bar of something.

doesn't eat fruit. won't touch it, but nor do I.

we have had empty lunchbox all week, so the cross mother thing is working.

[gilmoregirl]

DS (6) hardly ever eats all of his packed lunch and sometimes eats next to nothing. Presume because they get limited time to eat then have to leave dining hall to let next lot in (staggered lunch break). He often tells me that he was told to move on before he could finish I give him:

2 small sandwiches (1 slice of bread)
Little pot of fruit (grapes, apples, satsuma, strawberries etc)
Cheese mini thing - babybel or dairylea
yogurt (he will eat tubes but not pots - presume as require less effort and are more fun!)
slice of malt loaf / cereal bar

He usually takes a couple of bites out of sandwiches, eats yogurts it of tube variety and the rest is left, which he will finish up on way home from after school club at 6pm just before tea time.....

[MissPB]

DD (5 and in Year1) takes either - 2 cream crackers, bread or wrap (small slice only!) with ham or chicken. She usually just eats the bread and leaves the meat.

Plus this week has had grapes, chopped up cherry toms, couple of dried apricots and either home made flapjack filled with fruit or a home made apple muffin. this stuff usually goes, it is the bread/wrap bit that is hit and miss! Sometimes I pop in a few hula hoops wrapped in clingfilm as a extra treat.

[apple99]

Dd is 4 nd just started reception this week, she has been taking;

1 mini sub roll or 2 slices of bread filled with ham/cheese or chicken
pot of fruit (this week has been either strawberries and raspberries or grapes
carton of fruit juice
yoghurt or mini rice pudding
1 malted milk biscuit

Lunchbag has come home empty everyday so far.

[CointreauVersial]

DDs (10 and 8) have:

Filled wholemeal roll (ham or cheese)
Fruit (satsuma, strawberries or grapes usually)
Savoury item, such as mini sausage roll or babybel
Crisps or crackers (sometimes)
Sweet item (shortbread, fig roll, sometimes a petit filou)

Lunchbox pretty much always comes back empty, apart from the odd rejected grape ("it was all squishy!"), although DD2 will sometimes give up half way through her roll if it's a big one.

[toomuchmonthatendofthemoney]

yesterday DS (5 and a half, just started school, scottish system) had in his lunchbox:
ham sandwich (small, only one slice of bread)
oatcakes
banana
cheese cubes
2 custard cream biscuits

everything came home except half the cheese. he ate the rest as his post-school 3.30pm snack! i assume its cos he wants to go out and play!

(he did eat the healthy oaty cereal bar and big pot of grapes he had for his morning playtime snack, so at least he had something!) and had drunk most of his water bottle.

[Beamur]

DD age 4 gets:
1/2 round of sandwich (1 slice bread)
Piece of fruit
Drink
Small pot petit filous or yogurt drink
Carrot/cucumber sticks
Biscuit or cake
She is an incredibly slow eater and is usually last to finish, so I keep the portions quite small. Somthing usually comes back uneaten but she eats most of it - and always the sweet things get eaten.

[Seona1973]

my 2 (aged 4 and 7) have:
a 2 slice sandwich
a yoghurt pouch (easier than a pot and no spoon needed)
some fruit
a carton of juice
a mini bag of biscuit e.g. cookies, animal biscuits, etc

They always bring back empty lunchbags

[BoisJacques]

DS (5) gets -

A sandwich/wrap or a small tub of tuna pasta
Fruit - about 2 portions - apple/banana/cucumber sticks/pepper sticks/celery sticks etc.
2 little cheeses (not normally two though but today one was a martmite thingy, one was babybel)
Sometimes something 'crispy' - rice cakes/twiglets - depends on how much of his lunch he has been recently leaving
Sometimes something sweet - like a veinesse (sp!) whirl or a scone + jam

Sometimes he will eat all the good stuff and leave the fruit, so, I will take out the twiglets sometimes and the sweet thing and low and behold all the fruit will be eaten! (he will always get enough carbs via the wrap or bread or pasta)

[mousymouse]

thank you. this helps me a lot.
the school is quite restrictive: no crisps, no sweets, no cake, nothing with nuts or seeds (child with sever allergies in class), so most shop bought muesli bars are out.
will see over the next week how much and what he likes to eat...

[groovejet]

mouseymouse for nutfree options try bakin' boys range they do flapjacks and also harvester bars both are from nut free factories so usually what ends up in dd1s lunchbox for a treat, or if it bypasses the cake rule a slice of malt loaf.

dd1 (y2) has ham sandwich / wrap / ham & cheese crackers
cherry toms
babybel
pot of fruit (blueberries or grapes usually) / raisins
flapjack / malt loaf usually all eaten

dd2 will have similar probably 1 slice of bread for the sandwich though and cucumber instead of toms.

[dolphin84]

Sandwich, fruit and a yoghurt. Occassionally a mini pepparami or breadsticks and cheese aswell.

[notime2dance]

DD has 1/2 sandwich with just butter in, does not like anything in the sandwich, an apple, cucumber and malted milk biscuits or other sweet treat. Has never, been a big eater at lunchtime.

[rocketty]

quarter of a sandwich in 30 minutes because the little b**r spends all his time talking and very little time eating.