Anyone else totally burnt out on packed lunches?

Tuna mayo sandwich, crisps, homemade cookie or a biscuit bar, small yoghurt, fruit

occasionally the tuna sandwich is changed to chicken pieces, noodles in a thermos, or ham and cheese crackers

mostly gets eaten and gets finished as after school snack

It won't remove all of the grind, but lots of drier sandwiches (ie no lettuce/tomato type things) freeze really well, so can make a weeks worth and just chuck in a few extra bits (yoghurt/fruit) on the day?

Chartwells here too. I always look at the full menu on the app and it's blatant crap. We get to go to school lunch once a year at his school too, and even the whizzed up, super fancy version on parent meal day is barely edible.

I am in the 'fed is best' category too now. Because my son hungry has zero ability to concentrate and his behaviour will be all over the place, certainly not able to engage in active learning.

I had pondered this. I'm not sure he'd eat it though. But I guess it would be worth a try at least once. Do you cook them in the morning? Because how palatable would a jacket potato be, cooked 15 hours before eating?

School dinners here and packed lunches only as a very ocasional treat (once per half term unless needed for a trip). I don’t even check the menu, they choose in school (usually jacket potato). And guess what, super fussy child actually eats in school (or so they tell me…). Stress free lunches, yay! I have enough with all the other meals at home.

I make an egg mayo sandwich (I do enough egg mayo for three days) or a pastrami and cream cheese sandwich and a piece of fruit with a carton of juice. The fruit he gives away to his mate. If he has a longer day I add some yoghurt raisins.
I feel some of these lunches are just A Lot. I am NOT the MN food police and am pretty fat but kids having a wrap and crisps and veg sticks and fruit and yoghurt and a babybel and salami etc etc….. what child eats all that? Don’t most adults just have a sandwich and a piece of fruit for lunch?
DS takes three bites out of each half his sandwich, drinks his juice, gives his orange to his friend and is out playing roughly 3 minutes after sitting down. Packed lunch takes two minutes to make the night before.
Despite this it is indeed the absolute worst chore. I’d rather cook a three course meal every night than make a packed lunch.

I'm in my 10th year of making packed lunches for my DDs, they're perfectly capable of making their own, but I'm so used to it now it's going to feel a bit weird when I don't need to any more!

My DDs are fairly straightforward, in that they want the same thing each day, but may change something each term or so. I make them the night before and the sandwiches go in the fridge, the rest is in the lunchbox ready to go.

DD1 has a mature cheddar bagel, cheese and onion crisps and a Bueno.
DD2 has roast chicken, lettuce and mayo on seeded granary bread, a "snack pack" of Ritz crackers, an apple or satsuma and one stick of Bueno.

I'm always at a loss what to make. Usually DS1 wants something protein-y like a salad with lots of chicken and avocado etc which is very nice but a bit time consuming. Or Turkish Pasta. But I'd rather that than DS2's request for things like warmed up macaroni cheese in a flask.

I do the packed lunches while I prepare dinner. Takes me about ninety seconds - bottle of water, a cream cheese and ham wrap or roll in a sandwich box, handful of popcorn in a tub and an apple or banana. Put the fridge items into the lunch bag with an ice block in the morning and it’s done. My kids have no interest in variety and don’t want to eat a lot at lunchtime anyway so flasks or lots of different items is not needed.

I am totally over the cleaning the boxes afterwards though!

Jkt potatoes work in a flask, I send butter (and any other toppings) separately to be added at lunchtime.

I hate making them with a passion, but 2 SEN kids who can't cope with the unpredictability of school dinner has forced me.

My routine...

• do it the evening before and put it in the fridge.
• make a varied batch of rolls (cheese, homemade tikka chicken, homemade coronation chicken etc) Put them in small labelled paper bags.
• batch make "healthy" snacks (see Little Lou Cooks on Insta) Freezer these.
• Get the Sistema lunchboxes with sectiosn so no faffing with different pots.
• Have things easy to hand (pre made rolls and snacks from freezer, fruit e.g easy peelers / apples, fill a section with salad / crudités, add in a bag of crisps as a treat)

I don't mean to sound as it's perfect or saintly - but reducing the sugar / UPFs has a big impact on behaviour. Every couple of weeks I batch make and top up the freezer. Then sometimes do a leftover pasta or rice in a thermos.

Quite proud that it only takes me about 10 mins every evening to do now and I feel less ragey about it all 🤣🤣

This. Just pack whichever sandwiches they like best with a few nibbly things they’ll definitely eat: yoghurt, cheese, breadsticks and dip etc. Don’t worry about fruit and veg if they won’t eat it, or just pack the same fruit they will definitely eat every day. Don’t worry about variety. It’s one meal out of their day, it doesn’t matter.

Do not waste time, energy, and money on this.

At home, put your efforts into increasing all the good stuff in their diet. Carry on serving healthy food and modelling good eating while also bulking food up with extra fruit and veg: homemade pasta sauces full of veg, homemade fruit smoothies, fruit in porridge/yoghurt, etc etc.

We all had the same cheese or peanut butter sandwich with a yoghurt and an apple on rotation all through school and we’re fine.

Packed lunches were the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. Now we are 100% school dinners, no arguments. They get fed, I remain sane, everyone’s a winner.

Flask with pasta and sauce kept warm?

(Cough: remember to give cherubs a fork to eat with!)

I hate making the lunch so much. I never used to eat my lunch at school, I used to get meatpaste sandwiches every day and it was made with no regard to whether I actually wanted to eat it or not. I usually had to make it myself as well.
As a result, I try and vary my child's lunch and make sure it is something they will like and eat. I feel like the little bit of effort shows I care. But I am so tired of doing it every day.

Why do you do it? I never ever found have sustained it personally. Is there a specific reason??

Oh I feel your pain. So glad it’s not just me. Boring thankless task.

i tell my two kids that they can have 2 packed lunches a week. However I also do a packed tea for them the one night a week that my mum picks them up and takes them to an activity, because they are back late and there isn’t time to cook. So 6 packed lunches a week. It’s coming up to summer aka picnic season too so I’ll soon be doing more for the weekends too. Kill me. I need to do 2 for tomorrow but it’ll have to wait till the morning now.

I’ve even bought an extra lunch box so I can do 2 at once if they have packed lunch 2 days in a row.

My DS has mostly school dinners but the ones I know he will not eat, I let him have a packed lunch. I say let him because his packed lunches are so bad🤦‍♀️he has a butter sandwich (he only likes that or Nutella but obviously can’t have Nutella), a choc chip cake, popcorn and some mini choc fingers. He will not eat yoghurts, fruit, cheese, raw veg. He eats a good amount of veg at home for tea so I don’t worry too much but I do wonder what the school think of his packed lunches😂

Definitely a better option. Either swap to hot dinners or make the packed lunches more tempting. It doesn’t have to be this hard.
i wouldn’t have eaten a very healthy lunch as a kid either

But you said they don’t eat whatever the healthier option you put in is so is a school dinner better than them being underfed?

I actually enjoy making my son's packed lunch! I always add a surprise and he excitedly tells me what it was each day (he's only 4). It was some of his Easter chocolate today.

I'm sure it's nice but the thought of hot food, other than soup, in a flask, makes my stomach turn a bit. Sloppy wet pasta in a metal tube?! I know this is totally a me thing but I can't get past it!

I eat exactly the same lunch every day. Makes life easier! It's very healthy and tasty and tbh what more do you need, I also have exactly the same breakfast. Go mad and have a different supper though 😂

I quite enjoy doing packed lunches, but it definitely helps that my kids aren't fussy eaters. Sometimes they get leftovers from dinner in some capacity (chicken sandwich from leftover roasted chicken, for instance). Other times I just make a big portion of roasted chicken breasts, chicken kebabs, pesto to toss leftover pasta in, etc.

We do the same and alternate packed lunches and school dinners but only because he has different friends he sits with on those days and was missing his school dinner buddy.
I did start off doing 5 packed lunches a week but it was killer and he started being fussy with them (put loads of effort in), now he's more interested.

What's a lunch pail? Is it a new thing?