Packed lunches - am I the boring mean mum?

[rumpleteaserspaws]

I hate doing packed lunches with a passion and am dreading doing them daily when the DCs return to school!
My DC's have had a few days at holiday club over the past three weeks, and I've had to do their lunches for that. They have been complaining (albeit nicely ) about them having a "healthy" lunch, because their HC friends have nicer (so read more sugary) stuff in theirs.

So, I'll tell you the contents and you can tell me if I'm boring;

Sandwich of choice, usually tuna or egg mayo, or cheese w/ tomato or cucumber.

Veg pot - carrot, cucumber, tomatoes.

Piece of fruit, sometimes two.

Squeezy yoghurt of some kind.

A treat type item, either crisps, a club-type of biscuit, mini Soreen loaf.

To me that seems like a perfectly normal packed lunch, mainly healthy but with a bit of fun stuff. We are not a mega healthy household in that they get sweet stuff more often than I'd really like. They certainly aren't deprived of anything. This type of packed lunch is what they'll be getting daily when they return to school, but I can already envisage the complaints I'm going to get, argh!

My DD wont eat sandwich fillings so has a mini wrap or crackers with butter on.

Then a yoghurt tube, fruit, veg and a packet of crisps or popcorn.

I'd personally lose the treat. I don't see how fruit and veg aren't treat enough as it is.
This is why children need adults, because of course they want chocolate, crisps, cake, soda and pizza in their lunch, but as adults we have to make sure they eat nutritious food and not empty calories that cause them to gain weight.
Let her complain 🤷‍♀️ you know better

That’s pretty standard at the school that I work at. Don’t give in. I only gave my two crisps on Friday, always whole meal bread or roll or pitta. Now older teens and they are grateful and eat really healthily. You’re setting habits for life.

Almost lunch identical to what I give my DC though I don’t have crisps in the house - I can’t understand British people’s obsession with the salty deep fried nastiness with no nutritional value!

Our packed Lunches are similar but we also add crisps.

However for things like holiday club / trips out etc we usually make it more of a treat lunch.

E.g. their favourite wrap / sandwich and maybe instead of treat bar we may include a fav chocolate or cake

Sounds like exactly the kind of lunch I’d do for my DC, they prefer wraps or pita bread. Sometimes I’ll mix it up with a dairylea dunker instead of a sandwich.

Your packed lunch sounds fine and completely normal, OP.

I'm utterly baffled by anyone thinking that a packet if crisps is healthier than fruit. A processed, salty snack food instead of a totally natural source of vitamins and fibre? That is properly bonkers.

Pretty much the same as my ds has but he has a baby babybel with it

That's what mine have had (minus the yogurt and then either bread sticks or crisps instead).

Sometimes they'd have cake if I'd made some as a treat- could you make one of those school cakes in a tray- sponge with icing and sprinkles on top? Or I sometimes do a chocolate version with chocolate icing or a lemon version with those little orange/lemon decorations. I

My 4 year old has:
2 marmite sandwiches
Cucumber sticks
Cherry tomatos
Olives!!!
Lump of cheese
Yoghurt
Then maybe some crisps/ sweet

He wants this every bloody day- if I slightly deviate he won’t eat it! If he happens to rarely have a cooked lunch he wants his lunch box for dinner that day!

I did pretty much the same as you when my kids were at primary school. Our compromise was an extra treat on Fridays.

Similar here op
Sometimes I do pasta salad a wrap or a plain bagel instead Of a sandwich tho
I’d like to do the sandwich with 50/50 Or brown bread but my kids hate it

And how I wish I could get fruit or veg into my youngest

My kids eat nearly exactly the same as yours op (except they only ever have ham/cheese/cucumber in their sandwiches. I think it sounds fine!

@winerack19

LostInTheColonies are you in Australia? I lived there for a few years and fairy bread was still such a popular thing! If it's the same type of fairy bread as you're referring to haha. sprinkles on white bread essentially

I'm in NZ. It is served at almost every birthday party I've seen! And yes, cheap white bread with marg and sprinkles. Accompanied by lolly cake (crushed biscuits mashed up with condensed milk and some sweets - can't think of any UK sweets of equivalent texture; they are sort of like hard marshmallows - then shoved in the fridge to set, then sliced up), and god-awful bright red sausages called cheerios. I had to learn how to deal with the cheerios - managed to boil them until the skins fell off the first time I tried.

Re-create the lolly cake glory - I've just seen it suggested as a healthy lunch box idea 🤣🤣

@Heatherjayne1972 do you eat white bread at home then? Hi

Random hi

Totally normal and I find it odd how many people complain about 'the faff' of making packed lunches yet at the same time stress over what they put in them and how 'varied' they are. My DS had a ham sandwich or ham roll (two if he said he was hungry) and a banana, plus water, nearly every day for the whole of his school life and various holiday clubs over the years .... in fact at 19 that's what he still takes (makes it himself now of course) for Saturday cricket .

Mine has crackers and cheese or sandwich /wrap (usually ham and cheese), some fruit, a biscuit like a penguin or a small cake like one of those barny bear things, some peppers or tomatoes, a squeezy /drinkable yoghurt and a small packet of crisps.

I tell him he needs eat the sandwich /crackers /wrap and fruit and the rest is optional. Sometimes he finishes the lot, sometimes he only eats half his sandwich and a bit of fruit, most of the time it's somewhere in between. He picks the majority of what goes in to it and if he asks for something different he either gets it or I explain why it's not a good idea for lunch (Nutella rolls for example - not a great idea for lunch mate, I know they taste good but they'll give you lots of energy really quickly but then you'll have none by the end of school and you'll be hungry. If you have - Insert of appropriate lunch food here- it will fill you up all day and you'll feel much better. Which one would you like?

He's six, nearly seven, average height and slap bang in the middle of the healthy range for weight.

He gets given reasonably healthy food 90% of the time and treats often enough that they aren't taboo and infrequently enough that they are still actually treats. We don't have a clean plates rule and if he's full he doesn't have to finish his food but he won't get a sweet if he can't finish it (unless a very big portion).

Some of the stuff he has told me his school friends have in their lunches is pretty sad.

He eats well by stealth

My ds has cheese sandwiches and a biscuit. Your packed lunches are much more exciting. My ds likes a very boring packed lunch.

DS has a cheese sandwich, crisps, a peice of fruit and a yogurt. Every single day the same because he is fussy af!

He gets some chocolate for his play piece. Or a small bag of haribo.

Definitely ignore the person who thinks that a packet of crisps is better for them than fruit 🙄. That sounds absolutely fine and no need to put your kids at risk by giving them more junk food.

@hoppingpavlova my 16 month old eats more than that. That's nowhere near enough food.

@lilgreen
Yeah. I don’t eat bread but the kids will only eat white bread
I tried brown and the 50/50 bread but it always comes back to me and I throw it away!

Of course every single other child has a lunch box based on junk food just as every single other child has 10 times as much pocket money, and can stay up as late as they want every night...

Sounds like what I used to do. Then when they went on trips I got them choc and crisps too. (And for some reason then stressed that the helper parents would think I did that every time).