To not prepare lunch for my dc

[madnessitellyou]

I of course will feed them...

I’ve had an entire week of them moaning my lunches are not acceptable. They are ridiculously fussy: dc1 apparently only likes tomato soup; dc2 apparently only likes cheese on toast. I’m sick of making two lunches. To not have to make three, I end up having the same as one of them, which invariably isn’t what I want but of course i suck it up because, well, practice what I preach, innit.

I’ve offered them a ‘treat’ lunch as it’s Friday and I’m back in work next week but apparently that’s not acceptable either. Dc1 wants McDonald’s instead but dc2 doesn’t. I cannot be bothered to go to McDonald’s especially when there is food in the house.

I could actually scream. They are nearly 12 and nearly 9. The older one is capable of making their own and has done previously but is refusing to.

But if the kids can make a cake then why have you been making them their lunches every day instead of them doing it themselves?

On the children eating what they're given and only being fussy if allowed to be / not letting themselves starve though, I thought that when I only had dc1 and dc2.

Then I had dc3 who will sit quietly at the table and join in with conversation without eating a single thing, three meals in a row without anything in between if the meals are things he doesn't like, and who went through two years of school meals without once eating anything at all, and survived on apples taken for snack time, supplimented in the autumn by more apples he climbed trees in the school garden to pick and eat. So the smug "my child isn't fussy because I'm such a great no nonsense parent" posters are not as right as they think they are. You can of course create fussiness but"eat it or go without" doesn't make children with sensory issues behind the fussyness eat whatever's put in front of them - there are children who simply won't eat.

With dc3 I take an in between approach - I cook one family meal but will always provide porridge as an alternative. Can't offer bread as an alternative because he would choose bread before everything else and only ever eat bread, but porridge he doesn't love but doesn't have issues with, so it works as an alternative. Plus whichever out of lunch and dinner isn't being cooked as a family meal he prepares for himself - usually a sandwich/ toasted sandwich/ toast.

Ain't nothin wrong with a pot of gruel.

I stopped making lunches in the holidays a few years ago. The kids don't even eat lunch at the same time. For years I cooked for three kids, cleaned up then almost immediately started cooking for dh and I. Now I cook once, sometimes different things but it's better. That's not every night that we all eat the same thing together but generally we eat altogether. Quite often I make lots of things and then everyone can take what they want, like a hot buffet or random things to go with a more usual main meal. Saturday lunch is nearly always a lovely hot buffet and Sunday lunch is a roast.

All very well saying make stuff and they can eat it or not but when it's not that is food wasted.

No sympathy here! make a meal, put it on the table and say 'this is lunch, tke it or leave it, but ther will be nothing else until the next meal'.

you are in charge not your brats! why on earth would you make seearat meals?