Anyone else totally burnt out on packed lunches?

[SouthernRev]

I’ve only just started term and I already can’t face doing another packed lunch. I try to make them healthy-ish but I’m bored of the same ideas and they often come back untouched. Anyone cracked this? Or is everyone secretly winging it?

Flask with pasta and sauce kept warm?

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

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.

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.

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 🤣🤣

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

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!

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'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 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.

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 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?

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.

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?

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

I do not have time to make packed lunches and it’s not up to you to judge whether that is a “poor excuse” or not.

Shock- other people’s lives are different to yours.

I also have something on iPad when I’m in the kitchen.

I use Bluetooth headphones as well as I can hear it even if I’m using something noisy or need to go and get something.

Not sure it completely changed the drudge of packed lunches but I’ve always pre prepared (whilst catching up on something!)

Tubs of prepared salad bits.
tubs if prepared fillings.
Box with crisps in
box of snack stuff.

always brought bread, wraps and rolls and froze them. So night before ask ds what he wanted, take out the bread he wanted, fill in morning and grab extras from box.

I often joked I felt like I worked in subway filling wraps etc from pre prepared boxes!

DS is now 20 and I still do clip lock boxes at the weekend ready for us during the week!!!

Oh god you’re right, picnic season aargh! I hate the picnics where everyone brings their own and my poor DC get picnic envy when they have my rubbish offerings and other kids have amazing ones. I don’t have time or headspace to be a wonderful picnic creator. DH is a lot better at it than me luckily. Picnic making- One of the few real negatives of summer. Along with sun creaming kids constantly.

No i dont feel bad in the least, they'll live

The day I gave in an "let" them have school meals was life changing!

Does anyone remember this poem, it was in a book I had as a kid and went something like this:

Poor Simon Benn
Poor Simon Benn
His sandwiches are frozen again

Mrs Benn please
Not steel-hard cheese
At zero degrees

There was more but that's all I remember

I did a dance when the healthy one left school. The other one then swiftly won his battle to have salami wraps every single day. He leaves in the summer and it can't come quickly enough. Scarred for life.

It's not up to you to tell me whether to judge or not. I do, and I will continue to judge, any parent who says they do not have the time to feed their children an adequate diet. Priorities and all that.

Children can have an adequate diet without packed lunches. My DC have a great diet which includes healthy and enjoyable school lunches. Mind your own business.

You're not taking into consideration children with eating disorders. I would happily pack up a super healthy lunch. It would come home from school uneaten. My DC is in the starve rather than eat something he doesn't want category.

Any food is better than no food, in those circumstances. Although he won't even eat most UPF or junk foods either so even that is hard.

Lol