Are your dc made to eat everything in their lunchbox?

[2sugars]

I often give dd a choice of wraps/sandwiches in her lunchbox - eg today she has a choice of ham or tuna and sweetcorn. My reasoning is (a) she may be starving and eat them both and (b) it's hard to predict in the morning what you'll fancy at lunchtime, so if she only has one because she fancies that one, fine, if she eats both because she's starving, that's fine too.

I do think it's great that her teacher monitors what the children are eating, but yesterday - she had two wraps in her lunchbox - she went on to her fruit and was apparently told by her teacher in no uncertain terms to eat the other sandwich first.

Any thoughts?

It seems a waste to give her a choice imo
What do you do with the uneaten sandwich? Throw it away?

maybe you could just tell the school that you give her a lot in case she needs it and not to force her to eat it all if she doesn't want it. I think you are doing right to allow her to regulate what she eats and choose but the school is being stupid if they are forcing her to eat everything. Even my limited knowledge of children with one dd tells me they are hungrier some days than others.

Thanks lailasmum, I might very well do that. I'm just worried that by asking that I'm basically asking her to change what she asks of the whole class. As I'm there some lunchtimes (with the reception/y1) children I do know there are some that could quite easily not touch any of their lunch without a little persuasion.

Thanks too dooley. Unless it's ham (in which case I'll take it out and give it to the dog) I do throw it away - wouldn't fancy doing much else with something that's been festering away in a lunchbox for several hours, tbh.

At our school children are encouraged to eat a decent proportion of their savoury items before moving onto sweet things. No-one is forced to eat everything.

Have to say I too wonder why you're providing a choice. I work at a playgroup where most of the children eat lunch, and the most common 'mistake' made by the parents (apart from the junk food!) is to simply put too much food in their boxes. The amount of waste is unbelievable. Some of these 3 and 4 year olds have more than my ravenous teenagers! And it actually deters them from eating as much as they would normally - some children just see a huge choice and don't know what to do! They eat better if presented with a limited number of items.

The not knowing what you fancy until lunchtime seems a bit odd to me - do you provide choices at teatime as well just in case she doesn't fancy what you've planned?

I can see you're worrying about whether her appetite is bigger one day than another, but to avoid waste you could pop in an 'extra' thing that won't be wasted. Something either wrapped or boxed (small box or tupperware container of raisins or similar) would do the trick - she could eat them if she was extra hungry that day, but if not they could be eaten at home or even the next day for lunch without you throwing sandwiches away. That just seems so wasteful.

I'm a bit puzzled by the choice too. As long as you know she likes the choice of sandwich/wrap filling then I think it's reasonable to expect her to eat it.

I agree that it's a bit wasteful to have to throw away a whole sandwich. Maybe the teacher thought that that was the only sandwich in her lunch and that she hadn't eaten it yet.

Sometimes less is more. Just do slightly bigger portions of a few foods, and she'll have enough, I'm sure.

My son isn't allowed to go out to play until he has shown his empty plate to the dinner lady. He only has school dinners 1 day a week and I don't think they check lunch boxes.