Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Food/recipes

For related content, visit our food content hub.

Original poster

Lunchbox dilemma for three year old. Do I stick to my guns and risk her being branded as a weirdy (I am being unashamedly PFB here)

44 replies

AdamAnt · 27/02/2008 13:41

DD has just started pre-school and her lunchbox typically contains most of the following:

Cream cheese sandwiches (brown bread)
Boiled Egg
Slices of cucumber
Cherry tomatoes
Dried apricots or fresh fruit
A couple of drop scones (home made)
Milk

I've been having lunch with her to settle her in, and have noticed that I am surrounded by a sea of white ham sandwiches, crisps, cheese strings and Penguin bars.

(Yes yes, I can hear you all sniggering at my naive lunch box snobbery.)

I'm kind of worried that DD's lunch is going to mark her out as a weirdy. I seem to remember similar excruciations from my childhood. I was never allowed to wear white socks, for example, and my navy socks and sensible sandals earned me the scorn of my classmates.

I want her to fit in, but I don't want her to eat food that I wouldn't normally buy. What would you do?

OP posts:
MamaG · 27/02/2008 14:12

Stick to your guns. Before long she'll be swapping her home made drop scones for her mate's penguin

throckenholt · 27/02/2008 14:13

well in that case- if egg is what she eats then egg is what she gets

MamaG · 27/02/2008 14:13

chopster, will you make my lunch please?

Original poster
AdamAnt · 27/02/2008 14:16

God Chopster - your lunches sound divine!!

OP posts:
chopster · 27/02/2008 14:39

dd did have the healthiest pack lunch in her year during healthy eating week.

Seriously though, I make them up for all of us the day before and I get bored of sarnies.

SlackSally · 27/02/2008 18:36

Oooh, I'd be a little dubious about the boiled egg smell myself. Mostly due to horrible memories of my mother constantly putting them in my lunchbox while I was a school and getting teased about the smell.

That said, she was in no way a health freak. To my memory, my lunchbox for years consisted of a one slice marmite sandwich, crisps, a mini mars bar and blackcurrant squash.

Eugh.

ecoworrier · 27/02/2008 20:00

Stick to your guns, that's not weird at all. Don't sink to the lowest common denominator!

At our playgroup, if say 15 children stay for lunch, at least 11 of them will have crisps and chocolate and white bread - and they will have similar every single time they stay for lunch, not just as a one-off. One child regularly has crisps and 2-3 chocolate bars. And these are whole bags of crisps, not just a few in a pot - so by the time a 2 or 3 year old has eaten a bag of crisps, or most of them, plus whatever chocolate they've got, they're not going to touch much of the sandwich or fruit.

There are however a few children who have what I call balanced meals, not boring just not full of junk, and they never seem bothered by their lack of junk, but munch away quite happily on what they've got.

My 3 children are aged 14-10, and they still get crisps once a week maximum in their packed lunches (often it's not at all because I don't think of buying crisps!), and don't feel deprived in any way. In fact my eldest's friends beg for her home-made goodies!

VeniVidiVickiQV · 27/02/2008 20:08

Oh ffs! Why have I never thought of putting a boiled egg in DD's lunchbox?? She farking loves them

She'd love brie and grape too - thanks pedilia!

oh, banana sandwiches......mmmmm (if I can get her off of tortilla wraps!)

BreeVanDerCampLGJ · 27/02/2008 20:18

My DS (6.5) does school lunches, however on a Tuesday he does cross country at lunch time, so he needs a packed lunch.

He loves wholemeal bread with extra mature cheddar, and a scraping of sugar free raspberry jam.

The first time he had it, he was ribbed mercilessly. He came home and told me and I felt sad for him, I asked him what he did.

He said I waited until they had finished and then asked if anyone had ever tried it. ?

Emily said no I haven't, I shouldn't be so rude should I.

Thats my boy.

He wants to know if he can have octopus in his lunch box next week....... I can hear the jeers now.

perpetualworrier · 27/02/2008 20:59

Like everything, you have to get over worrying about what others think and do what you think is right.

About a year into Ds1's school life he came home and told me "X has crisps for his lunch everyday...." Here we go I thought, pressure to give him what he friends are having "...his Mummy doesn't know about healthy food" he continued.

Not sure it'll make me popular, but I did get to feel like supermum briefly and I'll take that where I can find it

I used to take a raw carrot (whole big one) in my lunch box everyday, as I didn't eat the fruit Mum packed for me. My bf from school still laughs about it now, but we're still friends and I still love raw carrot.

Original poster
AdamAnt · 27/02/2008 21:01

lol at octopus I asked DD what she wanted today and she said 'I want you in my lunchbox Mummy'. I think the boiled egg was a very close 2nd best though

OP posts:
VeniVidiVickiQV · 27/02/2008 21:28

AA, she's not kidding about the octopus you know

BreeVanDerCampLGJ · 27/02/2008 21:36

LOL

I was waiting for either you or anyone from the CSWS picnic in her garden thread to appear.

Original poster
AdamAnt · 27/02/2008 21:40

Well I'm sure it's delegtable and will make an exsquidsit addition to any lunchbox.

baboom tish

OP posts:
FairyMum · 27/02/2008 21:44

Stick to your guns! Its crisps and chocolate in lunchbox which is weird. So everyone else is weird

PotPourri · 27/02/2008 21:47

Oh wow. This didn't even occur to me about DD who has also just started nursery, aged 3. The nursery teacher talked loads about healthy snacks etc that I was stressing about it not being healthy enough, so don't send many treats. Stick to what you usually eat, she is still too young to know what the other things are. And let's face it, if you are not used to eating cheese strings, they look (and taste) mingin!

Must admit, the 'healthy snacks' are a bit weird- DD tells me that she gets weetabix and muesli for her snack. I don't give her either of those 2 on nursery days now, just in case. So I guess that is them making sure the kids are exposed to normal breakfast cereal instead of sugar coated crap only. I'll join you in the 'weirdy' child corner then...

FrayedKnot · 27/02/2008 21:50

ROFL at navy socks.

My Mum said we had to wear them because we looked "French"...wtf?!

I still remember desperately coveting those knee length white nylon socks with a little picture of e.g. Snow White or some other Disney motif on them.

I would carry on regardless if I were you. If DS would actually eat any raw veg he would have it, as it is, he generally has sandwiches (brown bread, usually ham or cheese), fruit, yoghurt. Sometimes piece of homemade cake, biscuit or slice of pizza.

I don't care about when he starts school, he isn;t going to eat crisps every day.

Original poster
AdamAnt · 27/02/2008 21:54

FrayedKnot - OMG My Mum said the same thing about looking French.

OP posts:
FrayedKnot · 27/02/2008 22:00

Do I know you Adam?

You're not my sister are you?!

New posts on this thread. Refresh page