Has packed lunch and eats NOTHING all day- help!

[Empress]

My daughter has started taking a packed lunch to school for the first time (she's 4.5). She's bringing home the complete thing untouched every day so I know she's having no food all day. I give her her favourite things that I know she likes, I've asked her what she wants & done what she asked (e.g. v small sandwiches, cut into shapes etc)and it comes back uneaten. She's come home pale & tired every day, not surprising if she hasn't eaten! Has this happened to anyone else and if so what did you do to get your child to eat?

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I used to (and still do on bad weeks) make things out of bread and cold meat - dd won't eat them together - I would use kitchen scissors and cut the ham or chicken or whatever into amazing shapes - a house with flowers in the garden, a penquin, a boat with seagulls flying above, a pony and rider, a lady with shopping basket - and do the same with the bread. She was fascinated and always ate them!

My dd is like that at times, Empress. She rarely eats breakfast, either, and it is a worry. One thing to check is that your dd can open the box or wrapping her lunch is in. My dd is 7 and has only just learnt how to open her juice!!

I think I would speak to someone at the school as your dd is very small to be completely independent at a meal time. Is she supervised at lunch? Do you think she is too busy playing with friends? Do they have a snack time, when she might eat something? All these things are worth a try, as well as the tempting tidbits idea....Dahlia, I'm impressed with your artistic skills, wish I could do that!

My dd has had packed lunches for the last term and a half, she's 5 in reception. Firstly, the dinner ladies have a policy whereby the "pack lunchers" have to eat some of their sandwiches first. But what works with us is that, in order to get a "treat" on Fri, she has to ear 3/4 of her sandwiches and her fruit Mon-Thurs and then she can have a choccy biscuit or half a pack of crisps on Fri.

Check with her teacher though as she can pass it on to the dinner ladies to encourage her. The other thing, is check out how much time they get to eat. In my dd1s school they don't get long and I cut down the amount I gave her as she just couldn't manage it, hence half a pack of crisps. A whole pack would just take too long. Goodness knows how my dd2 will cope next year as she is an amazingly slow eater.......

Anyway, good luck. HTH.

We've had similar problems as ds is a really slow eater and easily distracted. It helped to reduce the amount we gave him temporarily and also give a bit more variety ie. left over pasta or rice turned into a small salad, especially on days when he has more activity such as swimming. However, have to say that although fewer we still have days when he comes home overtired, grumpy and hungry because he has eaten so little.

Next year I have discovered that he will only get 20 mins to eat before being turned out to play (school eats in shifts) so I anticipate we will have the same problem again.

One little girl I know did the same and her mother, on speaking to her discovered that another girl had been encouraging others to say that her lunch was "stinky" so she would not eat it. A word with the teacher seemed to resolve that so perhaps that would be a route for you. Also ds was reluctant to ask for help opening things such as yoghurt and banana.

good luck

If she's in the care of the school during the day, surely they should be keeping an eye on her? Have a word with her teacher or the welfare assistant, do they still have those these days?

I've had the same thing problem for months now and discovered the others eating were putting my dd off eating not that dd is the neatiest eater anyway so now trying to let dd get over it in her own time though do worry as hardly anything gets eaten at lunchtime even though there is extremely little in her lunchbox. I have to have dinner ready as soon as we get home as she is starving by then but as it's been this way for months and I've tried everything can't put anymore pressure on her as I don't want it to turn into a major problem. Hoping the phase will pass... sooner rather than later!

Thanks to all of you for your tips & advice. I'm going to ring the school on Tuesday to ask how much supervision they get. I know when she was on hot dinners she used to moan about the dinner ladies not letting her go out to play until she'd eaten something (which of course pleased me very much!),so they must have a similar policy with the packed lunchers. I've also told my daughter that it makes me a bit worried when she doesn't eat all day, so she must try and eat up her little sandwiches or she'll need to go back on dinners. I'll also reduce the amounts I give her, in line with lots of your advice here & keep on with the silly shapes (crazy isn't it the lengths you have to go to!! )

I'e been having the same problem with my sd's - packed lunches coming home uneaten when we pick them up from school on a friday, I have told them unless they start coming home with an empty (or more or less) box I will get either their mummy or daddy to phone the school and say they can't go out to play until lunch is eaten.

The eldest (9) has said she doesn't eat it all as her friends eat faster and she will be left out if she doesn't go out to play at the same time. I think the school should say half an hour for eating lunch and half an hour for playing.

Empress - as Suedonim says, are you sure she can open the box etc. Before dd started school we used to go out for picnics - hers in her lunchbox and there were several things she struggled to open without help (yogurts, babybel, some crisps, her first choice lunchbox)I used to empty her yogurt into a little Tupperware snack cup, her babybel cheese used to be wrapped in foil etc. etc. an bought her a lunchbag with a velcro fastener.
Also, I started getting her to make some things for her lunchbox at the weekend - a quick, easy, high energy favourite are flapjacks - she loves them and even more so when she has made them herself.

Hi Empress
Is there a dinner lady supervising those with packed lunches. Schools do usually have someone helping the infants open theier sandwhiches and drinks.Ask the school to keep an eye on your daughter.
My dd is 11 and still has trouble opening some of her stuff. She has dyspraxia so can't manage tightly wrapped bicuits and sometimes has troble peeling an orange. There is a superviser in with the juniors and she will help her. I sometimes start the biscuit for her by tearing the wrapper slightly before I put it in her lunch, this means she can open it easily.Also she has a drink bottle with a pull up lid so can manage that herself

Hi Empress, sorry to hear that, must be really worrying for you. I can't offer any advice as such but I was exactly the same as your little girl when i was at school. I just hated the taste of anything that had been in a plastic container all day, was all squisshed into clingfilm and it all had a smell tfrom being in a tupperwar box that made me want to throw up. my mum threatened to put me on hot dinners but I begged and begged her not to. So she woudn't know what I was doing I'd stuff the sandwiches, wrapped in clingfilm, into my pockets and chuck them uner those little classroom on stilts(!) after school, and then the school got a rat problem so I'd wait till I was on my own and chuck them in the gutter on the way home. I ate fine at home and at weekends it was just packed lunches I hated but I was a healthy and happy child who turned into a slim teenager. I now need to lose at least a stone and a half! Sorry, i know I haven't helped but just wanted you to know I was the same and turned out OK!!!!

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