Post nursery meals

[Bananacentral]

2 year old DS goes to nursery 3 full days a week. They give him breakfast, lunch and a late snack (3.30pm). Some days the snack is basically a full hot meal, some days it’s cheese and crackers. By the time we get home it’s only half an hour until bath and bed.
We always give him fruit and something light when he gets in, but always get a bit stuck if he needs something more with no time to make it!
I need some super quick food ideas that I can give him if the snack hasn’t been very big, that either require little prep, or that I can freeze and give him microwaved. He’s normally shattered so wouldn’t manage a full meal like his usual tea!

TIA

To be honest, I found it easier to give DC the hot meal at nursery for lunch, then whatever they had for tea there was a bonus and they'd eat packed lunch in car on way home (I took it to work with me to keep things fresh in fridge). Then I could sort proper dinner for rest of house and DC could pick at that too if wanted or could just go to bed.

I see it as a reverse dinner to what they have at school (is cooked dinner and packed lunch the other way round). Might work for you?

Sorry I didn’t say, but lunch is always hot there (roast dinner today!), so what you’ve said makes me feel a bit better that he sometimes doesn’t get a full dinner after!
Like the packed lunch idea, will try it!

I would always offer a full meal. My 2 year old (and dd before him) always had breakfast at home, two snacks and hot lunch at nursery, last snack at 3:30. Then still comes home at 5, has another snack (fruit or crackers) at 5:30 and then hot dinner at 6:30 (what we eat) and then dd would have about 250ml of milk before bed at 7:30-8. Mine would literally starve if they didn’t have another full meal.

If you eat later alone, just save leftovers from the night before or pasta or jacket potato or make batches of freezer meals.

The small tins of Heinz spag bol are good groceries.asda.com/product/spaghetti/heinz-spaghetti-bolognese/35195
Likewise for the pouches of Tilda Kids rice groceries.asda.com/product/pouches-12-m/tilda-kids-mild-curry-rice/1000007562363

What about soup and bread, egg toast, cheese on toast.

My son's routine sounds similar to yours. He's 2 and a half and does full time nursery, with his tea there around 3.30 too. He used to have a full tea with us at 6.30 but has recently stopped wanting this. Instead we make him what he likes to call at snack tray.' The contents varies, but essentially small amount of fruit, cheese or ham, veg sticks, houmous, Pitta or breadsticks. He usually eats whatever we give and it allows us to share a mealtime together at the table. He enjoys tuna quesadillas which are really quick and easy to make and I sneak extra veg in them too.

We never fed our two after nursery. They had a nutrionist reviewed menu and said that it had the full amount of calories/ nutrition for the day. Despite this they did have a snack but a full meal would clearly have been too much. Maybe ask nurses how the menus are developed and whether they are designed with parents giving an evening meal in mind?

Nursery not nurses! I'm not that pushy a parent....!

I would sometimes give a bowl of cereal, usually ReadyBrek or Branflakes if they said they wanted food.

I was going to ask them, but he’s been there over 6 months so I worry they will think ‘She’s been starving her poor kid all this time’
He still doesn’t sleep through all nights and gets up early so wondered if it might be hunger!
I’ll definitely try a couple of your ideas to see what works for him

We usually offer a full dinner after a similar schedule to yours, but I have been known to give him cereal for dinner on the days he is obviously shattered, or even sometimes a fruit smoothie with whole milk, chia seeds and a crumbled weetbix in it. He loves that!

My dc have always had a hot meal at lunch either in school or nursery so I never gave them a full meal at dinner time. Now that they're older they can say what they want. Although a full dinner is offered (as I'm cooking it) they usually want beans on toast, soup and a wrap, toastie or egg on toast. They then have banana, apple and yoghurt. They want their tea earlier than dh and I do it works well.

I batch cook risotto and freeze it in small portions. Zap in the microwave then cool it down by mixing in some cream cheese.
My DDs also eat a lot of potato waffles

We're just entering this phase so it's interesting to see what other people do.

If he is unexpectedly more hungry than usual would weetabix or something like that work? It's quick, reasonably nutritious (especially if he has a bit of fruit too) and filling.

Oh I struggle with this too. Sometimes he's absolutely starving after nursery and will clear the cupboards and eat a full dinner and other days like today he won't even eat a slice of toast. And I never know which it's going to be!

Anyway like your DC mine gets a hot meal at lunchtime. Usually I do toast and banana, pesto pasta or supernoodles. Then milk before bed. He's a fussy eater - if he wasn't I'd probably give him cheese on toast or soup and sandwich but he won't eat any of those options.

Oh and he'll usually help himself to yoghurt, fruit, nuts, breadsticks etc too.

Porridge with peanut butter, then milk at bed time. Eats as much or little as he wants and happily goes through until morning.

We have the same thing with our DS (18 months). I haven't got time to do him a full meal when we get home so I give him a little snack platter of fruit, cheese, some sort of crackers/breadsticks etc. Maybe a biscuit if I'm feeling generous 😁

I give omelette, beans on toast, pasta bake (that’s been cooked and put in freezer so takes minutes to reheat) or a little packed lunch that I’ll often have made the night before just to make life easier

My nearly 2 year old has fruit and cheese for breakfast, a second breakfast with the childminder along with 2 snacks and lunch. Then she has dinner at about 5 with the childminder and then comes home and has a second dinner at 6!! This is finished with yogurt and fruit.

She eats like a horse!

I tend to put leftovers of our dinners in pots for my daughter to have as her evening meal - spaghetti bol, chicken&rice, cottage pie, fish pie, pasta dishes etc. I blitz it in the microwave and add frozen peas to cool it down quickly - the heat quickly cooks the peas and they in turn cool down the food.

DD's nursery provides a morning snack, hot lunch, afternoon snack and then 'tea' at 4pm which varies and is sometimes hot, sometimes cold but always a light meal.

If DD says she's hungry then when we get home she has an oatcake. I think this is enough as although the food schedule runs earlier at nursery than we eat at home, it is the right amount of food. Also she drinks another 100kcal in her bedtime milk as well.

It helps that the food is really good at DD's nursery and is all cooked fresh on site from basic ingredients. The chef makes an effort to make sure its all nutritionally balanced.

With DD's old nursery, I would often give her a substantial snack at home as the nursery would think nothing of providing meals with no major source of protein in them!

My 3 year old will have a wrap or sandwich while we eat dinner. And a yoghurt. Sometimes another wrap. And some fruit. .. We are led by him and don't restrict him as long as he's eating healthily.

Something on toast like scrambled egg, or we used to freeze individual portions of cooked rice and they were very quick to defrost and make a toddler sized egg fried rice with peas and sweet corn.

I offer milk, fruit, toast or sometimes leftovers if that’s what’s in the fridge. Usually he wants something - it’s a long time for him to go from 4pm when they finish their tea through to breakfast time so it’s unusual for him not to want at least something in the evening

Knowing they'd had a hot lunch, if they needed something more than fruit, I offer toast/toastie: boiled egg & soldiers; omelette; bowl of soup or a sandwich - something really quick and not heavy.