Packed lunches… first time

[Goostacean]

DS starts school in September and will need a daily snack and packed lunch. Any tips and tricks?

I used to have a super-boring lunch (sandwich, yoghurt, apple) when I was a child and I’d love to do something a bit more interesting. But I’m also realistic about the value-add vs the time spent doing it! Loving those cute bento-box style options I see online…

Anyone?

Have a look on Instagram for food inspiration. I'm in Australia where a pack lunch is the norm and bento boxes are really popular.

This account has some good ideas.
instagram.com/schoollunchbox

It really depends on what your little one likes to eat, I use a Bento box for my 5 year old and he likes to take pancakes, pasta, a wrap or crackers with creamy soya spread as his main food - I rotate throughout the week. I then add, a fruit smoothie and a rotating mix of grapes, cucumber and carrots, boiled egg, soreen loaf, raisins, fruit drops, a yo-yo that kind of thing.

For his morning snack he has soya milk and a choice of fruit (fruit provided by school) and I send him in with a small tub of raspberry rice cakes in case he doesn't like that days fruit offering.

Well start with what your child likes to eat!
You probably won't be allowed to pack anything containing nuts, most schools are nut free zones. A cold drink or yoghurt is good to keep the rest of the lunch cool.

I work in a school, we see a fair few unsuitable lunches, on both sides of the coin. Cold McDonalds, a lunch made purely of crisps, sweets and chocolate, or one lone fish finger. Also the beautifully designed bento boxes with salad, sushi etc that the child doesn't actually eat so we end up giving them a sandwich from the school kitchen.

Not the point of the thread but is there no hot lunch provision? All children in early years and ks1 are entitled to free school meals

If he’s starting reception he will get free school meals for the first 3 years of school - you don’t need to worry about packed lunches until year 3!

Anyhow, mine have super boring packed lunch - nothing wrong with a sandwich, crisps, yoghurt and an apple!

My son gets free school meals but they aren't great. He tends to have school meals twice a week (on the days they have something he likes) and packed lunches the rest of the week. It really just depends on what your child likes to eat and if they have any dietary requirements.

No dietary requirements at all, and he needs the packed lunch- food is not provided. Hence the post!

Great tips, thanks. I was looking at some ideas on Instagram but can’t see all that chopping and colour-coding into mini boxes being conducive to family life and full time work…! It’s a new era so guess I’ll just have to sit down and come up with some lists to pick and choose from, to keep it vaguely interesting and healthy without losing my mind.

I use the Bento boxes but nothing like Instagram.
Sandwich with cheese or ham
Scone
Soda bread
Apple or banana or berries
Pot of sugar free jelly or baby bel

My older child wants hummus and crackers and falafel etc. or mozarrela in a wrap etc.

Sometimes i put in pretzels or yoghurt rice cakes/ breadsticks

My 3 Dc have a Sistema Bento
box with foods they like. The family provision in rugs/ks1 at our school is poor. It’s bought in as no kitchen and not the best. I have tried it as help out at school on occasions.

I usually do a sandwich thin or wrap with fillings, tuna, cheese, cream cheese, ham, chicken, peanut butterI also do pasta salad or couscous salad, scone or savoury muffin with cheese cubes or sausage/ salami roast chicken pieces. Veg/salad tray which maybe baby tomatoes, cucumber, celery, pepper, olives, carrot or cornichons. Fruit. Apple/grapes/melon/berries whatever is available. Homemade cake/muffin/flapjack. I vary it with custard/jelly or yoghurt with the fruit. Popcorn/nuts/crackers some days. Snack pot for days if at after school club would be fruit, popcorn, muffin, oatcake & cheese, crisps. School not currently but free so that helps. I try and get a balance and cater for their varying likes & dislikes. I don’t do instagram but try and put in what they eat, like and occasionally something to try. I oddly enjoy doing their lunches, especially when I get positive feedback.

Having helped out at the preschool graduation trip out the big thing I'd say is make sure he can get the lids off whatever boxes you buy. So many of them couldn't manage the lids if they were too complicated and we had a instance of grapes flying across the picnic area as the child tried to open the box.

Easy to open (see above!) is the main thing, and sustainable for you if you need to do it every day for the next eleventy million years (spoiler: that’s how it feels by about the second week).

We have a sistema box with little compartments. Usually sandwich in triangles or little rectangles, cucumber, chopped tomatoes/sweetcorn/baby corn/Tenderstem broccoli if we have it, maybe a piece of cheese, then a satsuma in another compartment (+berries if in season, or melon, or whatever else), and then malt loaf, biscuit, whatever other treats in the other. And I sometimes write or draw a little message on the box for her, which we both like. Variations on a theme, basically. Or if we eat something that makes easy leftovers then she may take that.

Mine alternate between sandwich /wrap/roll and cold pasta salad.
with a yogurt, piece of fruit and a penguin bar or similar.

Great, thanks! Some good ideas, will have to go and get a lunchbox soon…