Lunch for 16 month old at childminders

[Ros2023]

Can anyone recommend food my 16 month can have for lunch at the childminders?
I’ve been making banana and strawberry or blueberry pancakes and she’ll have fruit and yoghurt with it.
I have tried her with sandwiches but she doesn’t seem keen.
what do you all send? Has to be something easy she can just take in her pack ups.
Thanks x

Would she eat humus with celery or cucumber sticks, or squares of cheese, or slices of chicken?

Fruity pancakes and fruit is quite sweet. Is that literally all she eats? She must eat other things. I’d rotate through various cold picnic things: cheese and crackers, hummus and breadsticks or toasts, sandwiches, omelette, pasta salad, soup in a flask with bread. I wouldn’t be put off just because she ‘doesn’t like it’. She’ll learn to like it when offered and that’s what there is. Pair with things like cold peas, olives, banana, berries and low sugar yoghurt.

Cold pizza. Pasta either cold or hot in a thermos. Breadsticks and veggies with houmous. Something pastry based like pinwheels. Mini quiche. Loads of possibilities. What does she like to eat for lunch at home?

Pitta pizza? A scrape of tomato puree, sprinkle of cheese, some chopped peppers and sweetcorn. Toast under grill.

Derailing the thread, but could I have your pancake recipe??

Spinach and cheddar muffins
Omlette
Quiche
Pinwheels

You can batch cook them and freeze, maybe not th omlette though.

She also takes pasta and the childminder will warm it in the microwave. She likes omelette too. But surely she can’t eat it cold? Or even re warming it seems a bit strange? I’ve tried pinwheels before and she wouldn’t touch them. She does like sausage rolls so might even make my own and see how she gets on.
ive also made her tortilla pizzas before and she wasn’t keen but might give them another try!
thank you all xxx

Wholewheat toast fingers spread with hummus, cucumber, avocado, peppers cut into batons?

Cold chopped roast chicken or salmon with pasta or pasta & tomato sauce & grated cheese?

Leftovers from dinner that can be heated up - chunky soup, spaghetti bolognese, cottage pie etc?

Rice cakes
banana bread
anything from Ella’s kitchen if you don’t mind that stuff
stuffed peppers
corn on the cob
precooked chicken
vegetable fritters
pan au chocolate

If you want to try again with sandwiches, use large cookie cutters to cut them into shapes (eg heart shape).

Also try ham cut into mini squares, either mixed into a pasta salad or separately.

You'll go into a bit of a doom spiral if you only offer sweet foods as she'll find savoury tastes unfamiliar and it'll just get worse. (I have bitter experience of this, but we managed to reverse it!)

She love vegetables and doesn’t always eat sweet things. It’s just when she’s at the childminders for the 2 days a week where I’m struggling to find things that the childminder can just give her easily or warm up in a microwave if necessary.
im going to give a few things a try with her and see how we get on 👍🏻💕

If she likes pancakes then veggie fritters are a good shout. Mine is a fan of pancakes and fritters (sweetcorn fritters might work as still quite a sweet flavour?), and also likes lentil and sweet potato patties- there are a few recipes online and they freeze well in batches. The ‘what mummy makes’ book also has some good ideas (despite the ridiculous and unnecessarily sexist title!)- my 14mo likes the cauliflower patties, broccoli and cheddar bites and carrot and raisin muffins.

I’ve tried her with broccoli and cheese fritters and she wasn’t a fan but she loves sweetcorn and she loves cauliflower too so they’re worth a try! Thank you 👍🏻
she got teeth quite late too so she’s still learning how to eat certain foods so trying to keep things simple and safe! Haha xx