Packed lunches...how do you cope?

[sereka]

Hi guys,

My DD is due to start reception in september. I work full time and her school does not have the facilities to provide lunches, so will have to get a packed lunch everyday. whilst I dont have a problem making lunches..we eat healthy, but its just the time.

Give some suggestion of how you cope if anyone is in a similar situation. I might be worrying about nothing but its so easy now she is in nursery to just pay and know she is getting healthy food as i have seen the menus.

Regards

It's easy - I make sandwiches for the whole week and then freeze them (some things don't freeze well, some are fine). Then the night before I just take one sandwich out and shove it in the lunchbox along with a carton of juice and a few other bits. I have a big tub which is full of lunchbox items and it takes seconds to pick a handful out and put them in. I don't bother with fruit at lunchtime because they are given fruit twice a day in KS1 anyway - also DD eats very slowly so she needs high calorie food at lunchtime (bananas or grapes sometimes).

God I must be terrible mother!! I make sarnie night before, and he doesnt eat salad or slices of pepper so it doesnt got soft...

I just make his sandwich the night before and chuck it in fridge along with a frube type yogurt (So there is no need for spoons) and a drink- either a carton or a bottle of squash, then his lunchbox is on the side with a penguin bar or cupcake or slice of cake or whatever plus a banana or apple. In the morning you just grab the drink, sarnie & yogurt and throw into lunchbox and it is done
5 mins at night & 45 seconds in the morning

Goblin, tell me you're joking!

Thank goodness for school dinners.

I have to do lunches in the hols though. I find wraps quicker to do than sandwiches, but that might be because I am not a packed lunch pro.

I have never known a school provide facilities for a child to heat their own lunch, not until 6th form, anyway.

Keep it basic, I wouldn't faff around with a flask for a Reception age child - a packed lunch is 5 meals out of the 35 your child eats a week.

Make a list of sandwiches she likes, and supplementary things that are easy to unwrap and easy to eat. Make sure you have them to hand, and just get into the swing of it.

There is no need to be original or impressive. At all. A sandwich with some protein in it, a flapjack, and a piece of fruit or some cerry toms is a v healthy meal.

Oooh I missed that about sandwiches in shapes! I do that!! Just as quick as cutting them. DS has dolphins or http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kitchen-Lets-Make-Dinosaur-Sandwich/dp/B001HZNK54/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=kitch en&qid=1279112239&sr=8-2 dinosaurs, plus I do notes, not every day but every few weeks

Today he put a note on my work badge that said

To Mummy
From Sam
Love Sam
xxxxx

on a small orange post it. I totally melted when I spotted it.

Grrrr

dinosaurs cutters from Amazon, fab and so cheap

EGG MOULDS????

Awesome! Must google- unelss you have a link?

Cool! Off to Google...

People with free school meals get free school meal sandwiches at my son's school. They look pretty impressive!

Can't the school offer to sell these to the ones who aren't on free dinners?

'Goblin, tell me you're joking!'

I think not, although egg molds are a new one on me.

There are several smalls who are incapable of saying apple or cheese.
It's organicapple or brie. Let's not even mention homegrownorganicpeppers.

I have no idea what anyone else's child has in their lunchbox. How do you get to know to join in the competition? Not that I would want to, I just don't see how the judging of the lunchbox gets done. Is the lunchtime assistant a gossip?

I'm intrigued by the egg moulds - do you boil the egg in it, or is it already boiled? The pic seems to suggest that you boil the whole egg in the mould?

The instructions are further down the page.

1. Boil an egg and remove the shell

1. put the hot egg into the mould

1. put the mold with the egg into cold water for about 5 to 10 mins

1. Take out the egg and you will see a Cute Face Egg!!!

JJF, the children are usually responsible for upping the ante on lunchbox cuties. They go home and complain that Jocasta has dinosaur sandwiches and eggs moulded into bunnies and point out that they don't, guilting the parent into hitting ebay and Lakeland for tips.
Either that, or playground/PTA gossips.
There are mums who just do it because they want to, and have the time, and their child likes it. Which is the best scenario of course

Ahh I see. Thank you. My DCs only like soft boiled eggs so I can now rest easy without an egg mould. Phew.

It's worth checking with the school whether they will allow soup - ours didn't allow it as, if it was too hot and a spillage occurred it could be nasty.

Just a quick heads up.

Endless sandwiches!!!!
cold food... Im not liking that for my DD.

Will join the PTA and see if we can raise funds to start some kind of school meal regime ... Am i being silly..is this something that can be done fellow mumsnetters?

Why don't you like cold food?

DD has a packed lunch (sandwiches, yogurt, fruit, drink) every day. If I try to get creative with, say, a pasta salad instead of the butty she turns her nose up at it. She has a hot meal in the evening. Absolutely nothing wrong with that at all.

In all honesty, if her school offered hot meals she would have one, but only because I could then give her a cold meal at teatime and not have to cook twice.

Not all schools offer hot dinners.

Packed lunches are not complicated. You make them the night before, you put them in the fridge. It takes 10 minutes. Don't make it more complicated than it is.

Cold lunches are fine, hundreds upon thousands of children have them every day to no damage.

It might not be about raising funds - Our school has no kitchen or hall facilities for school dinners, so you might find it's not all about money. Also, I would imagine that the PTA (like ours) has more than enough to raise money for already!

DS annoyingly doesn't like any cold savoury food, and they aren't allowed to take a flask until Juniors which was fine when I was working but now I have been made redundant I can't really justify the £20 a week for school dinners so goodness knows what he'll eat, perhaps he'll have to come home or I could just pass him cheese on toast through the fence

I make them the day before like many others my dds often have pasta salad along we have bought the cool thermal things from GLTC to do that in then a fork..

fresh fruit dried fruit a breakfast bar a snack a salami stick and chicken satay plus a juice

No doesnt take long but I am still relived 2 of my childrnen have asked to go back to school lunches come september

It's only endles sandwiches if that's all you give.

My ds likes cold pizza slices, pasta salad, homous or philly and carrots/breadsticks to dip, cheese & tomato bread, cream crakers/cheese biscuits as well as a roll/wrap with various fillings. I've also sent scotch pancakes, malt loaf slices and similar as a bread alternative.

We are vegi, but have seen other children with sausage rolls, pasties, scotch eggs, salami sticks, quiche...

None of which take long to put in a lunchbox in the fridge the night before.

Actually I can't recall the last time I sent a sandwich in for him...

thanks for all your responses..

I feel a bit better now... seem like i was stressing over nothing..