Help !! How do you all manage if you have to make packed lunch for school ? Ideas and tips please

[sheepster79]

My daughter may be starting a school that I am very happy with except for the fact that you have to provide a packed lunch ! I am In no way a domestic goddess but it was the only thing stopping me from getting excited about an otherwise perfect for our family school . I need to make my peace with this or the next 7 yrs are going to be a nightmare ( eeeek!!). So any tips , idea or general info that can help me put together a menu plan or make my life easier ( like possibly finding someone to do it for me !!!)

Sandwich/wrap
Apple or Banana
bit of cheese
Biscuits/cake
water.

Make it the night before, pack everything in the lunch box and chuck it in the fridge, except the biscuits/cake.

DS is quite fussy so that makes it easier!

He has a sandwich - cheese, ham, hummus or peanut butter
Some crisps, crackers or rice cakes
A babybel or cheese cubes and raisins (if not a cheese sandwich), or a yoghurt, or an oat bar or biscuit
Some chopped fruit in a tub or a fruit pouch

I make it the night before.

cheese or ham sandwich
cut up apple and orange (or other fruit I have on hand)
babybel sometimes or hard boiled egg
banana with a slice by stem so they can open it easily
bottle of water

It's really nothing to stress over, you'll get used to it!

Get a plastic lunch box because the insulated cloth ones get disgusting very quickly. They have to bring what they don't eat home and it gets smeared around.

Therr are some pretty interesting books out there too about making packed lunches.

My son liked humous or taramasalata with pita bread and veg chopped up. His sister's prefer pasta salad they all get a ham sandwich at times. These days I knly make 1 lunch box as the older 3 are all in 2ndary school. But even when I was making 4 it was not a big deal to do.

I make 2 every morning for my DC and it takes five minutes.

They both have

Sandwich thin with ham or marmite. DD occasionally has smoked salmon as a treat
Actimel
Fruit
Fruit string or small Tupperware box of nuts/dried fruit or homemade small cake (made on day off)

My DCs have those insulated soft lunch boxes so I put a napkin in them and a takeaway container Tupperware box in the base to keep it clean and prevent all the contents getting battered about.

I sometimes give them a (bought) tub of pasta salad and today was last nights leftover pizza, so you don't always have to make a sandwich.

You can put those insulated cloth ones in the washing machine!!
DD always has a cheese or ham roll, some tomatoes or cucumber, some fruit...that varies from day to day and a frubes along with a bottle of diluted fruit juice. From time to time she has a few crisps or a biscuit of she asks for one. She is limited as to what she will eat though...takes me less than 5 mins to make each morning, and we have one of those little freeze packs we put in it too.

Great suggestions - glad others feel it is not a big deal . Do any of you do hot packed lunches in a thermos ? Or does this not work very well ? X

We have a set routine. Ham, cheese, ham, chicken wrap, tuna. Usually sandwich. Sometimes a past salad if I am feeling inspired. I have the same. I thought I'd get bored having the same thing each day each week but actually it's fine. I know what I've got to buy each week and everyone's happy! If your DC likes tinned fruit it can be a good standby at the end of the week. We just put a big into a little pot. Good for when all the fresh fruit had been eaten or gone mouldy!

Same every day:

Ham sandwich on brown seedy bread
Actimel yoghurt drink
Carton of fruit juice
Tub of grapes
Fun size chocolate bar
Bottle of water for the day, packet of crisps for morning snack.

Takes about 2 minutes to throw together.

I used to give dd healthy lunches, complete with a healthy carton of pure fruit juice. Then she had to have a filling. I would say stick to water and save the fruit juice for breakfast or tea when they can brush their teeth.

Something else I found useful was to have a jar of marmite or can of tuna in the cupboard along with some long life part baked rolls for those days when I'd forgotten to buy thing at the shops.

hels: My daughters lunch box is so gross that I have to wash it every single day. Yuck! She somehow gets the leftover banana smeared around, spills water, leaves crusts and fruit cores and then shakes it all about. So her plastic lunch box gets a proper wash and dry. I'm hoping she'll get better about it as she ages. She's just YR right now.

I really like the insulated bags...they go through the washing machine. We have two per child. Easy.

Sistema plastic boxes for sandwiches are fabulous. The drinks bottles never leak. Again, two per child. plus spares

Tube yogurt stops you needing to fish out the spoon. So you can just tip everything in the bin, plastic in DW, lunch bag in washing machine.

Batch cook flapjack/ buns once a month and freeze.
Keep frozen sandwiches for cba days, sick days (me) or running late. I freeze cheese and butter sandwiches.

It takes me less than five mins to make lunch.

Oh yes I also have part baked rolls and keep wraps in the freezer for days I may have forgotten to shop.
Crackes are a good staple as they can be cheese crackers or jam if your cupboards are bare.

I put in the kinds of things he would have for lunch at home. Sometimes he'll have pasta salad, sometimes left over pizza, more often some wholegrain crackers with houmous to dip them in. He has some salad bits, usually pepper, cucumber and sugar snaps. Then a pouch yoghurt and a small chocolate bar like a club or similar. I put a slim freezer block in the bottom of the lunch bag to keep it fresh. He unloads it and puts the block back in the freezer after school. We have a smallish bottle which he has squash in.

My dc have a standard bread/wrap with protein in it (meat/cheese/hummus), a tub of 'crunch' (tomato/pepper/cucumber/celery/grapes etc), a 'pudding' (muesli bar/fruit bar/flapjack/homemade equivalent) and a bottle of water.

Alternatively they get last night's leftovers. Ie something that is nice cold, like chicken drumstick, fish finger sandwich, or jacket potato and beans or tuna mayo. They don't like pasta salad, but that would be an option if they did.

I'll often batch cook drumsticks and freeze them in bags of 3 (3 dc).

Peas and sweetcorn are a good addition to the salad tub, and don't need defrosting or cooking.

If they ever have anything which needs a spoon, then the item and the spoon to into a sandwich bag inside the lunch bag, with strict instructions to be returned in the sandwich bag to avoid smeary mess in the lunch bag itself,

I only made packed lunches because I had to. From about Y4 or 5 my dc know that, if they want a packed lunch, they have to make it themselves. I will help if asked appropriately.

My lad has the same ( pretty much ) every day.
1 round of sandwich ( he likes the same filling every day)
a few slices of cucumber in cling film.
an apple sliced and cling filmed.
A biscuit or small cake
a bag of crisps that he might or might not eat depending on how hungry he is.

Some nights I put the crisps and biscuit in his box the night before, most days I throw the whole lot ( and my own packed lunch) together in five minutes while he is finishing his breakfast.

After making packed lunches for 6 years, I've got very slack at providing variety. Mine get a sandwich of some sort (might be bread, or a wrap, or a bagel, very occasionally crackers). Once in a blue moon they get pasta salad. They also get a pot of cherry tomatoes and cucumber slices. A piece of fruit. And AN Other thing, which might be cake if I've been baking, but more often is a cereal bar, or fruity button, or a box of raisins etc.
I make the lunches in the morning while the children eat their breakfast.