Thank you to everyone who sent help yesterday after I asked for school lunch suggestions. I really appreciate them! I'm happy to report that the cream cheese & applesauce sandwich was a hit with both kids, although I think 50% applesauce makes the mixture too thin. I'll try a 2:1 ratio next time, and I need to work on my cinnamon raisin bread technique too, since the bread was a little crumbly because I put the raisins too close to the edge.
Gina's suggestions have me thinking outside the box a little bit, and I'm wondering if Alex would have taken some cold pasta bolognese leftover from Tuesday night's dinner, or if he'd eat some cold pizza rolls. He also loves shredded chicken in pita, but that's a meal that usually takes him some time to eat, and time really seems to be a huge issue for him.
It rained all day today, so the kids ate in the classroom instead of going to the cafeteria, and Alex said that he has plenty of time to eat when they eat in the classroom. (Probably because they don't have to head to recess on the playground after eating when it's raining outside.) And indeed, he said he ate everything today. So I'm making it a priority to give him easy to eat foods. For us, that means mainly finger foods, but hopefully as the school year progresses, he'll get the hang of eating quickly (but just at school - I don't want him wolfing down food at the dinner table!).
As I get the hang of what to pack for lunch, I'll take some photos and share my what's working for us. I do like the bento-style of packing a lot, and I do it even with sandwiches. :)
2 comments:
I'm curious about the "not having enough time to eat." Could it be that he needs more time to transition? One of my girls is the slowest. eater. ever. so at home we just let her take as long as she wants, but at preschool she often comes home with 1/2 her lunch leftover.
You might think about loading him up with a hearty breakfast and planning a heavy afterschool snack, then putting less in the lunch.
@Gina - I don't think he's it's so much that he's slow as it is that at preschool, they could take all the time they wanted to eat because his class didn't need naps, so especially over the summer when they ate outside and weren't near the younger kids and needing to be quiet, they would linger and talk and end up at the table eating for an hour. So I think he still has the mentality that lunch time is also playtime and it's his socializing time with his classmates too, so he's not so focused on eating.
I do try to give him a big breakfast, and they have a snack a couple of hours before lunch time that he always seems to finish, so it's also possible that he's just not that hungry when lunch time rolls around. And he's putting away a pretty good sized snack when he gets home. So maybe you're right and I just need to pack less food!
Post a Comment