Today I’m going to help walk you through how to plan and pack toddler-friendly lunchboxes that is stress free and easy! But first, a little background:
If you didn’t know this about me, I worked as a retail dietitian for almost 3 years, and each year in the fall we did a huge lunch box campaign. I would spend MONTHS wracking my brain, scrolling through Pinterest, and asking friends for ideas so I could put together a list of fun and creative lunch box ideas every year.
After becoming a mom, I also learned what kids will and will not eat along with what I will and will not have time to pack in the mornings.
That’s why I feel like I’ve been training for this moment for so long. I wanted to share the fruits of my labors with you today and help you make packing lunches a stress-free experience.
OK, first off here are a couple of tips when putting together lunches.
- It’s ok if the lunchbox doesn’t make “sense” flavor wise. Your toddler is NOT going to care. So take the pressure off yourself to serve up gourmet, sensical lunches every day.
- Kids love to snack, so use these fancy compartment lunch boxes as a base and fill it with some of your kid’s favorite snacks to create a meal. When doing this, here’s a couple of guidelines to try to stick to.
- Choose a protein for staying power. Things like cheese slices, deli meat, peanut butter, hummus, hard boiled eggs are great.
- Try to include two servings of fruits and/or vegetables. Some days it’s two fruits, other days it’s a fruit and a vegetable. Both work and both are great.
- Try to include a source of whole grains through bread, crackers, chips or a fat like salad dressings, nut butters, or guacamole to round out the meal. Either of these will keep them full for longer.
- Kids love to assemble, dip, dunk, and more with their food, so don’t hesitate to send them with ranch dressing for their vegetables or guacamole for their carrots. This will make trying the food way more exciting.
- It’s ok to send something sweet in your kids lunchbox, in fact, it makes it way more fun! This also helps take away the stigma of that food being a “treat” and will help them learn how to self-regulate around candy.
Alright, these are my simple tips for making kid-lunches that are balanced and easy. Leave a comment below to tell me if any of these tips resonated with you! If you found these tips helpful, be sure you join my newsletter here. Be sure to check out my other posts with tips here and here!