As silly as it sounds, one of the things I looked forward to the most with Josie going to school was packing her lunch. And one of the first questions I ask her at pickup is what she ate for lunch. They sure do keep them busy in Kindergarten with no snack times during the day, so making sure she gets a nutritious lunch (that she actually eats) is important to me. She needs those nutrients to fuel her little busy body!
Since I have a kiddo at home too, I wanted to share some of my go-to kid friendly meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack times–5 different ways. None of which are too complicated!
//Breakfast//
- Whole grain granola bar, banana, yogurt smoothie
- Scrambled eggs, whole grain toast, strawberries
- Oatmeal, grapes, yogurt
- Whole grain waffle, syrup, blueberries, yogurt smoothie
- Oatmeal banana muffins, strawberries
My goal with breakfast is to get some kind of whole grain, fruit, and protein in their bellies. It’s the most important meal of the day ya know! 😉
//Lunch//
- PB&J on whole wheat, pirates booty, apple slices, yogurt smoothie
- Tomato soup, Lances grilled cheese crackers (for Josie), grilled cheese sandwich for Isla, grapes, carrots w/ hummus
- Turkey/ham and cheese sandwich w/ mayo and lettuce, veggie straws w/ hummus, 1-2 energy balls, berries
- Banana/nutella/whole wheat roll-up, Greek yogurt with honey and berries
- Mac-n-cheese, rotisserie chicken, apple slices w/ PB and raisins
You’re probably seeing a pattern here….my girls love yogurt and though I have it listed often, they typically only get it once a day. Or sometimes twice for Isla if she is being picking and only wants to eat yogurt smoothies and applesauce pouches all day long! That girl!
Also, all these options are lunchbox friendly. For the hot items, just pick up one of these little thermos’ and heat the food up right before you pack it. Stays warm for 5 hours so its the perfect temperature at lunch time.
I will also throw a sweet treat in Josie’s lunchbox everyday. Either fruit snacks or a cookie. 🙂 Oh, and I have some fun colored napkins that she loves to see when she opens her lunchbox. She actually was sad that I put a solid white one in the other day. (Haha, it’s the little things!) I also got this cute little unicorn set from Target which is great for right now, but might switch up to a bento box type case down the road.
//Snacks//
- Applesauce pouches. (Costco has the best deal on these! The Kirkland brand and you get 24 pouches for $9.99!)
- Cheese sticks
- Yogurt squeezy or smoothie (again, this is an option for snack if they haven’t already had one)
- Energy balls (we LOVE these and make them often!)
- Graham crackers w/ nutella
- Apple w/ PB
- Other piece of fruit
- Fruit snacks (not the healthiest but my girls go nutso over some fruit snacks, y’all!)
- Lances crackers (these are easy on the go and have 2-3 grams of protein!)
- Granola bars
Oh snacks…I swear my kids could live off snacks. All the snacks. All day every day snack, snack, snack. This list could probably be 10 pages long, but I condensed it an easy 10 options that happen to be our house favorites.
//Dinner//
- Pasta w/ sauce, meatballs (I love this recipe and they freeze well too!), green beans
- Black bean, chicken, and cheese quesadilla, corn, avocado slices, sour cream for dipping
- Chicken apple sausage or baked chicken w/ ranch, mashed potatoes, peas
- Chicken nuggets, mac-n-cheese, iceberg lettuce w/ carrot slices and ranch
- Baked salmon, sweet potato w/ drizzle of honey and cinnamon, broccoli
Dinners in our house can be a little crazy. Unfortunately, we don’t always get to eat as a family because of daddy’s work schedule, but I at least try to eat with the girls at dinner time. Ideally, I cook one meal and we all eat the same thing, but that’s not always the case. They are pretty good eaters, but at the same time don’t like a lot of spice or vegetables. Speaking of vegetables, I try to get at least 2 servings in them a day. Always at dinner, and I try sooo hard at lunch, but they just don’t always go for it. It’s something we are working on! They will both it a salad (with iceburg lettuce!) as long as there is ranch, so I take that as a win!
We’ve also always had the “one bite rule” when it comes to trying new things. They at least have to try one bite before saying they don’t like it. It has worked with with Josie. Isla will just throw whatever she doesn’t like across the room, but we are still sticking to the rule! 😉
Drinks are super simple in our house. They drink water 95% of the time. Sometimes an 100% juice box for Josie, but Isla gets straight H2O. Neither of the girls are huge fans of cold milk….unless there is a ton of chocolate syrup! Josie does like those milk straws, which I’ll buy on occasion for a fun treat.
The Contigo water bottles are great for kids and even better are these rubber labels from Inchbug! I’ve used them with both girls from bottles to cups, you know, since everything needs to be labeled for daycare/school. And while a sharpie or a sticker work for labeling too, these are just the best solution in my opinion and you never need to take them off!
Feeding kiddos is not an easy feat, mama’s! I think the goal is to just keep it simple, feed them what you know they’ll eat, while keeping it as nutritious as you can. My kids also eat their fair share of Chick-Fil-A, Mickeydees, and Baskin Robbins ice cream, so trust me, we are not perfect by any means!
I hope these options come in handy at feeding time!
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