Hellobee

Those are the cutest lunches I have ever seen, you are amazing!

His lunches are so cute now! I’m impressed with his old bento boxes too ~ they had so much variety. I’m surprised to hear he’s a picky eater!

@milkteaandpolkadots: he eats pretty well at daycare, but at home it’s usually world war 3 just to get him to eat 5 bites of food. but even at daycare he sometimes barely touches his lunch. it’s a game for me to figure out what he’ll eat because one day he’ll love something and the next he won’t touch it.

OMG, seriously these lunches are amazing.

@Mrs. Bee: You are one amazing lady!! How long does this take you every day? And do you also do this for dinner as well (not the packing in a bento, but cutting out cute shapes, strips, etc.)

I can’t imagine I’ll have the patience… but I love it!

@sweetchic: It doesn’t take me that long — maybe 15-20 minutes or so. cutting out the shapes is super fast, and i often use leftovers or only cook one aspect (the protein, veggie or grain). The key is just having a variety of foods in the fridge that I can grab quickly so I can mix it up. The most time consuming thing is actually going to the market 2-3x a week so I can buy fresh fruits and veggies.

it’s actually a lot of fun and way easier than i expected it to be after reading some of the bento blogs where people go all out. my bentos are very, very simple compared!

oh and i do cut out foods into star shapes at home and it helps, but it’s just hit or miss at home. sometimes he eats great (maybe 2-3 meals a week). the rest of the time it’s a battle to get him to eat almost anything. he also eats a lot more korean food/soups at home which i can’t really make cute.

Bee, these lunches are so cute! Honestly, I would be thrilled to have that for lunch as an adult! I’m going to try to remember this post when I have little ones

Such a good idea. You are one creative lady, it seems so simple but I would not have thought of it.

i wish you could make my lunches. lol.

There doesn’t seem to be any trick that works consistently at home. They just seem to eat so much better with other kids. I have tried to make her food look cute, too, but it just doesn’t seem to matter at home. I am just glad that they take care of her lunch at day care so that I don’t have to worry about those 5 meals per week. It is so great, lol.

haha what a great idea! so cute!

Bee- Try not engaging in the war at home. Tell him no milk until he tries a few bites, and then follow through with that. The more you push a kid to eat, the more they’ll fight. Our daughter is a super-picky eater and we are just not fighting it at all. She gets offered food at her meal and snack times and when she says she’s hungry for something… but as soon as she throws something on the floor or says all done, then we’re all done, we clean it up and don’t fuss about it.

It’s not perfect and she’s still in the 10th percentile for weight, but instead of having a battle at home, we have a pretty peaceful time in her relationship to food. We powerpack the things she does eat (think extra pat of butter in everything!) and we don’t stress the days she’s on an all apple diet or the days she’ll only eat bread.

I’ve seen so many kids where as soon as the battle goes away, the resistance stops being fun… No longer is it about wills or “obeying”. Then, they start eating for themselves instead of for you!

Hope this helps… Lots of experience on both sides of the white coat on this one!

Oh, and the bentos are completely adorable! You should win momma of the year for those!

I love Bentos! I’d love to make my hubbys lunches when he works from home more fun, and when our LO starts school, I’d love to be the cool mom who does Bento. A good friend of mine was doing Bento for awhile, and was blogging about it. I loved to look at her lunches for her daughter.

I’ve never seen such cute lunches.

I am conflicted about this style of food…on one hand it seems like a great idea to get kids acclimated to food and makes it enjoyable, but at what point do you become a slave to it when your child won’t eat a regular sandwich and you just don’t have the time to bust out the cookie cutters?

Bee, very cute lunches! I am impressed and I’ll have to incorporate your ideas into feeding my son, who isn’t a picky eater but just doesn’t eat much at home. His teachers tell me he always asks for seconds and eats two bowls at lunch at nursery school, and I’m always like, “whose kid is this?”

BTW, if you haven’t found them already, I recommend the Tiny Bites Food Shears. They are the best food shears I’ve used; I keep one in my purse all the time. My husband lost the other pair on a trip and I’ve been totally regretting not getting a replacement while I was in the U.S. They make cutting up food so much easier!

oh my goodness, these are SO CUTE.

I love his little bentos! and I agree – he may be a picky eater, but you do so well at incorporating a lot of variety & fresh fruits & veggies into his diet.

Yay, I ordered a second bento box b/c I love them so much. Thanks again. It’s so easy to prep the meals and I even fed my friend’s 6 year old daughter while she was here and she ate almost everything. She usually leaves 2/3 of her meal. I told her it was a “cupcake lunch” . Love it!

@Mrs. Bee: I know this is an old post but, did you worry the daycare would mircrowave your silicon cups? I am using them too and out of caution, I only use them to contain cold things like fruit and cheese. The other things (eg. meat, pasta…etc.) I didn’t dare to put them into the cups because I am afraid someone will make the mistake of microwaving the cups (which I don’t think they are microwaveable, right?). Did you have to deal with that? Or do they not heat up his lunch at daycare?

@irene: they are definitely microwave safe as you can bake with them too.

they don’t heat up lunches unless we request it though.