Hellobee

Nice! He eats a lot!! LO gets pasta, strawberries, yogurt, banana and cheese almost every day. She hasn’t been eating well lately though.

LO’s lunch usually consists of the following:

a main course (usually leftovers from night before)
a dairy product (usually yogurt)
a veggie (usually peas or green beans)
a fruit (usually applesauce or cut up berries)
a grain (crackers if not part of main course)
milk

She doesn’t usually eat everything but we are required to provide each of the above by our state (or the daycare has to provide the missing items). I also think she doesn’t eat everything because they eat several times during the day and depending upon what is served at snack she may not be hungry for lunch (AM snack around 9, lunch at 11:30 and afternoon snack around 3PM).

That looks similar to what we feed our LO except he eats mainly Korean food at home so we feed him brown rice every day. But I may try that pasta dish you posted…looks yummy and healthy!

We use the same Munchkin straw cups! Do you find that they leak in the bag? Ours leaks from time to time and we tried switching them out but he’s pretty attached of these munchkin ones.

wow wagon jr eats a lot!

by not introducing new foods, you could be limiting his palate and desire to try new foods. it’s an issue i struggle with charlie too because i tend to feed him the same foods over and over that i know he will eat. when i make something new, often he won’t even have one bite argh!

what i do to try to get him to eat new foods is i pack it in his lunch because he always eats better when he’s around other kids. but i still pack the foods he likes as well so that i know he won’t go hungry if he doesn’t like the new food. sometimes it creates wasted food, sometimes i eat his leftover lunch, but i really need him to eat more and eat more variety so you do what you gotta do!

i still pack similar bento lunches to those i’ve featured in the past. i try to pack 1 protein, 1 fruit, 1 veggie, 1 grain/carb, 1 dairy, and 1 snack. Lately I’ve been packing him a bento and a thermos of soup. His lunchbox is HUGE!

I think I’ll photograph his lunches next week and do an update!

I love the idea of packing pasta and pasta salad. I get out of the habit and then it accidentally drops out of my repetoire.

silly question but do you buy the ham already cut up into cubes or like a whole ham? i only see either the thin sliced ham or the giant whole ones at my supermarket.

@banana: time to time the munchkin cups will leak if we don’t screw them on tightly enough. Check the connection of the straws inside too!

@Mrs. Bee: can’t wait for the Charlie bento update! And I totally hear you on the new foods… Wagon Jr. actually does better with new foods when we’re together, so we’ve been trying that at home and out at restaurants with a pretty good success rate these days. I don’t want to jinx it. When we pack things in his lunch they just come back uneaten… like, when we pack him mac n cheese with mixed veggies mixed in, the container comes back with just green beans. Haha. And his teachers say “he ate everything! …except the green beans.”

@Sha: we buy sliced ham steaks from Costco. They’re about 1/2 inch thick and great. These have been such a staple in Wagon Jr.’s diet. They’ve got a lot of sodium but they’re super lean. I warm them up to steaming before slicing them up for his lunches, just in case.

My daughter is pretty good at trying new things, but occasionally will specifically say she doesn’t want something that I’ve packed on a particular day. I don’t modify the lunch based on that, but rather tell her that she can always choose not to eat something. I also emphasize with her teachers that she does not have to eat all of her lunch, that we allow her to control when she’s full and what she chooses to eat. More times than not she ends up eating the food she said she didn’t want previously!

Seems practical and delicious

@mrs. wagon: thanks! i’m going to look for those at costco!

“Poor man’s bento”. Haha, you are hilarious. I totally gave DD poor man’s bentos when I had to bring her food. I just made sure to cover the food groups but I didn’t make anything cute. She ate it all up anyway so it was good enough for me! Luckily, she is on the school meal plan now so that is one less thing for me to do.

Our typical menu is avocado, strawberries or other berries, rice/orzo/noodles, deli turkey bits or salmon, another fruit and cheerios.

This is along the lines of what I’ll probably do for my son. I’d love to do something more elaborate, but I know myself and my capabilities. I’d buy all the gear and never use it!

Nice! This seems more realistic for those who don’t have tons of time, but it’s still neat and pretty!

Wow, he is a great eater! I usually let my son try something new a couple of days before I have to pack him that for lunch just to see if he’ll eat it b/c majority of the time I pack something new w/o having him try it at home he doesn’t eat it. How do you prepare his pasta? Is it cold pasta? I’m trying to find a cold pasta recipe that doesn’t include a tangy dressing.

@erwoo: His pasta is just a mix of whole grain and ronzoni garden delight rotinis, cooked and tossed with a bit of olive oil and served cold. He loves it! We serve many things with it for dinner too– fish sticks, chicken nuggets… sometimes we’ll mix it with cheese and ham and melt it all for a cheesy pasta.

@mrs. wagon: Thanks!