Toddler Lunches

This is a topic I’m sure we all could use some help with!  I remember when Emerson was 9 months old or so and she was eating EVERYTHING – olives, fish, beans. Basically, if it was on my plate, she was shoveling it in.  Of course I thought that meant she was going to be an adventurous eater. haha.  These days, she’s eating more than she was at 2.5/3, and she’s in a major snack phase. Pretty much every 15 minutes I hear “Can I have a snack?”  She’s figured out that snack foods (aka foods that are easily transported) are superior to lunch and dinner foods.

When Emerson first started preschool, she wasn’t eating much of her lunch, and I’d often have to give it to her when she got home.  But now she’s eating 80% of what I pack and I’ve just been keeping the same things on rotation. I’m sure many of you deal with the challenge of not being allowed to pack nuts – Em is a huge almond butter person, so that is hard!  Her school also doesn’t have the ability to heat up meals, so this year, I got her a thermos and it’s been working well for packing warm quesadillas, pesto pasta, or her favorite ravioli.

Here are a few lunches from last week.  I know the pouches are controversial, but if she’ll eat kale, broccoli, and carrots mixed together, then I’ll take it!! I try to stick to just veggie pouches with no more than one fruit, since she already eats a ton of fruit.  She also doesn’t eat meat outside of chicken sausage, fish, and pepperoni, so I do the grass fed beef or chicken every once and a while. The bread above is naan bread because she also won’t eat regular sandwich bread:)

We love the Applegate turkey pepperoni, so that’s been a good addition this year. I wish there was an organic version.

We used to do hummus and beans a lot, but sadly, she won’t eat them.  I miss the days of hiding beans and veggies in a quesadilla, but she has it all figured out now!

Please share your ideas in the comments and maybe we all can add a new toddler food to the list next week!