Children's Lunch Box Ideas

I am obsessed by this blog, and it may be just what you are looking for. https://thislunchrox.com/ Some very creative, and yummy ideas. Good luck, I think it's a great idea

Hi waggamama

I haven't got any ideas but wanted to say that your idea about lunchboxes sounds amazing!!!! Good luck and let us know what you come up and and pics please!! :-)

Aw, thanks Vicky, just seems the easiest thing to do to be honest! My brother is in a wheelchair and kind of has a complex about making a fuss of everything and getting away with it! Which means if I let the venue sort them out food there will be an argument, so instead they're getting lunch boxes!

I found these two links for the actual boxes; think I'll use the brown ones but our colour scheme is red and duck egg blue so can use the red ones too if need be;

http://www.bagnboxman.co.uk/acatalog/takeaway-boxes-foodsafe.html

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Childrens-Red-Party-Lunch-Pack/dp/B0019ZAWXU

Fairly cheap so no worries there!

I'm going to go look at that block now, thanks so much for posting it Teri!

I think you're right to go for little bits as they do appeal to littlies. Based on what I've learned at 4th and 5th birthday parties I'd go for plainish sandwiches (ham, philly, jam, cheese), tiny triangles of plain cheese & tom cold pizza (a frozen pizza cooked and cut up very small), cocktail sausages or sausage rolls, carrot and cucumber sticks, cherry tomatoes, crisps - lots of crisps - fairy cakes, choc fingers and grapes. Individual cheese portions are popular too, eg. babybels, or cheese cubes, or cheese and pineapple. Satsumas, apples and raisins would be good in that they take a long time to eat. Veggies the same minus ham and sausages.

Be generous with the portions if you can. We went to a wedding today and my 2 year old ate a bread roll, a slice of garlic bread, nearly cleared his huge plate of roast dinner, a bowl of icecream, then smarties and choc buttons favour to keep him quiet through the speeches and half a slice of wedding cake. Honestly I have no idea where he put it all, he's still in age 1 trousers. But he was good as gold (ish) because the food occupied him for 2 solid hours. An average lunchbox would struggle to occupy him for half an hour, so I would really recommend putting lots in if you are trying to minimise the boredom and therefore the whingeing. Have you asked the caterers to do half portions for children, or is £15 the halved price? How about offering the parents of the children the choice of paying for their meals or them having a lunchbox? You absolutely shouldn't pay for their meals if you don't want to/can't afford it, but as a guest I'd much rather pay for them to have the same as us than spend 2 hours explaining why they can't have it and then feeding them most of my own dinner. Plus it might cut down your own workload. To me paying for their meals would be the perfect solution as I still get to bring them and enjoy my own meal, without feeling guilty about you spending (quite) so much money feeding all 4 of us.

Disclaimer: I know not all children are alike. Mine are, I'm told, "good eaters", which I think means they generally turn their noses up at salad but turn into human vacuum cleaners as soon as they see a roast dinner.

Thanks so much for the detailed post Dimity! Those bits and pieces are exactly what I was going for, hopefully things like tiny homemade cookies and grapes, etc.

Regarding kidlets getting bored, that's exactly why lunchboxes struck me as a good idea; I can stuff all sorts in there to keep them entertained! Including perhaps a couple cracker-style toys and maybe a craft kit each from Hobbycraft or Asda, etc. so that they have something to do when people are speeching and such. I'm afraid I would be mortified if I invited people to the wedding and said 'Ok, now pay for your own offspring.', it's just how I've been brought up. I would love to have a child free wedding, but I want my brother (6) and my sister's kids (6 and 2) there as I'm close to them, so it would seem a bit unfair to then tell everyone else they can't have their kids there. Not to mention all the kids coming are immediate family children, my brother for example will have three, possibly four children coming with him...and they're the veggies. Then there's the fact that they're VERY picky eaters, and no matter what the venue provides I know he will kick up a fuss about it. This will sound terrible but he's in a wheelchair and has been all his life...this means he does rather act like everyone, everywhere, should do exactly what he tells them to and he likes to complain a lot. So I don't want to give him any ammo!

I take your point about not wanting to ask for money, I wouldn't like to either. But I don't really see that it's more polite to only offer lunchboxes rather than the option of a full meal. If you're after ideas for the activities, I would major on stickers and bubbles, and maybe colouring (you can print out character colouring sheets from the cbeebies website for free). But don't go to too much trouble on the non-food stuff, most parents I know will come armed with a bag full of distractions anyway.