Home-cooked hot breakfast and lunch school age
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Anonymous
| Everyone decides for what works for their family. My older ES kid has lunch at 1 so I make a hot breakfast with eggs etc to keep her going until then. The younger kid does not like sandwiches or buying lunch. So she has one of 3 hot lunch options she likes and we rotate between them. I get wanting routing and looking forward to a familiar food at lunch. I ate the sandwich for a decade and I made it myself as my parents were out the door before me. I have the time to do something different for my kids. |
Anonymous
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I get up 1.25 hours before school starts, but that also includes time for me to shower and get ready for work, make coffee, feed the cats, etc.
Our hot breakfast is something fast like toast, fried or scrambled eggs, pancakes from a just-add-water mix, frozen waffles. Bacon and sausage take to long and make too much of a mess, but if I have some left over from the weekend I'll reheat them. Lunch is usually reheated. Dinner leftovers, or I cook a pound of pasta on Sunday and reheat portions each morning. In a pinch, angel hair pasta cooks in two minutes - I can do that while getting breakfast ready. We rinse dishes so the food doesn't get stuck on, but don't fully wash them. They get washed after work or with that night's dinner dishes. |
Anonymous
| Frozen pancakes and veggie burgers reheat in a minute OP. You are making yourself crazy. |
Anonymous
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That is crazy. I say that as a SAHM who cooks a lot. But no way would I be spending 2 hours every morning making them breakfast and lunch.
I make pancakes, breakfast tacos, eggs, etc, for breakfast. It takes 15 mins. Lunches are a sandwich, some pasta, cheese and crackers, or a salad with protein. This takes about 20 mins to assemble. I make cookies and freeze them for the lunches. Cut up some fruit and veggies. Done. |
Anonymous
One DD is underweight and we struggle to get her eating. The doctor says to make food she likes. The other is trending too high, and if they skip breakfast and a lunch they dont like they come home ravenous and overeat. I have tried cold sandwiches, leftovers many times but its just thrown away. |
Anonymous
Im really only talking 1 hr too, but its just s long rushing hour 7am wake 7-8am cook and clean breakfast, lunch 8-820 wake kids and change my clothes, usually some household chore like trash efc 830 walk to school for 9am start time. |
Anonymous
+1 I get as much as I can done the night before (water bottles, other items besides main entree in lunch bag ready to go, snack in backpack, schedule reminders etc.). I leave before my husband and kids so I leave any dishes in the sink and my husband unloads the clean dishwasher from the night before and loads dirty dishes in. I get up so early more for me, I like the quiet time. Breakfasts are super simple more times than not because my kids leave insanely early for school and they're not super hungry that early in the morning. No way I could a some gourmet meal on a weekday. The weekends, they eat like kings lol |
Anonymous
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I do hot breakfast most mornings but it's just scrambled eggs or oatmeal, so pretty quick. Hot lunch would have to be either leftovers they microwave themselves or whatever the school is serving. Sure I want my kids to eat well but not to think they're too good for regular food.
I will add the caveat that if my kids were middle school and up, I would support them meal prepping for themselves on the weekends if it were that important to them. But I'm not a personal private chef. |
Anonymous
| I do what you do, OP, which means I get up at 6 to get the kids out by 7:50, then I leave to work shortly after. I’ve been getting up by 6 since they were infants though, so I don’t think this is unreasonable. |
Anonymous
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We do eggs and toast most mornings and it takes ~10 minutes, probably less. The toast takes 3:30 minutes in the toaster and the over easy eggs are done while the toast is toasting.
I cook high protein pasta twice a week and you can put it in a glass container with a sauce and cheese in two minutes. Same with precooked rice and precooked meat and veggies for a rice bowl. I cannot imagine what is taking you two hours. I leave the dishes on the counter and load them in the evening. I can live with this. |
Anonymous
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DP here. I make some stuff at night so my breakfast goes fast.
Today I only made toast and warmed the milk for my kids. They were served - - 1 boiled egg each, - guacamole toast - greek yogurt with berries, seeds and nuts. - warm milk with ovaltine - 1 banana with tsp of peanut butter. Packed lunch was - Pasta in raos sauce with 4 meatballs each, lots of sauteed veggies (onions, peppers, mushrooms), basil and pine nuts. Packed in thermos. Every component was made ready at night. Heated, mixed and put together in the morning. - 1 apple - 1 string cheese. - home made bars with nuts and dates Again - it is easy peasy when you know what will go in the lunch box. |
Anonymous
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What age are your kids? I made my kids hot breakfast til they were in 6th grade and then they started figuring it out themselves. An 11/12 year old can easily make eggs, microwave sausage, toast a bagel, etc.
If my kids wanted hot lunch, they had to buy at school. Otherwise I made their lunches (sandwiches and such) through elementary school. If you insist on doing this or have little kids, you should definitely simplify. Like by making a batch of pancakes/waffles or breakfast sandwiches/burritos on the weekend that you can just heat up through the week. |
Anonymous
| I used to do it every day. I have to say I kind of grew to resent it and have cut down on it a lot. I would try to find at least a couple of easy things you could talk them into liking for breakfast for the days you just don’t feel like doing it. For example, I discovered my kids loved vanilla Greek yogurt with peaches, which is a great breakfast. Like a pp above I always make extras of a weekend breakfast—usually waffles or pancakes but sometimes a breakfast casserole—usually a triple batch—and serve some/ freeze some. And we do school lunch some days. It’s been a good balance and I don’t feel like the kitchen serf. |
Anonymous
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I make pancakes and muffins (both with whole wheat flour) and wrap and freeze them. I defrost them in the morning.
I don't send hot lunch. |
Anonymous
Ovaltine? That’s a blast from the past. I didn’t even realize they still sell it! Where do you buy it? |