Category Archives: Time Saving Tips

Tips For Meal Planning

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If you read the second to last blog Yes, You Need to Meal Plan For Your Child(ren’s) Lunch you expected tips. If you didn’t get a chance to read it, check it out! That blog gives an overview of some of the benefits of meal planning. As previously stated there is no right or wrong way to meal plan, just like parenting meal planning is a never-ending experiment. The following tips are things that I find helpful for weekly planning. Here goes…

1)Feel Free to Plan More than One Week at a Time. My LO likes helping, and I like including him, however, he is only four and as any pre-schooler can he can get overwhelmed or bored if we do more than one week at a time. We keep it simple by doing one week. If you have an older kid or will be doing this on your own feel free to plan more.

2)Choose a Day for Trying New Foods. I’ve yet to meet a young child that likes trying new foods, if you’re blessed with a foodie treasure that lolbs! Over here the mood has to be just right for new foods. I once made homemade pizza with this kid. He selected all the toppings and laid them on the dough, he helped make and roll the dough, he helped put the sauce on the pizza, he did it all; yet, homebody wouldn’t take one bite, instead, he told me to try it and let him know if I like it. Yup, that’s what I’m working with. Because I want to expand his palette I picked a day when he knows to expect something new. For us that day is Wednesdays, this works as he has a half day, so if he doesn’t eat he won’t be hungry long. Pro Tip: Ease into this, don’t spring it on them. We started this over the summer so there was plenty of time to adjust.

3) Make a List of Things They Like then Play Around. My child loves happy meals and any other kids’ meal from a restaurant. He specifically requests Chick -FIl-A on a weekly basis JUST for the fruit cup. What did mommy do? Mommy started packing homemade fruit cups. He loves both making and eating them, win-win. We do the same for homemade happy meals. Pro Tip: Know which foods/fruits make your kid poop and if you’re anti-pooping in public don’t send those fruits.

4) Don’t Overthink Their Likes: Happy Meals don’t equate to homemade nuggets lol! Frozen nuggets are my friend:) Same goes for fruit cups, I promise I do not always purchase fresh fruit and prep it. Some days frozen fruit and already prepared fruit cups are the way to go. Keep. It. Simple.

5)Give Kids Options. This probably should be number one, but give your kid a list of pre-approved options. For example, for breakfast, my LO gets to choose from toast, pancakes, waffles, and french toast sticks. This will change as it gets colder to keep the options fresh but trust and believe we are not sitting in front of the computer and waiting on him to casually decide what he wants for breakfast M-F. The same goes for lunch, there are pre-approved options based on what he eats.

6) Plan the Snacks Too: When meal planning, my LO also gets to choose his snacks, also from a pre-approved list. The morning snack goes with him to school, the afternoon snack keeps me from having to worry about what he wants, or even remembering to set a snack out. It saves us time. Our snacks usually include fruit with a rotation of chips, pretzels, cheese, etc.

7) Mix It Up. Why can’t you plan breakfast for lunch? Hint, you can!!! My little one LOVES chicken and waffles. A very quick way to use leftovers is to cut up his chicken strips and pack them with some eggos. Boom!! Chicken and waffles! Not only does he enjoy them, it was a quick meal for me AND it helps get rid of leftovers. Perfection!!! Also, you don’t have to just send hot food. I will send dry cereal with yogurt (aka wet cereal lol) for a snack in a heartbeat. It’s quick and easy, requires little packaging and it’s something you already have in the house and you know your LO will like it.

8)Don’t Stress It. Honestly, it’s not good to meal plan when you’re stressed. Stressing while meal planning complicates meal planning. If you’ve already closed your mind you won’t think of the simple things like cheese and crackers. Attempting to meal plan while stressed will also keep you from seeing the benefits of meal planning. Instead, you will look at meal planning as a chore and something that has to be done instead of something that will save you time, and possibly provide another way to spend time with your child(ren).

9) Don’t forget condiments, hand wipes/sanitizer: Your LO may love ketchup, mine loves BBQ sauce. I can send meat, but there must be sauce!!! If I forget the sauce he will not eat the meat. End of story. Don’t forget your child’s condiment of choice and be sure to add it to the meal plan, that will ensure you don’t forget it. Pro Tip: Stack up on packets when you go to restaurants. This keeps you from having to put the condiment in foil or a baggie, it’s honestly one of the easiest ways to remember to pack the condiment(s). ALSO, handwipes or sanitizer and napkins are a must. Please keep these items in your LO’s lunchbag/box. This serves a multitude of reasons like a reiteration of wiping and cleaning hands, (hopefully) keeping condiments off the lunchbox/bag and clothes, etc.

These are tips that I’ve learned over the last month or so, I hope they help you!! If you have more tips that you believe are helpful add them in the comments section below! Let’s help one another!!

Yes, You Need to Meal Plan Your Child(ren)’s School Lunch

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When you hear the term meal planning what comes to mind? I’m sure weight loss, caloric intake, and fitness are a few of the terms. Like me, most parents don’t realize meal planning for (y)our kids is a game changer! As a former certified personal trainer, I am quite familiar with meal planning, at least on a general level. I am NOT a dietician or nutritionist so going deep into micros, macros, etc is not my calling. Anywho, back to the point…I never imagined meal planning for my four-year-old. In full transparency, I stumbled into this lol! My son loves to pick his breakfast and lunch, I allow him to as it keeps down confusion, decreases our chances of having an unnecessary battle of the wills, and more importantly increases the chances that he’ll eat his food. Like my pre-schoolers, my child takes forever to make his decisions, while this is irritating it was not a huge issue over the summer. However, once school started it became an issue. Talk about a sure-fire WASTE OF TIME!!! We easily wasted 20-30 mins every morning eating, and an additional 20(sometimes overlapping with breakfast and sometimes starting at breakfast and lasting until we were almost ready to leave). It got so bad I started telling him his options were going to be getting up early or eating whatever I picked. While making that threat it dawned on me that we needed to do this ahead of time. What was this? Plan, meal plan! In this blog, we’ll cover the benefits of meal planning for your child, and in the next blog, we’ll cover tips for meal planning.
Benefit number one, meal planning decreases the amount of time wasted. I can’t state enough how meal planning has helped us. We all know no matter how far ahead we plan and pack our little people will undoubtedly drag and take forever. Barely getting out of the house is like a right of passage in motherhood. Meal planning decreases the amount of time wasted in the morning. Think about it, you don’t have to ask them what they want; meal planning gives you the flexibility to pack their lunch days in advance, or prior to waking them up, and it gives you time to wash/rinse all produce and other prep work that’s needed.
Number two, meal planning decreases the chances of fighting with your child. Think about it, if your child makes the decisions and then doesn’t like or doesn’t want the food/snack they have no one to blame but themselves. Sure, they may attempt to fight with you but in reality, they don’t have a leg to stand on. My son has said several times, “Mom, I didn’t want inserts food”, my response is always the same- who chose the food, me or you? At which point he quickly moves to something else because how dare we have a conversation about a decision he made and didn’t like.
The third benefit of meal planning, it guides your grocery shopping. If you’re like me it is extremely easy for you to go “off script” when grocery shopping and purchase things because “they look good”, or worse, you’re PMS grocery shopping lolbs! Having a list and a set budget makes it a lot easier to go to the store and get exactly what you need. A second part of having a list is it alleviates forgetting things.
The fourth benefit of meal planning for your child is it makes it easier to delegate. Much like myself, most busy parents don’t have time to run to three or four grocery stores to get everything needed for the next week or two. Having a list of items gives you the freedom to place a Target Drive-Up (or any store that allows for curbside pick-up) order and scoop the groceries en route to your destination. Having the list also allows you to have the groceries picked up and dropped off at your house (or workplace) by a provider like Walmart, Amazon Fresh, or Instacart. Being able to utilize these services makes grocery shopping much easier AND it saves you money because you know exactly what you’re browsing the site or app for.
The final benefit of meal planning is being able to cook in batches. Now, you may be wondering who cooks in batches, ESPECIALLY if their household is small. Well, you can AND you should. This saves you loads of time!! For example, last week I made some crockpot pulled chicken. It took me maybe 10 mins tops to set up, but once it was started I was free to move on with my day. This one thing yielded 4-5 different meals, we had tacos, sliders, pulled chicken sandwiches with coleslaw and corn, and fajitas, I threw some in some omelets one morning…this is just one example. You can totally do more with the meat. The point is once the meat is done, it’s done.
I hope today’s blog gave you something to think about. Parenting is rough, there are not enough hours in the day, and we need to do certain things smarter, not harder. Meal planning is a tool that is meant to make your life easier. You don’t need a fancy template (although there’s nothing wrong with it), and you don’t need a million options. There is no wrong way to do it, nor is there a wrong way to start. Next week I will give some of my favorite meal planning tips. Hoping you’ll tune in next week! Finally, feel free to leave what you view as benefits, or agree and disagree on in the comments below!

TTFN!