Caring about what the kids ate started even before they were born I think. As first time parents of twins, we read a lot! Being a vegetarian and on complete bed rest for months, it was important to make sure I was getting enough nutrition in my meals and enough protein for 3.

Once the kids were born, we soon realized that they would need high calorie baby formula in addition to breast milk. They were low weight preemie twins, and were very slow drinkers and often fell asleep nursing. So we rented a baby weighing scale from the hospital to weigh the babies before and after feedings, to measure their intake.

We maintained sheets and sheets of feeding logs for each kid, capturing the times of every meal and how much they had eaten for the first 2 years. My husband made graphs and charts for visual representation!

Once the kids started solids, we bought a kitchen weighing scale. Weighed every meal and logged those as well 🙂 I made all their baby food at home. A variety of organic fruits, vegetables, and grains were included along with dairy. The first grain they had was Barley.

When the boys started going to a home based day care for half day at 18 months, we sent their breakfast and lunch from home.

At 2, we switched them to another home based day care and the lady (care provider) made healthy fresh food at home and fed the kids. So I didn’t have to pack their lunch and snack. We would feed them a good breakfast, which included a variety of fruits, nuts, cheese and maybe some whole grain cereal or pancake or similar.

Around 3 1/2 yrs, the boys started preschool. For the first time I panicked about what to pack in their lunch boxes! It had to be easy for them to eat on their own, as no one would feed them. It had to be attractive and fun. And it had to be nutritious!

So I brainstormed and made a plan. It was simple. I basically wanted to make sure that the meal included the following 5 elements:

I made a list of several options that fall under each category for Breakfast, Lunch and Snack, based on the foods we eat at home.  Here is an example (@ age 3) –

Drink a glass of milk and have breakfast at home

Breakfast Ideas

This gave me confidence. Although I may not have packed the meals exactly as listed, whenever I ran out of ideas I could refer to this. And lot many ideas started popping up as I went along. I would take pictures of the Lunch Boxes.

The kids moved to a different preschool when they were about 4. And the new preschool provided breakfast, lunch and snack. We continued feeding them the healthy breakfast, which is still a routine.

This year they started 1st grade and I’m packing the lunch boxes again. The plan still remains.

My next challenge now is to make foods that are attractive, fun, nutritious and something my son wont feel bad about when sitting and eating along with his friends. Apparently some kids are not used to the Indian foods and made comments!

So keep an eye out for many such lunch boxes to show up!