Do you give your toddler sandwiches for lunch?

[Karina]

I sometimes give my 19 month old a sandwich for lunch. But she'll only eat it if I eat a sandwich too or if she sees someone else eating a sandwich. She really likes vegemite and when she eats her sandwich, she tears it up into bits and shoves it all in her mouth. Often, she'll just seperate the bread and play with it though.

If she wont eat the sandwich, I also offer her a bowl of pasta/noodles/rice with veggies and sometimes a bit of chicken in it too. She prefers the bowl of food to the sandwiches though. She always eats the bowl of food.

She also has a piece of fruit and a yoghurt for lunch too. Sometimes a biscuit too if she is super hungry.

[ShootingStar]

lol oh gawd.. i dont cook for my DS for lunch. As fussy as he is he is happy to have a vegemite sandwich and that is it. He wont eat anything else and has to have it cut into bite size pieces. ( he recently had a very severe case of gastro and this is all he will eat since at lunch time). He will only eat white bread (even though its not as good as wholemeal.. we were also told when he was sick white bread is easier to digest). He also though will have a banana and sometimes strawberry smoothy aswell. He wont eat the fruit on its own but in a smoothy he loves it. Maybe you could do something like that to go with the sandwich? But yeh i dont think there is anything wrong with a sandwich for lunch as long as they are getting all their vitamins they need at other meals.. lol or in our case.. are having vitamin supliments.

[Rouge]

Honestly bread is not the worst possible thing you can give your child to eat. Mcdonalds is hot doesn't mean its good for them. Salads and cold meats are just as nutritious as a hot meal.

Re salt in bread, if you're really worried make your own In fact I just checked my bought loaf and there's 2gms of salt per loaf thats less than a tsp of salt per loaf, I'm not really worried.

Variety is good for some kids but some kids don't like variety. We have everything from sandwiches, dinner leftovers, baked beans, spaghetti, nachos, salad, eggs and on occasion 2 minute noodles. In sandwiches it can be PB, salad, egg, cheese, ham, chicken, avocado etc It just depends. I don't get too anal I try to balance every meal. I had dreams of making hot breakfasts for my kids when they started school... it hasn't happened yet. Maybe when Seth's old enough to dress himself

[maz]

I have a 17 month old and feel terribly guilty whenever I give him a sandwich for lunch. I feel like he is missing out on nutrients by not having a cooked lunch of pasta and veges or something along those lines. How do you squeeze in all their nutritional requirements for the day when they have a sandwich for lunch?

hmm I give both my toddler and my 8 month old sandwich's for lunch...they have wholemeal bread, cheese, lettuce, tomatoe, avocado cucumber..what ever is fresh.

i usually make them one sandwich to share then they have a banana or some other fruit along side with it.

Why dont you keep some tea from the night before and warm that up for his lunch the next day if youd rather.

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

I've had a thought recently (blows fanfare):

EVERY DAY at nursery DS has sandwiches with white bread for his tea. He has a cooked meal at lunch, but his 4pm tea is juice, ham/cheese sandwiches (he has 6-8 quarters usually and demands more if he can), strips of fruit/veg (eg cucumber, carrots) and some tomatoes, followed off by a jam tart or an apple pie... the sort you get from the supermarket in a box.

He has this in balance with a breakfast of weetabix and toast, fruity snacks in the morning, big cooked lunch... he's healthy. (I cook a dinner every night at 6 too for him.)

He also refuses fast food, we had to do a motorway dinner at the weekend and he wouldn't eat a thing, so his dinner was ricecakes, sultanas, grapes, apple and apricot (after a lunch of tuna and sweetcorn sandwich and toddler biscuits - out and about far from home day). I made everyone else change his nappies the following day! Too much fruit and veg is toxic.

If your diet is fairly healthy you can miss a day of perfect food. If you get only four fruit-and-veg a day, that's better than none or one most days and a big cram-it-in of ten once a week. Just don't ignore the good food when it's available.

[Mama_Skittle]

My two have sandwiches everyday. They also have fruit and yogurt for lunch. But atm i am happy for them to eat anything. Both have started getting very fussy and peanut butter sandwiches always go down well

[Netix]

I haven't read all of the responses. I give Steph sandwiches sometimes for lunch, but not often, if she has had toast for breakfast that morning.

However, often at dinner the Man will have bread out, and have pasta or rice sandwiches (one piece of bread, folded over with stuff in the middle), and Steph won't be eating much pasta or rice on its own, but will scoff several folded over sandwiches. Go figure. Maybe your tot could have pasta sandwiches for lunch?