My son is starting Kindergarten this fall. I am a full time working single mom. By single I mean no help at all from the other half. My son has done good with a now fairly smooth routine at his full time daycare with lunches and snack times, his daycare has really stepped up to help us out being that he was 2yrs old when dx’d and now he is about to turn 6. This means fulltime kindergarten and a new after school care. I am lucky that the team of teachers at his new school were just trained to deal with diabetes for a type one they had in the class this last yr. My worry comes into carb counting and getting a well rounded diet with out having the same things everyday. If I send a lunch with him I can pre-label everything with carb amounts I am just hitting a mind blank when it comes to different ideas to put in his lunch that will not go bad or be unhealthy. Any and all ideas would be appreciated!
Here are a few of the things I sent last year with my daughter for snack and or with her lunch". My daughter was on NPH at the time so her routine was very strict with 15 carb snacks and 35-40 carb lunches. Also - I always made sure to have a protien and fat with her carbs in hopes to keep a good balance.
-grapes and almonds or cashews
-yogurt tubes frozen (they soften by the time they eat them) - organic ones are usually 10 carbs, the rest range from 11-13 carbs.
-apple slices and string cheese
-peeled and weighed clementines and some nuts or cheese - sometimes I’d mix oranges and grapes since the grapes raise her bg more and faster especially if she’d been running on the low side of bg’s.
-popcorn (air-popped at home), she loved this one!
-apple sauce cups w/ nuts or cheese to go with
-Cliff Zbars, I usually just weighed them out until I had the right size for her carb needs
-Lara bars…some kids like them some don’t, mine doesn’t and they are expensive…but a GREAT snack.
I am a single dad with full custoday of 3 so I get you. Try looking up Tam-icos low carb tortillas instead of bread, they are 9 grams each and you can fit a whole sandwich on them. I got my son, who is a little older, was diagnosed 4 yeas ago when he was 9, into spinich leaves with grilled chicken strips and ranch dressing. the nice thing is I grill it on sunday and use it all week so it’s like lunchmeat. I will also make my own cookies for dessert with 1/2 sugar and 1/2 splenda when I have the time to do so. sugar freee puddings are great too, make them youself with whole milk and put them in 4oz used yougurt cups. get him a coll aluminum water bottle too, the other kids will actually be jealous when he’s got that and they just have a juice box!
good luck!
I send sandwiches (cheese, meat and cheese, PB) yogurt, a fruit cup, Crystal Light drink in a thermos and a dessert treat in an insulated lunch bag with an ice pack. I usually bye Little Debbie snack cakes and give my daughter one of the cakes out of a two-cake package. I write the carbs for each of the items on a post-it note…that way, if something happens to fall on the floor, the nurse knows how many carbs she has to make up. I leave some non-perishable food items in the nurses office for that purpose…pretzels, PB crackers, mini Rice Krispies Treats…in addition to juice boxes. My daughter was never on restricted carbs. She has been on a Carb to Insulin ratio since her diagnosis. I, personally, don’t feel the need to make special low-carb stuff for her lunch. Be sure to get a 504 in place, even if they tell you that you don’t need on in Kindergarten. We had one in Kindergarten to set a precedence for future years and to be able to build on it each year. You and your child are entitled to one if it’s a public school.
My toddler loves whole wheat mini-bagels - 20-22g per serving (depending on brand). That’s a nice alternative now and then to a sandwich. Can serve with butter, peanut butter, cream cheeses, etc.
You could also send a thermos of rice or mac&cheese or other hot items he enjoys. My mom would do that with me in 2nd grade when I was on a restricted diet for allergies and couldn’t have egg whites or soybean oil. She’d make white rice every morning and package it up for my lunch because it was one of the only allowed items I would eat. I’d always need an adult to help me open it, but I enjoyed having something yummy no one else was having.
It’s hard coming up with new lunches!
My son has been addicted to pb sandwhiches for months and it drives me crazy that he eats the same thing every day! A couple weeks ago I started adding thinly sliced apples to his sandwich and he enjoys it.
I use Natures Valley wheat bread (no high fructose corn syrup). Crazy Richards PB (only ingredient is peanuts) and organic granny smith apple.
Sorry I don’t have more suggestions!
My daughter is 7; was diagnosed at 6 in First Grade. She isn’t very picky but knows what she likes and likes to eat it. SO she eats pretty much the same thing everyday. Her Endo doc said she loves it when she hears that her patients eat the same thing everyday. (not sure why, hahaha)
Allie loves quesadillas. tortilla with shredded cheddar folded in half. then i cut it in thirds. (25grams) pretty good cold as well.
She loves whole grain goldfish. For sandwiches she eats ham or turkey on whole wheat bread with a little mustard. Motts makes an applesauce with no added sugar (12grams) and she loves that in place of apples “because her apples look brown and yucky when its lunch time”. I weigh EVERYTHING ahead of time and label it. She knows she has to eat what is packed.
At my daughter’s school their lunch time is not very long. Between finding their seat and having “clean up time” they pretty much have 20 minutes to eat. Allie is a SLOW eater. So I told her, the teacher and the nurse, if she doesn’t finish her lunch no recess until its gone and she has to be given the time and a place to eat it. That put a fire under her to eat her lunch and eat it all.
504 plan will assure this happens. Twice Allie was told (by a lunch room monitor) she wasn’t allowed to finish. After an intense discussion with the school it didn’t happen again.
Thank You all for the great ideas!!! Definite help!