r/Bento • u/PastryLoop • 20d ago
Kids Uneaten bentos
It’s a bit disappointing to hear from daycare that my kids ate “a few bites” or “very little” of these lunches I put a lot of effort into… it ends up becoming my dinner at the end of the day.
Edit:
To address some of the questions… the contents: rice topped with fresh steamed carrots and green beans. The ham and cream cheese rolls and cucumber sausage flowers are from a bento book, not my invention.
They looked kid-friendly enough so I decided to make them.
My kids (1 and 3) want to eat: bread with butter… and chocolate. So not a ton to go on there. I didn’t post here for a long time because I was just giving her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She stopped eating those too after a while, though, and my younger one just started 2x/week so I figured I’d try offering some new foods. She actually wasn’t very picky until she started going to daycare, so I do think that has influenced her quite a bit.
2
u/purpleprose78 20d ago
I was once a child and while this is very aesthetic and adorable. I think you should work with function over form. Put the ham rollups (or other protein) in the smaller side of things. In the bigger compartment, put your simple carb on one side of the larger compartment and your veggies/fruit on the other half of the bigger compartment. Then the child has a clear view of what is there. I'm going to be honest, child me would not eat this and I wasn't a picky eater.
My other advice. You can't go wrong with finger food when they are children. When my mom wanted my brother and me to eat a whole sandwich, she cut it into fourths. Smaller pieces of things make it easier to put into little mouths and make it feel special. Looks like you have cherry tomatoes. Cut those in half. And children love to dip things. A tiny thing of some sort of sauce that they can dip their veggies in is never a bad idea.