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Are you getting ready to start sending your child to school with their own lunch and looking for some tips that will make the process smoother?

If this is so, I would like to share with you my top 5 (tips) tricks for healthy school lunches.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to send your child to school with a healthy lunch.

You want to do your best to help your child thrive in school and sending them to school with a colorful healthy lunch is a great first step.

Here are the top five tips for packing a healthier school lunch for your child.

#1 Prep

My first tip when it comes to preparing your child’s healthy school lunch is prepping. It is so critical to prep. You can prep fruits and vegetables so they will be ready to go when you start preparing your child’s lunch.

I often wash and cut enough fruits and vegetables for the week and place them in my fridge to save me time during the week.

#2 Use your Freezer

Don’t be afraid to use your freezer. I often hear the time excuse from many parents.

Don’t let time get in the way of you sending your child to school with a healthy lunch. Using your freezer can save you a lot of time when done correctly.

If your child is on a special diet and you have to cook a lot from scratch just make double batches and freeze half for future lunches.

This is something I have done for years and continue to do. I often make homemade muffins, bread, and treats to send in my child’s lunch but when I do make these items, I double the recipe and leave some for the freezer.

This comes in handy when you are limited in time and have not made it to the grocery store.

#3 Get Creative

Get creative when it comes to packing your child’s lunch to make it interesting. I often use vegetable cutters like these to create designs with fruits and veggies.

Cucumbers, melons, and many other vegetables can be used to make creative shapes out of foods for your child.

Kids love eating food that looks like shapes. This is something so inexpensive to do but makes kids want to eat their food.

#4 Let your child participate

My fourth tip is to let your child participate. I know some of you feel that it might be more time to let your child participate in fixing their lunch than doing it on your own; however, your child will be more willing to eat the foods if he or she is able to help make it.

#5 Prepare lunch in advance

My fifth and final tip for you is to prepare in advance. You don’t have to get up the same morning and fix your child’s lunch.

Most of you will not have the time to do this so it is definitely better to fix your child’s lunch in advance.

I have had to prepare my child’s lunch even a few days in advance due to time constraints. This is fine to do as long as you pay close attention to the foods you are packing.

If I am packing lunch for more than one day, I try to select foods that won’t get soggy or spoil quickly.

Preparing your child’s lunch in advance will save you so much time and you are less likely to forget if you do it when you are not in a rush.

I really believe that sending your child to school with their own lunch is so important but I do know it can be overwhelming that’s why I created a school lunch guide to help you.

In this guide, you’ll find 3 months’ worth of lunch ideas that you can use and implement. It also has some of my top tips when it comes to packing lunch that I feel that you would benefit from. If you are interested in my lunch guide, you can find it here.

If you need more support, join my program today which I created to help parents with kids on the autism spectrum gain a better quality of life.