Comments on: Why I do not pack lunches the night before

By: Cheryl

Cheryl — Sun, 10 Sep 2017 05:50:51 +0000

My girls all made their own lunches too. They never took sandwiches. They are all successful adults now and my youngest is a mother of 2. I think her husband makes the lunch for my 9 year old granddaughter!

By: Courtney Westlake

Courtney Westlake — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 16:16:35 +0000

I just don’t pack lunches – ever! 🙂 Cafeteria lunch is cheap, easy and just as healthy as anything I’d pack (probably more so). I see these “lunch packing systems” that people set up on Pinterest with multiple bins stocked with all different kinds of foods and the kids can choose one from each bin, and I wonder how much time they spend re-stocking those bins, dividing food items into snack-sized containers, washing all those containers, etc. I write a monthly check to the school, and it takes 15 seconds 🙂

By: beth

beth — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 16:08:43 +0000

In reply to Eric J.

I don’t do sandwiches for lunch very often so I don’t worry about the mush factor too much. Lots of grilled chicken/fish, and steamed veggies for the adults. Lots of raw veggies, fruits and non-sandwiches for the kids too. You do sometimes have to be strategic with fruit (bananas/berries go bad faster than apples/oranges).

I think people find what works for them and go with it. Maybe someday my kids will hate that I prepped a week in advance and boycott that for the rest of their lives. They’ll be the ones writing about mushy food. But right now they are fine with it and it makes my life easier.

I think it also depends on your morning/evening schedule. The bus comes for my kids at 7:10 (elementary is early here). My kids get up at 6:00AM so our morning time is limited. I like to spend it having breakfast with them and being less harried about making lunches (there’s enough other stuff to be harried about). I prep and freeze breakfasts of the same reason. If the bus didn’t come until 8:30 I might feel differently.

Different strategies for different lives.

By: Angela

Angela — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 13:57:03 +0000

In reply to Eric J. Same here! packing when I wasn't hungry always lead to not enough of a lunch, and I would buy something and gorge on junk when I got home from school! I also loathe plain white bread to this day because that's all I had for the main part of my lunch, I'll eat sandwiches on rolls, otherwise I have to toast it!

By: Rinna

Rinna — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 03:38:56 +0000

In reply to Katherine.

Katherine – I have a great time-saving tip for you: the 11 year old can make her own lunch, either night before or morning of 🙂 I outsourced lunch making to my 11 and 9 year olds and will help out with the odd thing. They haven’t starved and are better about packing something they will actually eat. (The 6 year old still gets his lunch made.)

By: gwinne

gwinne — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 01:18:25 +0000

My 11-y-o and I make lunches in the evening, after the 4-y-o has gone to bed. We need to be out the door at 7:45 in the morning, and frequently at least one of the three of us is still in bed by 7:25. So while I will also leave dishes undone (I can always do them during the days when I’m home), leaving lunch isn’t possible… speaking of which, it’s time to make the lunches!

By: Eric J

Eric J — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 21:55:42 +0000

Much like @Christine, my start times are much more firm than my end times.
My mornings are more rushed (admittedly, because I’m not waking up earlier, because I’m not going to bed earlier because I’m more a night owl), so if there’s something important for me to remember [to do] in the morning, it greatly helps to at least prep something the night before.
For instance, there’s a department policy to wear a company shirt the first Wednesday of the month. I have an alarm that’s set to go off the night before so I can set out the shirt; that way, when I’m throwing on clothes in the morning, I don’t have to “remember” that it’s the first Wednesday of the month, the shirt itself serves as its own reminder to wear it. I have a discussion group this quarter and I put out the materials for it and do any other non-standard prep the night before. When running out the door, I would literally trip over the materials if I didn’t pick them up. When traveling, I always do the majority if not all of the packing the night before. (If I don’t actually pack it the night before, I write it down on a list.) It puts my mind at ease and I can get more restful sleep that way.
BUT, I understand and fully agree with doing things at a time that is best suited for accomplishing the task WITHOUT eating into personal time. If that happens to be in the morning during “forced” blocks of time that require little direct involvement/focus, then it makes sense to do those things during that time in the morning. But if the blocks of time happen to be at night (by design or poor planning) rather than the morning, then the night makes the most sense for that individual.

By: Flori Nedelcu

Flori Nedelcu — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 21:51:18 +0000

Hi Laura,

You’re spot on! I do exactly the same thing. I enjoy my leisure time in the evening after dinner, doing exactly what I want and then in the morning wake up fresh and doing chores such as washing the dishes from the night before, packing lunches, cleaning the house – this is great for setting me up in an achievement-oriented mode, as it makes me feel so productive. Then when I go to work and finally get to sit down, am feeling very accomplished. In a self-generating process, the various things I get done in the morning fuel my productivity for the whole day. It’s amazing. I love my super efficient mornings. Evenings are for leisure and me-time, just like you said.

By: Eric J

Eric J — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 21:21:32 +0000

In reply to lauravanderkam.

I remember growing up, I had to make my lunch the night before — and I really, REALLY disliked it (for several reasons). One, I’m more eat-to-live than live-to-eat, so I don’t want to think about food unless I’m actually hungry (and I never was when I was making lunch for the next day). Two, it was virtually impossible to make something that I didn’t find got at least SOME “mushy” by lunch the next day. This made lunch even more disdainful for me. (To this day, I cannot stomach lunchmeat sandwiches on white bread.) Three, given the first two reasons, I always felt like I had to “force” myself to eat the semi-mushy sandwich (and not just that, but I had to eat it when I might not be hungry), so there were more than a few times a month when I would just toss the sandwich altogether. Most of the time, I’d pull out and eat just the meat, then toss the rest. Anyway, made me feel guilty for wasting food like that. (My parents never knew; I just felt guilty by myself.)
Now don’t get me wrong: I think batching (certain things) is great. My wife makes multiple meals in batches and freezes them in single servings. So I can just pull whatever I want (of what’s frozen) and hit the road. Or if I’m bach’ing it, I can grab one and throw it in the microwave for dinner. I love that my wife cares for me like that.
So, while I agree with the idea in general, in actual practice, I’m very much against specifically making sandwiches too far in advance, which would be any earlier than the morning of. I like my french-fries to have a little “mush”, but past that, I’m very anti-mush. 😉 You’ve seen that guy holding the sign with the words “Mushy Sandwiches” and a big circle with a slash over it? Yeah, that’s me. 😉

By: Angela

Angela — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 20:01:00 +0000

In reply to Meghan. And your kids are better for it too!