Packed lunches, tea, and my own plate

Started 1 February 2025 · 17 replies · 184 hearts · read 2.2k times

PoppyLeeds, UK · 1 February 2025

1.5 years ago

Starting a thread on this because it keeps coming up in ones and twos: Packed lunches, tea, and my own plate

The logistics of this are defeating me more than the medicine is.

The thing I have not been able to find anywhere is how people manage this when the week has no fixed shape at all.

I have tried three arrangements and none of them has survived a difficult week, which suggests I am designing for good weeks.

This is the boring administrative kind of problem, which I gather is the kind that actually gets solved when you ask.

I will come back and say what I settled on, in case it is useful to the next person asking this.

OrphBath, UK

What I found hardest was the smell of cooking during the first two months. I was making food I could not be in the room with.

WrenFacilitatorLeeds, UK

I am going to redirect us back to the original poster, who has not had a chance to answer any of the questions put to them.

26me too 3

BramwellNottingham, UK

Recognition rather than advice, if that is any use at all.

BobbieRochdale, UK

Building on what Bramwell wrote rather than answering the original question.

The evening meal was the hard one. Everybody else hungry at six and me not hungry until nine, and it took a year to find a workable shape.

MarkCoventry, UK

I have deliberately kept family meals unchanged. Same food, same time, same table, and my portion is my business.

10me too 7

HannahSheffield, UK

Reading Mark, I recognised more of that than I expected to.

The school run and the evening are where my energy dips, and reorganising the week around that was more effective than anything else I tried.

BexPlymouth, UK

Gently disagreeing with Hannah, or rather adding the other half of it.

Somebody in this circle said that children notice how you talk about food more than what you eat, and I have thought about that constantly since.

LuPreston, UK

I batch cook on a Sunday and it has been the single most useful habit. On the days I have nothing, there is something.

TasnimBradford, UK

My experience is that the logistics settled at about six months and everything since has been ordinary parenting, which is difficult enough on its own.

ZenBristol, UK

#10

Lu said something I want to sit with for a second.

I have made a point of never describing food as good or bad in front of them, and this circle is where I learned to notice that I had been.

OrvalWinnipeg, CA

#11

What I did not anticipate was how much of parenting is snacking alongside somebody, and how strange that felt when I did not want to.

NanNeath, UK

#12

Tasnim has already said most of this and I want to add the one part that was different for me.

My partner took over the evening cooking for two months during the worst of it, and asking for that was harder than it should have been.

NualaArmagh, NI

#13

Orval said something I want to sit with for a second.

Something I got right was not changing anything about what my children eat. This is mine and it does not need to become theirs.

NemoneLewes, UK

#14

The lunchbox negotiation and my own appetite were unrelated problems and I kept accidentally treating them as one.

12me too 3

OskarWarsaw, PL

#15

Thank you for the update. Threads that stop are the worst kind.

WrenFacilitatorLeeds, UK

#16

Closing note: this stays linked from the circle landing page and stays open. Late arrivals with a different arrangement are very welcome.

CarlMiddlesbrough, UK

#17

I found the exhaustion harder to manage than anything, because there is no version of a school morning that waits for you.