Lunch Planning, With Autism

Kari had a recent post that included how she packed her son's lunch. Her son The Cat has long reminded me of DuckyBoy, and even though my comment on her post got posted twice (sorry, Kari!!) I thought I'd put my ideas here as well.

Kari was relating an experience about trying to pack her son's lunch and having him say no to everything she tried to put in. DB would do the same if I let him. I think he would have oyster crackers, potato sticks, and Newman-O's every day in his lunch if I let him decide.

I also don't have the time or the tolerance for the back-and-forth negotiating at 7 am, so now we decide in advance, in writing, what main dish I will pack each day of the upcoming week. I choose the sides and dessert each morning (or the night before) based on what he likes, occasionally trying something new.

Most weeks I remember to do it, at bedtime snack time on Sunday night, and it works pretty well. I post the list on one of the kitchen cabinets. It helps me as much as it helps him!

Some weeks I'll let him choose the same thing (like pasta) every day. Other weeks I figure, in exchange for giving him the privilege of mostly picking what he gets to eat, I get to pick the 5th day (and I tell him what it is immediately) or I'll say he needs to eat 2 different things over the 5 days.

So this week, for example, he has pasta today -- with Grandma's sauce, which is great since we were eating that for dinner as we made the list and it's an unusual lunch choice for him. Tomorrow is his school's Field Day, so no Thermoses, so he can have one of his beloved Uncrustables.

I told him that today or Thursday he needs to have a homemade ham sandwich, so he chose that for Thursday. (Poor kid, Boar's Head honey ham on Arnold whole-wheat bread, it's a tough life.)

For Friday he chose another Uncrustable. At $1 apiece, I try to limit those to 1-2 a week, which is why he has pasta today (his first choice was another Uncrustable). They're also not that hearty -- pb&j on white bread, I might as well pack him a candy bar -- but it has the appearance of being a Real Lunch Choice, so that counts for something.

It helps that we do this menu planning at a time when he usually wants to be doing something else -- he's finished his dinner and wants to go watch TV, and I don't let him until we have this done.

And he's good about it -- even when he doesn't eat the homemade sandwich, for example, as happened a couple of weeks ago, at least he knew it was coming. And I try to give him something hearty on the side those days just in case ... like peanut butter cookies for protein and potato sticks for the fat.