4 Fun & Easy Toddler Lunch Ideas

Today I have 4 fun, creative and easy toddler lunch ideas to share with you.  Here on the Eats Amazing blog I often share Small Child's fun packed lunch ideas, but today I thought I'd have a change and share some of Small Baby's fun lunches instead. Small Baby is now a strapping toddler at nearly 2 ½ (and well overdue a new nickname!), and although he doesn't often need a packed lunch, he does still need feeding at lunch time!  Though he's very fond of his favourite 'doggy plate', bringing it to me whenever he's hungry, I do like to change things up every now and again and serve his lunch in fun new ways. I find he always eats better when he has an extra fun lunch, in particular he seems to eat more vegetables when they're presented in a different way, when he might usually reject them.

I love using little muffin trays to serve food in instead of a plate - the multiple compartments encourage me to find a good variety of foods to give him. I also like to use brightly coloured silicone cups to add extra fun and colour. If I want to add some fun decorations I usually use cupcake rings and picks to decorate toddler lunches - they're chunky with no 'spikey bits' so particularly great for younger children. Small Baby is getting to the stage where he can have some bento picks too, under close supervision of course - he particularly loves the animal themed bento picks which are shaped like mini forks.

First up of the fun lunches I'm sharing today is a simple bug lunch. I had used a couple of brioche buns to make bugs for a lunch for Small Child earlier that day, and when he saw me making them Small Baby desperately wanted to have one too! When lunch time came around I surprised him with his own version and he was so happy with it!

In this lunch Small Baby had a brioche bun, filled with ham and decorated with a couple of eye food picks, some raw red pepper sticks with a small silicone cup full of organic houmous to dip them in (he also dipped his sandwich - Small Baby is a big fan of houmous!), a fresh apricot, stoned and sliced, red grapes decorated with a ladybird cupcake pick and a cute cherry shaped silicone cup with some raisins, dried papaya and mango chunks. This lunch was served up on one of our Munchkin Lil Apple plates.

The next lunch was a simple dinosaur themed muffin tin meal. Small Baby loves his dinosaurs, so this lunch was greatly appreciated! In this lunch he had a dinosaur silicone cup filled with slices of leftover sausage, a chunk of  cucumber cut in a zig-zag pattern, raw red pepper 'spikes', chopped cherry tomatoes topped with a cute dinosaur cupcake ring, a Babybel 'dinosaur eye' which I made by cutting some of the wax away using mini circle cutters, and some chopped grapes, which I topped with another dinosaur cupcake ring. This lunch was served up in a bright 6 hole silicone muffin pan - the perfect size for a toddler!

I made this train lunch for Small Baby yesterday and he hasn't stopped talking about it since! Small Baby is a massive fan of anything to do with trains, and these brilliant train shaped silicone cups which I originally bought for food use were instantly snaffled by Small Baby and became one of his favourite toys. I decided it was about time I repossessed them for holding food, so after a good wash in soapy water they were ready to hold his special train lunch!

In this lunch Small Baby had some oat cakes and a cream cracker, a few blueberries (under the ham) and slices of ham, which I cut into smaller slices, rolled up and skewered on panda food picks.  I popped some vegetables into the next carriage - raw mange tout, slices of orange pepper and cucumber sticks, with a little giraffe fork pick as a passenger, and lastly I sliced and stoned a plum and added a couple more animal passengers in the form of an elephant bento pick and a lion bento pick. This was probably Small Baby's favourite lunch ever and he ate every single bit of it!

Last but not least this really easy farm themed muffin tin meal took just a minute or two to put together. For this lunch I served up some mini bread sticks, cubes of cheddar cheese, a sheep shaped silicone cup filled with chopped cherry tomatoes, tinned pineapple chunks, a handful of blueberries and a carrot cake oaty bar from Organix, which I chopped up and popped into another silicone cup. I decorated this lunch with a couple of farm cupcake picks.

What foods do you give your toddler for lunch?

Grace

Some of my favourite alternatives to plates for toddler lunches:

    

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If you found this post useful please do pin it for future reference! For more fun and healthy food ideas for little ones, check out the recipes section here on the Eats Amazing blog or follow my Baby & Toddler Food Ideas Pinterest board for fresh ideas from all over the web!