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With four kids, packing school lunches is a 15 minute event every single night. A few years ago, I knew that I didn’t want to pack them every night, but I also didn’t want to wake up and pack lunches in the mornings. So, partnered with Glad to bring you a a few great solutions!

I started packing lunches once a week… it became my new routine: pack lunches on Sunday night.

Packing lunches for four kids is time consuming, to the say least, but I do it out of love (isn’t that why we do most things?) I want to know that they are being given healthy options.

Here is how I do it all on Sunday night:

1). MAKE SANDWICHES.
I make 20 sandwiches for the week. I usually make Peanut Butter & Jelly (because a store near our house has a peanut butter and almond butter machine where you make fresh butter right there! The kids love it, so we always have a lot on hand.) I also make lunch-meat sandwiches.
I put all of their sandwiches in a freezer bag and stick them into the freezer (so I will put 4 in a bag- one per child, making a total of 5 bags with 20 sandwiches). On the morning of school, I grab one bag out of the freezer and separate the sandwiches for the kids. I put them into their container (this year, I bought the Glad Disney Multipacks because they seal in freshness and protect their favorite foods.) and each child gets one in their lunch box.

  Plastic containers filled with lunch food.

They are BPA free, so I feel good letting the kids use them (and they are easy to wash, so the kids can put them into the dishwasher when they get home and unpack their lunch boxes.)

2). MAKE YOGURT PARFAITS.
Plastic containers filled with food with a box of Glad lunch containers behind them.
Our kids love yogurt, so I prepare them ahead of time.
A variety of sizes of Glad containers filled with food with boxes of Glad containers behind them.
Our kids love parfaits, but they don’t like to have them combined before they get to lunch, so I make them all separate and let the kids put them together themselves.

A variety of sizes of plastic containers filled with food with a box of Glad containers behind them.

I make them with Glad Disney Multipacks (they are perfect for lunch boxes!). We have Star Wars for the boys and Frozen for Allie (we let them pick them out at Walmart when we were buying back to school things.
A Glad container with blueberries in it.
Oh- I should have told you that the Disney Packs are 14 piece sets, so we just buy a few of these at the beginning of the school year for our family and that’s all that we need (they are reusable). They stack neatly in the refrigerator, too. You can only find the 14 piece Multipacks at Walmart or Walmart.com).

A view of the inside of a refrigerator with Glad containers filled with food sitting beside yogurt.
For the yogurt parfaits, I put yogurt into one container, granola in a second container and fruit into a third container.

3). I get my THREE Baskets ready.
I lay out three baskets in the pantry. Each basket is filled with something for their lunchbox.

Basket #1 – Pretzels or Veggie sticks. I buy a HUGE container of pretzels and a huge bag of veggie sticks and separate it into little snack bags. I do this the day that I get home from the grocery store. A handful of pretzels or sticks goes into each baggie.

Basket #2– Fruit squeezes (mash-ups) or fruit cups

Basket #3- Raisins or Cranberries (dried). I like to throw in another fruit, but this time I do a dried fruit because it gives them a change in texture, but keeps their lunch healthy. Sometimes I will change this out for Yogurt-covered raisins. I prep these the same way that I prep the pretzels (having them ready in little baggies).

4). Stock up on mini water bottles.

I buy those tiny water bottles and let the kids take one per day for lunch.

It is really time-saving, because everything is bought, prepped and ready to go in one day. Every afternoon, when the kids bring their lunch boxes home, they unpack them, throw away any garbage, toss the Glad Disney Multipacks into the dishwasher, clean their lunch boxes with a wipe and they refill them with something from each basket. In the morning, they then grab their sandwich that I have ready and a water from the refrigerator. I want them to learn to be responsible for themselves, so they do most of this on their own.

I love time-saving ideas & hacks, and this is my favorite one.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Glad. The opinions and text are all mine.

Hi there!

I’m Becky, a former elementary school teacher turned certified child development therapist and blogger. I work at home with my husband and together we are raising (and partially homeschooling) our four children in the Carolinas. I love diet coke, ice cream, and spending time with my family.

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