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What are some examples of what you pack now and what she asks for?

If she would eat what you send her with at home or while with you then she's just playing up the people at preschool and I would ask them not to give her crackers or substitutions when she has her own lunch. If she eats she eats and if she doesn't she doesn't. There was a little girl in my kindergarten class who kept wanting the cookies/crackers that were for an after school program instead of her lunch. She was given them sometimes when she had barely any lunch (but that's another story). However, when she has enough food in her lunch I would say no and stay firm. She got mad about a perfectly good sandwich one day and was yelling at me for a cookie. She had just turned 4.

If food is meant to be provided by the parents then you should be in control of her food intake. It does. It can be hard for kids when they see other kids have little snack packs and fun foods though so maybe you can find a happy medium for both of you.

@travellingbee: at some schools around here eithe rparents or teachers and eces make the kids take the leftover food and wrappers home so their parents know what they ate and didn't eat. Then some parents get their kids to eat the leftover lunch as their afternoon snack or dinner. Depends on the parent though. I would try to stop kids throwing out food (because that sucks) when I was at work so that parents could get the message that maybe something different needed to be sent.

@Mrs. Goose: at our preschool it comes home but that's not enforced at my elementary. I ageee that I'd want the parents to know.

My LO started pre-school this year, but she has always been in daycare, so the environment is similar. I've almost always packed her lunch, so that's not new. What IS new this year is that now I have to pack 2 snacks, and on those snacks, yes I've relaxed my nutritional standards.

Our old daycare used to provide two snacks and a lunch--LO was dairy and soy free, so we always packed her lunch but let the daycare provide dairy free snacks. They usually just served fruit or dry low-sugar cereals.

But at pre-k, I think the lunches are pretty unhealthy so even though LO can eat dairy now, I pack her lunch. Pre-K doesn't provide snacks, and I'm just burned out on coming up with lunches and snacks every day--plus, my LO isn't used to eating so often. At home, we do just breakfast, lunch, 1 snack, and dinner. At school, they seem to eat every 2 hours.

So now, I usually just pack up a graham cracker or some Annie's Bunnies, throw in an unsweetened apple sauce, and call it a day. That's huge for me, because LO is 3.5 and literally never had so much as a Goldfish cracker before starting preschool. Our previous snacks were always whole fruits, or sometimes those pea snacks, or hummus and carrot sticks, etc.

She's lately started asking for Mac N Cheese a lot, because her best friend in class apparently eats mac n cheese every day for lunch. But because of the previous dairy issue, LO has never actually had Mac n Cheese.

She does have days where she barely touches lunch. Luckily, her teachers don't force it. They just send it home. I don't fill her up with junk if she comes home hungry though. Yesterday, she asked for boiled eggs right after I got home from work, which was fine by me.

I think that if she eats those foods at home, she should eat them at preschool. I'd explain that to the teachers and request no extra snacks. She'll eat if she is hungry.