Mums share genius snack-hacks to stop the kids eating us out of house and home during self-isolation
Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard .... and screamed!
When news broke last week that supermarket shelves had been stripped bare as people stockpiled food, my immediate thought was that those people mustn’t have had kids. I can barely prevent the kids in this house eating the bulk of a weekly shop on day one as it is.
I mean, last year I accidentally set the date on the online delivery of my huge Christmas grocery shop for the week before Christmas instead of Christmas eve like I meant to.
That was up there as one of the most stressful weeks of my life. I pretty much had to stand guard at the pantry and fridge swatting away hands with ninja-like reflexes while I pleaded: “Not the berries, I need them for Christmas … No! You can’t eat those crackers … Those biscuits are for the cheesecake … You don’t even like fruitcake … I SAID NO BERRIES!”
It was exhausting. And now, here we are. Families across the nation have bunkered down with the kids in self-isolation and they’re eating us out of house and home!
How any family can be stockpiling food with kids around is beyond us!
A school day menu looks something like this: Breakfast, recess, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner.
A homeschooling day appears to look something like this: Pre-breakfast snack, breakfast, post-breakfast snack, morning tea, second morning tea, no lunch – too full, afternoon tea, second afternoon tea, snack, snack, pick at dinner, snack, pre-bed snack.
On top of that, in the current COVID-19 climate, it’s almost impossible to replenish supplies. Not only should we not be hitting up the shops on the regular because #socialdistancing, but the poor store keepers are finding it difficult to replenish the stock due to panic buying.
The situation is not ideal, obviously. Fortunately there’s a couple of mums who’ve shared some awesome hacks for keeping the isolation day food intake to a reasonable amount, and they’re pure genius in their simplicity.
Exhibit A)
Of course! If the amount of food they eat on a school day is enough to sustain them at ‘real school’ then it should be plenty enough to sustain them on ‘homeschool day’ too.
Making their lunch as if it’s a regular school day is a simple solution. Sadly, we can’t do any lunch orders on the days we don’t feel like making lunches though …
Exhibit B)
This clever mum shared this brilliant idea: “Each child has their own coloured basket. In the morning I put their snacks in it for the day, when those snacks are gone they don’t get any more. It makes them stop and think do I really need a snack? I also put their cup for the day in there because I’m not washing 50 cups a day!”
The cup! It’s a nice touch. If I implement this system combined and combine it with the complete trust I have in my kids to rat each other out for not following the plan, this could actually work!
What do you think? Do you have any snack hacks that stop your kids from munching through the pantry like Pacman chasing ghosts? We’d love to hear them.
